Catalyst S+F: Creativity Rant - Chris Arens - MediaBizBloggers

I read an article the other day about top creative directors leaving their high-posts to start new companies or new careers. While this normally doesn't eat at me, this particular article really got under my skin, as it shows how slow we move as an industry, and how outdated our business practices are given the realities we face today. So today I rant which, I feel, is not usually my character:

The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc. This, of course is the definition of creativity.

So why then, do we continue to only recognize one department in our agencies as the creative source? If, by definition alone, we can find creativity in every job form and functionality, why do we continue to call out one department by this moniker? In so doing, are we not still beholden to the old (traditional) way of thinking? By the obvious omission of all departments not classified as creative we are admitting that we cannot think creatively about our own business problems. My advice to brand managers, look for an agency that classifies all departments as creative, this will be the only agency that has decided that a person who does not work in Photoshop can still be "creative."

We have some monumental tasks to achieve not only for our clients' business but also for our own. By focusing our efforts in bringing out the creativity in all of us, by setting up situations that allow for the safe-harbor of that sometimes under-utilized portion of our brain and by equating the value of true creativity (not just pretty pictures and effusive words) we will finally break through the morass that has pulled our industry down and has left us half-empty for some time.

In our business we set processes in an effort to a) insure the consistency of the agencies product b) to increase the efficiencies of the business and c) to better communicate cross-functionally. That last one usually gets a chuckle, as we have historically been faced with artificially-inflated egocentricity fed by our own value system. However, creativity is, and will continue to be, stifled if we don't change its connotation. And remember folks, process is a guide, and creativity seeks progression of that process.

Each of us has the capability of thinking creatively. The difference is that some of us are better at articulating those creative thoughts, images and stories. The agency of the future will look at creativity not as a beautiful communication form, but as a way of breaking molds and redefining how to overcome challenges, in whatever from that takes. It will not reward the individual for quantity of creativity in one form, but rather the team for quality of creativity in any form. The agency of the future, will seek to understand how to get all people to tune-in to their creative minds and equally represented will be those that create, those that annotate, and those that concatenate (you know who you are).

Creativity should be our value system. Show me an agency that harnesses the creativity in every aspect of our fragmented complex communication world and I'll show you a successful, lucrative business. Evermore important is "creativity in any form" especially in such a connected society that democratizes creative and media. Gone are the days that an agency could do it all, but here are the days where ideas come from anywhere.

Chris Arens is a Partner and Head of Client Services at Catalyst S+F. He can be reached at chris@catalystsf.com

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