HOW NOT TO RUN A CREATIVE DEPARTMENT

The other day I was jumping up and down on the sofa after checking out the brilliant Radar Security advertising campaign (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pk5wXTq7VY). Fresh, new, captivating, exciting and most of all from Kenya. It’s the kind of campaign that any serious creative would love to have been part of –  I am so jealous. The product of a great creative team probably working on a pro active idea. So what drives great creative teams? Well I think the biggest part of this must be a great working environment that enables great creativity.

I have been around Kenyan ad agencies and media houses and been exposed to all sorts of modus operandi. I once had an experience that was interesting. The sort of interesting that makes you wake up at 5am and think twice about going to work. Intimidating, unprofessional and absolutely no consideration of what makes a creative tick.

Contrary to popular belief, creatives care. We care about producing stunning campaigns that will get consumers talking, we care about creating work that will create improvements in sales graphs, we care about doing what’s right for brands. Hence silly juvenile company politics has absolutely no space in a creative department.

Let me tell you what I mean by politics. Politics is when the head of a creative department is sidelined from making hiring decisions by the rest of his management team. Politics is when the creative head is told that his team is never at work, while in essence some stay seriously late hours when decision makers are at their favorite bar lighting up their egos. Politics is when you are told that your department is not pro-active, while you dont even consider those who go to oversee roadshows while on leave. Politics is when a member of staff from another region is seconded to your department and when you ask your division head about it, they deny any involvement in it and site it as an HR matter. Politics is when a group of managers tell you not to involve the company marketing department in any marketing related work.

Politics creates mistrust in a company and when creatives get caught up in the political game, great ideas are seldom conceived. You are busy trying to watch your back so much that you can barely think ahead. You are in constant fear of suggesting amazing campaigns lest you look too good and others who have hidden agendas feel outshone. You feel no need to be proactive and all you are interested in is getting your daily quota of work done and run creative run.

Even worse is when a creative does not receive any support from the top. How do you expect a sales team to deliver briefs to the creative department when the departmental heads find writing briefs a headache? How do you expect the sales team to gain knowledge of the creative process when there is absolutely no support for your in-house creative process training efforts? The sad thing is that some people never see that with a little support, effort, simple collaboration and communication; you can easily turn 250K into 2.5M.

Ladies and gentlemen. creatives are sometimes like toddlers. Create an environment of fear and I promise you they will never have the confidence to let their minds get into the zone and create awesome pieces of work. Create an environment of freedom and trust; you will be amazed at the constant churning of brilliant ideas.

So, got a creative department? Then maybe its time you learn how to keep the politics out and let the fun and freedom in. At the risk of sounding controversial to those who are religiously inclined “no weapon held against creatives shall prosper”, but nonetheless “creatives forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But hey, that’s just my opinion.