Revenge of the Velveteen Rabbits

Another year clicks over on the odometer of my life. The 43rd.

I don’t feel any older. Well not perceptibly. I feel rather sprightly,

actually. The greying hair and thickening waist are simply my

camouflage. A way of blending into the mature world. My inner world is

as creaseless as a cosmetics commercial, not quite so airbrushed but I

certainly feel more capable now than at any time before.

At the launch function of Idealog I spoke about the headhunter who

pronounced me dead, in effect, with the grand insight that, after 40 it

was time to hang up my creative spurs. No self-respecting advertising

agency would hire a creative director as old as me. The remark hardly

phased me. As a matter of self respect I wouldn’t hope to work within

the confines of an advertising agency. I left the mainstream of that

business in 1990, which, by my calculations, made me a mere lad of 30. I

walked away from the position of creative director of Young and Rubicam

and its medical division Sudler & Hennessey in disgust. I had never been

in such a non-creative environment. For all of the pronouncements from

on high about ‘resisting the usual’, it was rarely ever anything but

business as usual. The job of Y&R in this country was to service Colgate

Palmolive as part of the parent organisation’s worldwide commitment to

the account. Winning advertising awards was simply a diversion to

distract the creative talent from the fact that we were actually

velveteen rabbits in the cut and thrust of business.

I have to take issue with the concept of ‘Creativity’ in advertising.

The reality is that advertising agencies make a crucial mistake in their

taxonomy of talent. By siloing creative into a ‘department’ it indicates

a lack of insight that has made agencies less and less valuable and even

relevant to their client’s business. The definition of creativity in an

agency, given that job descriptions tend to be either copywriter or art

director (even creative directors are regarded as copy based or art

based), is consequentially executional or craft oriented. The ability to

come up with an ad concept that is an insightful expression of an idea

(the proposition), cleverly and arrestingly executed is the Holy Grail.

And that is the problem.

Sometimes the answer is not an ad.

Which, in itself is a problem. If the answer is not an ad, then why do I

have all of these velveteen rabbits sitting around reading magazines,

surfing the Internet and watching DVDs of The Prisoner (waiting for a

client on whom to apply the retro chic show’s iconography in pastiche

with post modern irony)? Why indeed?

And if I make my income from media commissions, shouldn’t we commission

some media – and therefore we’ll need ‘creatives’ to fill the hole?

S’not easy is it? Glad it’s not my dilemma.

The cleverest thing I ever did in advertising was to create a template

model. Have a big idea, then run in myriad form for loads of clients,

retain the IP and create a sales and production organisation to stoke

the fires. I invented Family Health Diary in 1996 (admittedly I was

still under 40) and today it is the single biggest advertiser on New

Zealand Television.

The factors that collided to make it a reality were the following:

1) I returned to New Zealand after my first wife’s death and did not

have a job. I began toying with the idea of creating a syndicated media

property – where multiple, luxury brands could combine to develop

promotions mutually and reduce the cost for each brand and leverage

their common audiences – in many cases a case of co-opitition. I went a

long way down the path with the product when I met a former colleague,

who introduced me to one of his close friends. We three were all looking

for the next thing in our careers and had been considering similar,

though quite different ways of communicating brand ideas. Brands were

the common thread that stitched us together. We formed a business –

BrandWorld and set out to change the face of the marketing world.

No one was buying. Our ideas and innovations fell on deaf ears – or met

with agreement, but no motivation to change behaviour. The world wasn’t

ready for an organisation that orchestrated the brand story for clients,

but did not necessarily execute (the concept of disintermediation was

just beginning to capture headlines in the ‘new economy’ press).

My partners and I survived by pitching for pharmaceutical accounts.

Isn’t it funny how often Drucker is right? He said that most businesses

begin with an intention to occupy a certain space, but usually find

themselves in another as a matter of practicality and meeting market demand.

By becoming, by default, an ad agency I found myself consigned to the

role I had shucked off in 1990 – the creative guy.

And I hated it. I had become the velveteen rabbit of my worst

nightmares. Words and pictures. Worse, I had become sucked into the

vortex of the mid 90’s empowerment by computer dilemma. We bought

expensive Macs to create artwork and I found that I had to learn how to

use them at a level above Word and Excel (which had suited me fine until

them – preferring to leave the art function to someone else). But we