Monday, October 6, 2008

5 things that are over-rated in agencies.

1. Democracy. A lot of people can weigh in but at the end of the day, one person tells everyone else what to do. If that person is consistently wrong, you get a new person.

2. Political correctness.
Effective communication and political correctness most often cancel each other out. If you can't say how you feel, you can't communicate.

3. Process.
Creativity is not a process. It is a series of mistakes and failures that lead to success. You can't regulate it.

4. Titles.
Titles are endemic and over-inflated. The puffery we use externally in trumpeting the worth of a product have infected us internally. Use next year's Advertising Week to eliminate all titles--starting with titles that have a capital C or the word Global in them.

5. Office space.
Open plans work better. For those who need quiet to think, have quiet rooms.

2 comments:

  1. agree with all.
    Best title i heard so far is one i found on a card at an ad agency in australia: lord of creation.
    tops them all.

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  2. I am not a big fan of the open workspace. I get half done in a day than I would if I had a way of shutting out the incessant impromptu visits from account management. There are never enough quiet rooms. Our department burns through hours every day just looking for a place to brainstorm particularly when we're all on the same project. And thanks to the open model, the entire world knows that I'm arguing with my mother-in-law, that I have a uterine polyp and on occasion they get to hear me sing a good-night lullaby to my daughter's imaginary cat.

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