LOSING THE ‘C’ WORD

CRAFT.

Now that’s a word you don’t hear too often in agencies. (Unless you’re talking about craft beer.)

While everyone’s getting artisanal about everything from ice cubes to vinyl to goat milk “bean to bar” chocolate,  there seems to be a complete lack of it in advertising.

Specifically, the lost craft of copywriting.

We live in very strange times. As well as alternative facts, we now have alternative advertising. There are seismic changes in how people consume information, especially advertising. This radically affects the way the industry trains itself to make ads.

So what are the implications of hiring an entire generation of thinkers who can’t do? Most of the copy I see is cliched and predictable, a mimicking of the drivel absorbed from years of sitting in front of screens large and small. Nowadays it’s assumed  that copywriting is a skill you can pick up as you go along. Wrong. Beware the hacks, hucksters and SEO cowboys who claims to be self taught. It generally means they could never get hired anywhere good or were too lacking in testicular fortitude to even try. Not only is the actual quality of their writing is poor, it reflects little passion or interest on the part of the writer. Reason? This isn’t the writing of writers. It’s the writing of advertisers. I thank my lucky stars that I was taught how to write bu writers. Wise old whiskey soaked curmudgeons to whom I’d offer my copy only to watch them tear it to shreds. Mostly.

It’s common to hear the industry intelligentsia wax lyrical on how the nature of advertising is changing; how the fourth, fifth and sixth screens are revolutionizing the way we communicate. But no one talks about how that change in ad consumption is altering the way we train ourselves to make ads.

At JWT where I spent most of my career and later as an executive creative director at BBDO, creative is considered an end-to-end service. We come up with the big idea, then execute it down to every last detail. That means the creative department needs to be in possession of both skill sets: the ability to dream up the revolutionary award-winning concept, then to scrutinize every line, space and comma that comes with it.

But the times they-are-a-changing. It used to be that junior creatives learned craft first, then spent years gaining the experience necessary to think like a creative director. When you ask most creatives in my generation how they found their way into advertising, the answer is generally the same: as kids, we found we had a talent for writing, drawing, or some other largely impractical skill, but no interest in starving for our art. Back then, advertising felt like an oasis; a place to write, draw, and have fun within the confines of a secure job.

Industry watcher Sanan Petri’s view W+K London hold’s the view that today’s advertising world is largely driven by accolades and awards. Most communication schools are churning out kids who think like creative directors rather than kids who just love to write. Interns are coming into the agency with their sights trained on one thing: being the one to come up with the one game-changing idea that puts them on the map. But what are the implications of hiring an entire generation of thinkers who can’t do? What happens to the young design genius who spends his work day designing, rather than dreaming? What happens to the quality of the work we put out into the world?

For me, the most successful agencies are always the ones with the most diverse set of weird and wonderful people. The web designer who moonlights as a furniture maker. The copywriter who started life as a children’s book author. Musicians, craftsman, game designers, the passionate and the obsessive … these are the people we want filling our creative departments. People for whom “concepting” is a constant state of mind. Kids who grew up studying comic books and albums sleeves, not award annuals.

I’m really very happy to have come into this industry when all the hardware you needed to create advertising was markers, paper and if you were really lucky, an art director. The internet has not improved the quality of the craft of advertising. It’s made it worse… overall. Sure they are still wonderful examples but all too rare as looking at any awards reel will testify to.

If we prize craft above all else, we can continue to be proud of the quality of work we put out into the world. And if we focus on developing our young talent once they’re in, there’s no doubt they’ll shoulder in the next generation of great ideas, big and small.