by Anna Gamboa
CANNES – What happens when you give a diverse bunch of non-industry people (such as a cage fighter, hairdresser, and rugby player) a creative brief?
Sam Ball, Creative Director of M&C Saatchi took to the Lions Live stage at the Debussy Theater to share his unadulterated opinion that 99% of advertising is “utter sh*t…Some of it makes you want to scratch your eyes out when you see it, or perforate your eardrums when you hear it–and the rest is just bland or average.” And it’s the latter that gets down the most.
Asking the Cannes audience for their opinion on why bad ads are made, the replies vary from bad clients, bad account men, bad creatives, not enough time, etc. Ball’s take on the matter: the worst thing for creativity is a bunch of like-minded people in a room. “That’s how the majority of ad agencies operate, often productivity and process are more important than creativity,” he points out. This type of group think creates the “happy medium” then the ad is made.
But diversity of thought is required to take disparate ideas and innovate–a concept bigger than just people, and encompasses processes and even infastructure. “Pixar is big on diversity of thought,” points out Ball, saying how Steve Jobs wanted the animation company’s building to be engineered in such a way that people from different departments would mingle in its central atrium. Music producer Brian Eno devised a set of cards that would challenge artists to do something differently during the course of a project.
So M&C Saatchi devised an experiment which turned the focus group discussion concept on its ear: make 10 non-industry people ad men for a project. Then get different creative team leaders to come in and talk to them throughout the day. Result: 10 different ideas, which were considered for a shoe brand.
Ball summarized the lessons in three parts:
-be open to ideas from people you think “know less” because they may actually know more;
-the future belongs to agencies that encourage diversity of thought; and
-extraordinary ideas aren’t in you, they’re all around you, and you won’t find them looking in the same places everyone looks.
“Turn over a card,” Sam Ball encouraged his fellow madmen, “Talk to a misfit.” Who knows, that crappy 99% could become 98%, then 97%…and so on.
