SCRAPSCRAPS v 164
Client Dialectic
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Huge shoutout to Márcio Rodrigues for translating the original Creative on Strategists survey into Portuguese and sending out to Creatives he knows in Brazil.
But then he went one further and built out a new deck based on the new responses, and translated the whole thing into english.
See a few select responses I aggregated here
A couple favorite responses:
What do you wish Strategists would do more of?
“Find opportunities for action, and not just diagnostics.”
“Choices. Most planning presentations open up possibilities but do not close them. They are exploratory; they analyze issues but never make choices, and for me, strategy is about choosing.”
How do you judge whether a creative brief is good or not?
Having a clear point of view, but with the courage to understand that it is not the only one.”
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(See my initial findings here.)
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Rick Rubin has a podcast called Tetragrammaton. He interviews all sorts of people about their life, process and art. But on Spotify at least, there are also occasional ads.
Like every podcast ever, there are ads for Squarespace – as well as ads for things like House of Macadamia.. A macadamia nut product.
But every ad is done in the same style. Made to sound like a 1950’s AM radio broadcast.
And honestly they are great. I rarely skip them bc they are both soothing and hilarious.
This anecdote has a point ☞
The model of the publisher creating the ads to match the tone / theme of the content / publishing brand is super interesting.
The closest thing I can think of is Colossal Media who only do hand painted OOH ads in Brooklyn (One of those companies that I would trade in the freelance life for)..
I guess the point is this.
We spend so much time thinking about the messaging and the idea. But the craft of applying the execution can’t be undersold.
Here’s an ad related episode. (they are not all 3.5 hours long. Rory Sutherland just likes to talk)
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“The 37signals Guide to Internal Communication” Far from a list of approved messaging tools, this starts off with a list of “Rules of thumb, and general philosophy.”
To be honest it really should be applied across the industry/world of digital work.
Also listed within it is this great article: “Group Chat: The Best Way to Totally Stress Out Your Team”
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Strategy of Constraint.
Strategy work is forcing decisions. Ideally decisions that point to the greatest odds of success.
Success for many of us has multiple meaning… The business success of executing a strategy – but also the success of pushing a strategy through the approval process.
One thing I’ve noticed over the past 12ish years is that strategy work that takes the barrier and uses it as the opportunity tends to be green lit faster than average.
I could theorize why, but it’s just my personal experience. Can’t say it is true across the board.
Highly recommend “A Beautiful Constraint” as a resource here.
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Client Dialectic
One of the top barriers to work (or good work) getting made is the feedback gauntlet. Ignoring the agency feedback hell-cycle, a presented idea typically needs approvals from a wide array of stakeholders.
Stakeholders is often defined as “the people responsible for approving this idea”
But in reality, they are stakeholders because they are responsible for something else entirely.
The best conversations happen when there is open dialogue about each stakeholder’s unique priorities and motivations.
If I know the client is currently negotiating for a promotion, that will influence what gets approved/feedback given and is really important information to know.
This is why a good account person is so valuable.
When was the last time you genuinely laughed at work?
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WEEKLY MONSTER
Still one of my favorite digital drawings I’ve done.