BECOMING A CREATIVE DIRECTOR
WHY SOME CREATIVES MAKE IT TO CREATIVE DIRECTOR AND OTHERS DON’T
Creative directors have creative responsibility for one or more specific accounts, and are appointed by the agency’s ECD (executive creative director), the person in overall charge of the department.
A small agency may not have any CDs at all—the ECD might oversee all the work himself.
But as an agency grows larger, it becomes impossible for the ECD to sign off every piece of work the agency produces, and he is forced to devolve some responsibility.
The main qualification to be a CD is to have done some great work. It’s generally felt that people who have come up with good ideas themselves are more likely to be good at spotting them. Also, it’s important for a CD’s authority that the creatives working under him believe that this person is better than they are. If the creative teams don’t have respect for a CD’s judgement, it will be hard for him to do his job. So it’s normally the best creatives in the department who make creative director.
In other words, CDs are nearly always appointed solely on their creative ability, not their people-management skills. This may sound insane, but it’s actually a fairly common state of affairs in every sphere of life. The best scientist in a lab will tend to get made the next lab manager, whatever his managerial abilities.
And once they become a CD, they discover it’s completely different to the job of being a creative, and requires a different skill-set. Most adapt fine. But just as it’s not necessarily the best footballers who make the best managers, it’s not necessarily the best creatives who make the best CDs.
QUALITIES THAT MAKE A GOOD CREATIVE DIRECTOR
The job of CD is fantastic fun, but it’s also difficult and time-consuming—you need to be a planner, account man, and creative all rolled into one.
You are also leaving your carefree days behind. A regular creative is free to present the most outrageous idea he can think of; the creative director needs to be able to see the bigger picture, like the client’s overall business problem.
You are responsible for creative quality on the account that you look after: that means you mustn’t present work that is dull. But on the other hand, if you exclusively present work that the client can’t or won’t approve, you will come to a sticky end.
This tricky balancing act leads some CDs to conclude they are best off writing the ads themselves, rather than relying on their teams. And sometimes you’ll have to. But I strongly advise you not to write ads in competition with the teams who are working into you as a CD. Nothing enrages and demotivates creatives more. Quite simply, creatives don’t believe you will ever pick their ad in preference to yours. So if they get wind that you are working on the brief in competition with them, they’ll stop trying. Your job is to get them to do their job, not to do it yourself.
CHAMPIONING OTHERS’ WORK
To be a successful CD, you have to enjoy seeing other people write great ads, and enjoy helping them improve their ideas. (Or if they don’t have an idea, subtly suggesting one to them. You’ve got to be willing to give. Even if it’s a great idea from your own bottom drawer.)
So that’s the first thing to realize about becoming a CD—you must be happy to champion someone else’s work. Creatives are a selfish bunch, on the whole. Our main reason for wanting to do good work is for our own fame and glory. And salary.
But a CD must have a different way of thinking. He has to shield, protect, and nurture work that he hasn’t created himself. He has to fight for it, defend it, and try and make it the best it can be. All for someone else’s fame and glory.
If you’re slightly insecure, as most creatives are, this can be hard.
One acquaintance of mine confessed he thought he was a rubbish CD because it annoyed him when someone showed him something good that he hadn’t done himself!
Another well-known CD would positively fume if anyone produced work that was praised more highly than his own or, God forbid, won awards when his didn’t. He even used to think it funny if a team got Turkey of the Week in Campaign. He once moaned that he hadn’t got any ads in D&AD one year. When it was pointed out to him that at least a dozen pieces of work were in, with him as CD, he simply said “doesn’t count.” His job was CD but he never stopped behaving like an AD.
The best CDs love it when someone brings them a great idea. And so they should—it makes their job easy.
SPOTTING A GOOD IDEA
Being able to spot a good idea is, at the risk of stating the obvious, the first requirement of the job.
It’s much easier in certain media, like posters, where the “rough” that the creative team presents is nearer to the finished ad than a TV script is to a finished commercial. But even in the case of posters, it’s rare for a creative team to walk in with an obviously brilliant idea, leaving the CD with a task no more arduous than giving the thumbs-up sign.
Most ideas are first presented in an undeveloped, half-baked, or embryonic state. Spotting the embryos that could grow into beautiful children isn’t easy.
Some ideas might have a logical core to them, but are prosaic in the form they’re expressed in. That’s when you can make someone’s ad leap from 4/10 to 9/10 with a wave of your wand.
And sometimes an idea that seems weird, crass, or simplistic can make an amazing ad. If someone presented you with a script that read: “A gorilla in a recording studio listens to ‘In the Air Tonight’ by Phil Collins, and joins in on the drum solo”…would you buy it?
“Trust your gut instinct and stick to it,” advises James Cooper, creative director at Dare New York. “It’s really the only weapon you have. You have split seconds to make a decision on a piece of work and sometimes people. If you don’t have much of a gut instinct you’re probably a little screwed.”
TOP TEN TRAITS OF A GREAT CD
1 Still has something to prove, rather than banging on about ads he made ten years ago.
2 Guides with tact, without undermining teams’ confidence.
3 Is sometimes scary.
4 Kills a team’s work but sends them away inspired to do more.
5 Is a political genius.
6 Is 20 percent party starter, 10 percent defender of his teams, 5 percent politician, 5 percent dictator, 10 percent media sponge, 50 percent ideas fountain.
7 A great judge of work, and a great presenter of work.
8 Doesn’t just say “No,” but also “Why.”
9 Brings out the best in his teams, but without doing their work for them.
10 Knows when to tell a team “the suits are right on this one,” but also knows when to tell the suits to toe the line.
You need to be comfortable with people doing things you wouldn’t do. A lot of creatives have a strong style, and want to impose it on all the work that they creative-direct. That’s a mistake. You don’t want to force people to be clones of you. They’ll never do “you” as well as you do. And they won’t enjoy being made to.
Just look for a simple thought, clearly expressed, with a degree of irreverence or freshness that will stand out in whatever medium it appears.
In addition, try to work out how well an idea answers the brief. That’s not to say that every idea you sign off has to be completely on-brief. But be aware how much “persuasion” you may need to do, and how much leeway you have on that particular brief or with that particular client.
OTHER MAN-MANAGEMENT SKILLS
Good CDs have a talent for persuasion. After spotting the potential in an idea, you need the skill to persuade other people of its potential too. It’s not enough to just tell account teams “This ad is great,” or to fall back on your authority and explain that this is the one you’ve gone for, and that’s the end of the conversation. You need to be able to bring people along with you.
Great relationships make great advertising.
And to make a great relationship, you need to learn the rules of compromise. Don’t try to win every battle. One of the hardest things about being a CD is learning to compromise. Some of the best creative people are uncompromising. But now you can’t be. Now, you have to ask yourself “What do they want, and how do I make it good?”
Be a person of principle and integrity. Lying to get your way might be effective in that particular situation, but once people find out you’ve lied, you’ll lose their trust.
Creatives need to trust that you will do your best to support their idea and only surrender when further fight is pointless. The account team needs to trust that you are a team player and will help them overcome client concerns. And the client needs to trust that you are creating work for their consumers, not an awards jury.
“Get clients to trust you have their best interests at heart, not a lump of yellow wood,” is how Justin Tindall, ECD of The Red Brick Road, puts the point.
These are just some of the considerable man-management skills you will need. Tact, consideration for others, and an ability to listen are a few others that spring to mind.
You’ll also need to be a good talker, since a CD’s job consists mostly of talking. Rank-and-file creatives can get away with being virtually silent if they do good work, but CDs need to be good at communicating their thinking face to face, not just via the medium of posters or TV ads or whatever. You need to be able to give creative teams feedback and support, and present to clients and account teams.
Finally, a good CD is someone with the ability to inspire. It could be through the work they’ve produced, or simply how they make teams feel who are working into them. This is the most important man-management skill of all—knowing how to get the best out of teams. Some need talking-up to perform to their best. Others need a good old kick up the backside.
“Your main job is adding momentum to projects,” Rob Reilly, ECD at Crispin Porter + Bogusky USA, told Creativity magazine. “Creatives that are stuck, you have to keep their momentum going. And when you’re pitching something, the same. We’re the momentum makers.”
“There are basically two kinds of creative directors,” believes Jamie Barrett, ECD at Goodby Silverstein, San Francisco. “The kind that tries to bully and intimidate and pressure people into doing good work. And the kind that tries to nurture and support and inspire. When you first become a creative director, you just need to decide which kind you want to be.”
BECOMING EXECCUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR
As we’ve seen, creative directors are appointed by the executive creative director. But who appoints the ECD?
One of the fascinating things about becoming ECD is that, after spending your entire career learning how to impress creative chiefs, you now need to get hired by a completely different set of characters: agency CEOs, chairmen, and heads of planning. Interestingly, this makes the ECD the only creative in the building not hired by another creative.
There are a few exceptions—some agency networks employ a worldwide creative director whose job includes hiring ECDs for agencies within the group. But in most cases, it’s the agency management themselves who bring in the ECD.
This means that getting an ECD position is about a lot more than just your creative credentials. To get the job you will need to be able to sit with the agency’s bosses and talk coherently about the business of advertising. You will need a point of view on where it’s been, where it’s at, and where it’s going.
You will need to have a high profile in the industry, so they can present you to the outside world as someone with creative credibility. Someone who will attract good talent.
You may think there’s a danger that agency bosses will want to employ someone malleable. Indeed, some observers suggest there has been a trend toward the “pragmatic” ECD, even the politician. One London ECD certainly thinks this is the case. “The old ECDs weren’t good managers, but they did a better job with the work,” he believes.
But one agency head of planning, who is currently going through the process of hiring an ECD, denies this completely.
“We want a grown-up,” he told me, “but not someone pliant. We’re looking for a leader…someone with charisma. The ECD should be the biggest character in the room.”
“Who is the person who will make our agency more successful in the future? That’s our number-one criterion,” he adds.
An ECD must be someone who can get the best out of their department, whether that’s by creating a culture where creativity can flourish, or simply by setting the bar high.
“I don’t try to change the culture,” Gerry Graf, chief creativity officer of Saatchi & Saatchi NY, told Creativity magazine. “I don’t know how to inspire people. I’ve given countless speeches and feel like an idiot every time I talk into a mic. My job is to make really good creative and I try to do that. And let that inspire people.”
“To evolve people, you have to stretch them,” says Dave Dye, creative partner of Dye Holloway Murray. “You have to give people things to do that they’ve never done before, things that are just in front of them. And that’s scary.”
And you have to enjoy looking after a group of people, and get a kick out of them doing well.
“The night every team at DDB (bar one!) won a silver at Campaign Press was better than any night when I won myself,” remarks Ewan Paterson, former joint ECD of DDB London, now ECD of Clemmow Hornby Inge.
ECD CHECKLIST
High-profile
Natural leader
Team builder
The biggest character in the room
The final point is that of all the employees in the agency, the ECD has the most latitude to do his job how he wants. You can be a nit-picking micro-manager or a laid-back embodiment of bonhomie; you can puke in a carrier bag in front of the people who call you boss, or live like a monk; you can CD via in-tray and out-tray or spend half an hour explaining why a comma beats a semi-colon; you can be an industry figure or a shrinking violet; you can love the suits or show them healthy disdain; you can go home at 5am or 5pm; you can let your department work in the pub or insist everyone clocks in and out; you can have a penis or a vagina or both. All of the above have worked; all that matters is how good the ads are.
And that will mostly depend on who you hire to do them.
HIRING
“Recruit people who’ve created a campaign (not a one-off) from a blank sheet of paper,” is the tip from Ewan Paterson. “Don’t recruit the person who’s done the next award-winning ad in an award-winning campaign (that someone else created). And if you can find people who’ve done that in an agency that doesn’t normally produce great work, then all the better. And on top of that they have to be nice people.”
“Hire keen unknowns who want to make a name for themselves,” suggests another ECD. “Bring in students, or people working in unfashionable agencies.”
Whatever your philosophy, you have to be good at spotting talent.
Tony Cox, the former BMP executive creative director, used to say that recruiting for a creative department should be like casting for the perfect cocktail party. Once you have the right people, all the ECD need do is wander around making sure everyone’s drinks are topped up.
The flipside of hiring, of course, is firing.
“The day I arrived at Y&R New York it was announced that we had lost both Sony and Jaguar, over $300 million worth of business,” Matt Eastwood, national creative director of DDB Australia, told ihaveanidea.org. “After only weeks in the job, I was asked to draw up a list of creative people that would be let go. It was one of the most depressing and disappointing moments in my career.”
Every ECD agrees that this is one of the hardest aspects of the job. “But every time you do it, you get better at it,” consoles Dave Dye.
“ Always try and treat people how you’d want to be treated yourself,” says Ewan Paterson. “I try to approach the horrible bits of the job by saying to myself—I’m going to do this in the best way possible.”
Paul Arden got fired five times before he found his niche at Saatchi’s, and stayed there for 17 years. So maybe there’s no need to feel too bad about firing someone. If it’s not working out for them at your agency, maybe they’ll do well somewhere else. And if they end up proving you wrong, good for them.
NEGOTIATING YOUR PACKAGE AND SHARE OPTIONS
There’s one simple piece of advice that every ECD will give you about negotiating your package—get a lawyer.
You’re an expert in your field; clients rely on you for your expertise. In the same way, you have to be able to acknowledge areas you’re not an expert in.
Negotiating a package that may include bonus triggers, share options, golden handcuffs (and a potential golden parachute—i.e. a pay-off if they decide they want to dispense with your services) is a complex transaction. Don’t try to do it on your own. If you don’t know who to use, lean on the relationships you’ve made in your time in advertising—ask around.
Naturally you’re delighted to get a big job, and a big opportunity. But go into it with your eyes open. Be thorough about your contract. Get your lawyer to explain everything to you fully.
Creatives are notoriously bad at the business side of things, and have been somewhat exploited by people who know about money. Don’t let that be the case with you. Have a sense of your own value, and negotiate hard. You’ll be surprised what you can get, if you ask.
