Fear and loathing in adland
Years of conditioning have made us all scared. To allow brave, bold work to happen, we must change the old world order, James Denton-Clark advises
The trouble with account executives is that they don’t feel the same fear as we did when we first started.” You hear this a lot around the watercooler these days, especially from senior account handlers who started out in the bigger, more famous shops. But what role does fear play in the modern agency?
Fear is natural in a recession. Downturns breed fear: budgets are squeezed and people who run brands take fewer risks. The 5 per cent innovation budget gets reallocated to search and progressiveness takes a back seat.
But 2014 could be our industry’s best year since 2008. Marketers are feeling bullish about their company’s prospects and have more money to spend on advertising.
The combination of these two factors should clear a path for agencies to get braver, better creative work approved by their clients. But the kind of fear that begets bland advertising does not start and end with a brand’s marketing chief: it is deeply entrenched in agencies’ corporate structures and working practices. To really progress, particularly in a creative agency, we need to root it out at a more fundamental level.
The problem comes from years of professional and cultural conditioning. The best example of this is The
Apprentice. Now, we’ve had a bit of experience of The Apprentice at Kar- marama. Oh, how we laughed; a bit, anyway. But, at a cultural level, it’s more insidious. It shows us the ways people try to achieve influence over others. It’s the result of years of conditioning that competence comes from a blend of knowledge and skills through the application of strength. At school, we’re conditioned to achieve individual excellence. At work, we’re structured like the army, with hierarchy and job titles. One person’s opinion matters more because they’ve done it for longer and have a bigger job title. They then apply their strength to dominate and put down others in the group.
In advertising, it all goes back to the domination of the celebrity tal-