You Sleep When You Die

Thanks to @snesareva for providing one of this week’s top questions. Remember, get your questions about advertising, business, the economy and more answered every Wednesday by posting comments to blog posts or on Twitter via #askjz.

“What are the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities for Zimmerman Advertising? Where is the agency going?”

I’m tired of these big, old, staunch ad agencies that focus on the output of creative work instead of the outcome of the creative work. Creativity is NOT the Holy Grail. A holistic strategy that’s relevant and important to the consumer IS the Holy Grail. Only after you have your strategy firmly entrenched should you add in creativity to activate that strategy in a creative way for a winning formula every time.

What’s most interesting about this whole debate is that it’s getting so much attention. If we attached as much importance to creating great work that works for our clients, we would be much better off. To suggest that being banned from entering an awards show for five years could signal the end of a career is ridiculous. I guarantee you that if you create work that produces results for your clients, they won’t care if you never win another award…and neither will other potential clients.

Many industry experts were surprised about the recent announcement that VW and Crispin are parting ways. After all, VW’s market share actually improved in recent months and although sales were still down, the decline wasn’t as steep as the automotive industry as a whole. In addition, the four-year partnership resulted in some memorable and much talked about advertising.

Crispin certainly helped elevate VW to a new level of ‘coolness.’ Unfortunately, to be cool is often to be niche. And when your job is to market a brand that is dependent on the mainstream masses, coolness alone just isn’t going to cut it. And that’s precisely where Crispin missed it with VW.

Lowe’s Mark Wnek says, “The most important quality that all good creative directors share is a passion for great work.” Wnek goes on to argue that creatives are not politicians or actors, and that new business pitches aren’t supposed to be ‘vaudeville.’ Listen, don’t get me wrong: passion for great work should be a given to walk in the door for a job, but it’s not the most important thing that separates you from the others.

To me, great work means nothing if it doesn’t run, and the work won’t sell shit if it cannot even sell the client.