The greatest impediment to creativity was, is and always will be: fear.

Why are client’s so difficult?

Those of us in the creative department have asked the question so many times it has become rote. Clients are difficult. Period. Especially when it comes to buying and approving work. We expect them to demand changes to the concepts, to the script, to the voiceover, to the scene, to the CTA, to the size of the logo and so on.

We have become uncomfortably numb. We expect our work to be criticized. So much so the creation process has “revisions and changes” baked right into it. Furthermore, we are told –indeed, I’ve said it myself- if we were in our client’s shoes we’d do the same thing.

But you know what? That’s bullshit. I am far from perfect but I am usually an accepting and grateful client. When I hire someone to do a creative job –be it a director or an architect or whomever- I never give him or her the kind of scrutiny that is typically given to me or my team. At home a contractor shows me some designs I tell him which one I like, we discuss time and money, and I pay the man. This even when things are late and over budget, which they invariably are. Once in a while I have a question or an honest mistake has been made. We address it. Done. On to the next. Even though it’s my money I am seldom a dick.

Chances are you’re the same way.

So, why are advertising clients so difficult? Why all the concerns, tweaks and rejections? I think the answer is fear based. CMO’s and their get are terrified (sometimes understandably) of losing their jobs. Often their counterparts at the agency feel the same way. Every tree we plant must bear fruit. Or else! With all that pressure it makes me wonder how they (or we) even get up in the morning.

Yet the resulting behavior –hacking at the tree- absolutely guarantees the tree will be barren. Or its yield will be paltry. In the end death by a thousand cuts is no different than doing nothing at all. Either way, the very thing one fears happening… happens. The team is blown up. Another CMO is brought in and in turn another agency. The process begins all over again.

Creating campaigns is thrilling. Yet, their potential is and always will be unknown. Hence the thrill. No one can be sure how an audience will react to an idea until the thing is out there. What makes a client nervous might very well be be what makes the idea truly great. We all know the story behind the world’s greatest advertisement, Apple’s “1984.” When it was screened to dealers everyone except its creators and Steve Jobs hated it. The agency, Chiat Day was asked to fire-sell the media, which happened to be two slots on the Super Bowl. One insertion was not sold. The spot ran. And the rest is history. Granted the follow-up commercial, “Lemmings” was an abject failure. Still, was Apple really hurt by it? No. Being reckless and cavalier has never hurt the brand. Frankly, Apple could stand to be more brave. Again.

Instead of ‘why are we so afraid?’ Let’s ask ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ If it doesn’t work as planned we try something else.

Were it that simple, right?

The ultimate irony: Why is the fear of actual creativity so rampant in Adland?

Why are client’s so difficult?

Those of us in the creative department have asked the question so many times it has become rote. Clients are difficult. Period. Especially when it comes to buying and approving work. We expect them to demand changes to the concepts, to the script, to the voiceover, to the scene, to the CTA, to the size of the logo and so on.

We have become uncomfortably numb. We expect our work to be criticized. So much so the creation process has “revisions and changes” baked right into it. Furthermore, we are told –indeed, I’ve said it myself- if we were in our client’s shoes we’d do the same thing. To use the ultimate cliché “it is what it is.”

But you know what? That’s bullshit. I am far from perfect but I am usually an accepting and grateful client. When I hire someone to do a creative job –be it a director or an architect or whomever- I never give him or her the kind of scrutiny that is typically given to me and/or my team. At home an interior designer shows me some designs I tell him which one I like, we discuss time and money, and I pay the man. This even when things are late and over budget, which they invariably are. Once in a while I have a question or an honest mistake has been made. We address it. Done. On to the next. Even though it’s my money I am seldom a dick.

Chances are you’re the same way.

So, why are advertising clients so difficult? Why all the concerns, tweaks and rejections? I think the answer is fear based. CMO’s and their get are terrified (sometimes understandably) of losing their jobs. Often their counterparts at the agency feel the same way. Every tree we plant better bear fruit. Or else! With all that pressure (much of it self-imposed) it makes me wonder how they (or we) even get up in the morning.

Yet the resulting behavior –hacking at the tree- absolutely guarantees the tree will be barren. Or its yield will be paltry. In the end death by a thousand cuts is no different than doing nothing at all. Either way, the very thing one fears happening… happens. The team is blown up. Another CMO is brought in and in turn another agency. The process begins all over again.

Creating campaigns is thrilling. Yet, their potential is and always will be unknown. Hence the thrill. No one can be sure how an audience will react to a thing until the thing is out there. What makes a client nervous might be what makes the thing truly great. We all know the story behind the world’s greatest advertisement, Apple’s “1984.” When it was screened to dealers everyone except its creators and Steve Jobs hated it. The agency, Chiat Day was asked to fire-sell the media, which happened to be two slots on the Super Bowl. One insertion was not sold. The spot ran. And the rest is history. Granted the follow-up commercial, “Lemmings” was an abject failure. Still, was Apple really hurt by it? No. Being reckless and cavalier has never hurt the brand. Frankly, Apple could stand to be more brave. Again.

So put it out there. Instead of ‘why are we so afraid?’ let’s ask ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ If it doesn’t work as planned we try something else.

Were it that simple, right?

The Penn State Pedophile: Were those in charge complicit of child abuse or just paralyzed by it?

First off, I know I should be writing about advertising, media and popular culture but this heinous story has gripped me since day one. In a very real way I need to write about it just to get through it. Before anything else, I’m a human being and parent. I need to believe most people are good deep down, not the other way around. What comes next is not an expected opinion (I’ve already had all of those) but a consideration of how and why so many men of leadership saw nothing, heard nothing and said nothing…

There is a moment in the Penn State scandal that, for me, crystallizes 15+ years of this ugly and awful affair: the evening in 2002 when Mike McQueary happened upon Jerry Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy. In the worst sense of the phrase it was a “defining moment.” For had McQueary done the right thing, stopping the rape and alerting the authorities, a monster would have been caught. Instead McQueary ran away and told his father, beginning what would become an epic fail by the leadership at Penn State University.

Why did McQueary act (or not act) the way he did? Many have speculated it was cowardice or fear. But what was he scared of: A naked old man? Losing his job? Upsetting the integrity of his beloved Penn State program? These are some of the accusations being levied at Mike McQueary but I don’t think any of them are correct. Reasonable assumptions. But at that moment nothing was reasonable. My theory: when McQueary saw what he saw all reason was lost. Witnessing an old man he knew and respected (and maybe even loved), hunched over naked, violating a little boy was simply too much information, in effect crashing his hard drive. McQueary was paralyzed. The primal instincts of fight or flight took hold and he chose, alas, to flee.

Mike McQueary. What was he thinking?

As suggested by many reporters and commentators (myself included) he should have pulled the boy away and beat the hell out of Sandusky. In his shoes, they would have. But as I think about it, I wonder…

True, in movies and television the coward runs and the hero fights. While the karate teacher might tell the pupil never to use his deadly force we are only satisfied when the student kicks some ass. In real life it seldom plays out that way. For example, when kidnapped baseball player, Wilson Ramos was rescued last week he claims to have “hid under a bed.” Do we call Ramos –a strong, young athlete- a coward for cowering? No.

None of this is to suggest McQueary is or isn’t a coward. Just that his fleeing is understandable. Any one of us might have done the same thing. I can only hope I would have taken out my cell phone and called 911.

Back to that sickening moment in the showers… Is it possible McQueary couldn’t believe his own eyes? Then likewise his father, upon being told, couldn’t believe it either? When someone reports the unbelievable we usually question the reporter. It was dark in there? Were you drinking? By the time the story got to Grandpa Paterno it might as well have been about aliens. Thus anal rape became “horsing around.”

Jerry Sandusky arrested…finally.

Believing a trusted friend, a beloved priest, or a respected football coach could do such a thing requires more than courage. It means we must let go our entire conception of humanity.

Yes, those young boys (and who knows how many others) needed McQueary, his father, Paterno and countless others to do just that: believe the unbelievable. That they couldn’t is sickening and sad but regretfully understandable. Ask yourself: What would you do if you saw a loved one molesting a child? The history of child abuse suggests most people do nothing.