Lead Coca Cola, Megha Dutta CD
Express DDB and Svetlana Polikapova
a Digital Expert. Lenny kicked off the
debate by going through six reasons why
he thinks creativity has taken a hit lately.
The first was passion which is a key driver
in creativity and gives one the urge to get
better and put in the time that is necessary
to come up with award winning creative
ideas. Lenny was of the opinion that
passion and the burning desire to come
up with ideas that are relevant and award
winning is waning. Most teams he believes
are just going through the motions. They
are no longer fighting their internal gate
keepers - mainly client service - and with
clients for their ideas to get approved.
When they hit a road block they accept to
do what the client wants. Clients being to
a large extent risk averse will look for an
idea that is ‘safe’ they are familiar with and
deemed to have worked in the past.
In his view the fact that APA Creative
Awards were not held for a number of
years could also have contributed to the
ebbing of the creative flame and lack of fire
and resilience in the belly to fight hard for
their ideas to see the light of day. Awards
give the Creatives a platform to showcase
their ideas and more importantly creates
a competitive environment as winning is
a great motivator. The fact that they are
back is a good thing for the industry for
this reason.
The second factor Lenny talked about
was being insular. We are all focused on
Kenya and there is lack of curiosity to
know what is happening in other parts
of the world. We are thus benchmarking
against ourselves instead of the beat the
world has to offer. Yet given the ease of
accessing international creative ideas
with the internet upon us it is important
that we as marketers widen our view and
learn from as well as benchmark, against
the best the world has to offer. Indeed
Alvas Onguru a winner of the Golden
Spear in the 1998 Creative Awards for
his Eveready advert, while at McCann
Erickson, is a big believer in continuous
learning if the industry is to raise the bar.
He gives his example of spending vast
sums of money to buy expensive books
from the UK to improve his creative ideas
days before the internet made it easier and
cheaper to learn.
Lenny also tackled the challenge of time
pressure saying that today ‘timelines
62 MAL30/19 ISSUE
Another fact having a negative effect on cre-
ativity is the rising power of Finance and
Procurement Departments in making deci-
sions such as budgets and in agency selection
during pitches. The departments seem, un-
derstandably so, to have a mantra of ‘driv-
ing down costs’. The agencies margins are
thus squeezed denying them funds to hire
and retain top talent, equip the team with
the necessary tools and train them. Creative
skills are thus stymied at a certain level
above which they cannot rise.
are compressed as clients believe that
everything can and must be done
quickly’. Creative ideas take time to
be conceptualized and to thaw and
rushing the team destroys creativity. In
creativity the shortest distance is not
always a straight line and ideas cannot be
‘microwaved’.
Coupled with time pressure is the
obsession with short term results. This
hurts long term brand building as clients
focus their efforts and budgets on direct
marketing activities such as promotions
and experiential initiatives in the place of
advertising. There is need to keep the ‘eyes
on the brand all the time’ he said.
desk. It’s important to set out of our ‘ivory
tower’ mentality and connect with our
customers where they are.
Lastly he spoke of the similarity of radio
adverts that have become what he called
‘talking heads’ - conversations between
two ‘customers’ that follow the same
predictable pattern with little variation
and no creativity. He also spoke of DJ
mentions that are eroding creativity
with one presenter selling three or more
products within their 3 hour segment!
After the presentation the floor was open
to the panellist.
Another fact having a negative effect on
creativity is the rising power of Finance
and Procurement Departments in making
decisions such as budgets and in agency
selection during pitches. The departments
seem, understandably so, to have a mantra
of ‘driving down costs’. The agencies
margins are thus squeezed denying them
funds to hire and retain top talent, equip
the team with the necessary tools and train
them. Creative skills are thus stymied at a
certain level above which they cannot rise. Andrew White spoke of the lack of
interaction between clients and the
agency and yet input from the client is
critical in the creative idea generation. He
believes that apart from having a better
understanding of their product they have
more time to talk to their customers
than the agency and ‘tapping into this
knowledge and insights is critical as it
can be a great inspiration to the creative
team’. Given the tight deadlines that both
are facing today sitting down with the
client is becoming a challenge affecting
the quality of creative ideas.
As Lenny ended his presentation, to
give way to the debate, he spoke about
technology. Despite its positive impact
on business it has made us marketers in
general and Creatives in particular sit
at our desks at the expense of going to
understand customers and gather useful
insights. He put it aptly that ‘we are
connected to technology but not to real
people’. Creativity is based on among
others consumer insights and these are
hard to uncover and decipher behind a Meghan Dutta brought in an interesting
example from India where an article
alleging that advertising was ‘dead’
went viral resulting in unintended
consequences. This led to the dilution of
advertising industry leading to the view
that it is ‘a less desired profession and
not deemed for the best and brightest
minds’. This resulted into two negatives:
One was mass exodus from agencies and
the other was the inability to attract the
best talent as the bar to entry had in effect