Treating creatives well.

One of the things I've noticed over the course of my last two or three decades in the advertising business is that there is a linkage between how well employees (particularly creatives) are treated by their agency and how good that agency's creative winds up being.

Too many agencies--and HR groups especially--make the mistake of thinking that agency creatives work for agencies. The fact of the matter is that any creatives worth their salt works first for themself. They have something inside them that burns to do something they think is good, funny, smart, important.

This isn't related to how well they'll perform on a 360-review or some plastic cube they'll get handed at some overblown agency function. It's about stoking the fire inside.

Shitty agencies (and by shitty I mean most) forget or never knew that a creative is a rare bird. Things like being forced to fly early to meetings because someone screwed up buying your "non-refundable" ticket are petty indiscretions. They are blows to the confidence and ego of creatives.

I'm not one that thinks creatives should be treated like prima donnas. That's not my point. My point is that good creative is a whole body experience. You live and breathe your brands 24/7. You focus on it like no one else in the agency. Being treated well is part of that restorative niche I spoke about in a post from last week.

Mother fuckers.