What would you do if you knew you wouldn’t fail? How big would your creativity be? Creative confidence can be the key to solving any problem. It can allow creative talent. In Campaign Asia’s session at Spikes Asia 2014, the speakers offered insights into how the culture of creativity is evolving in Asia and showcases great work that’s guaranteed to ignite your creativity.
The fear of failure can stop the most talented people from doing their best work: the fear that clients, peers or bosses will reject ideas that are out of the ordinary.
The session was moderated by Atifa Silk, the brand director of Campaign Asia. The speakers were David Guerrero, creative chairman of BBDO Guerrero, Rob Sherlock, ECD of ADK Worldwide, and Patrick Baron, ECD of McCann Melbourne.
When asked what makes a creative person tick:
“Creative people need the confidence of being well prepared, and also having done all the work so you can convince them,” said David Guerrero.
“If you talk about confidence, it’s also, can be interpreted as arrogance. It can be a bad thing. You can’t always be confident, you have to be vulnerable,” said Rob Sherlock. “Weakness is a good thing if you allow it to happen sometimes,” he added.
Patrick Baron started his answer with a joke – “I’m always right,” he said, laughing. Then he added, “A lot of creatives are insecure and that does help them.” What it does, according to him, is they keep using that insecurity to keep improving their work.
“They see what they could have done,” Baron said, referring to campaigns that the creatives reviewed after their release. They see what can be improved and they use this learning on new projects.
Baron also said that one should welcome all ideas – be it right or wrong, the important part is to learn from it.
“You will be confident if you’ve done the work for it, if you believe it’s the right thing then you will have a conviction that will carry you through,” said Guerrero.
“Trust is something that can help in building confidence in a group,” said Baron. Confidence plays a big part in convincing a client to let you do something. “It all comes down to trust,” he added.
Having experience is like a double-edged sword. “Experience is the encumbrance of you, and therefore, sometimes less experience allows you to be more confident,” said Sherlock.
“In the end, it’s all about the work,” said Guerrero. “The only thing that anyone will ever see this the final product, not the deck, not all the stuff you put into it.”
