The bottlenecks are always at the top. Or are they?
It takes courage, conviction and differentiation to do what has been done before in a broad sense, and do it better. Take the case of du’s video for the 43rd National Day of the UAE. Conceptually, a music video is nothing new. What was said in that video was nuanced, and how it was crafted made a difference. Will it win at Cannes or D&AD? No. Will it win hearts? It seems to have. As of 6 pm UAE time on 3 December, it had 4,245,887 views on du’s YouTube channel. It was published on 24 November.
Talking about courage and conviction to pursue ideas fearlessly can, honestly, sometimes be tiring. And boring. But what lies behind fear offers some interesting avenues for exploration. It’s far from elementary and that’s what makes it exciting.
From fear of lack of acceptance and appreciation, to fear of criticism and reprimand, the forms of fear that inhibit free thought and creativity in marketing and communications are many.
The most dangerous aspect of this industry equation, is this: you comply, you go with the flow, you do not push boundaries; and when someone else threatens to zip past, you’re an active part of the universe that brings them down. You start a fresh channel of supply for this ‘fear of failure’ potion, which is the primary enemy of innovation.
One after another, several ad-landers from the Middle East I have had the opportunity to meet in the last three months (or less), concur on the subject of risk-averse clients. Among the few clients I have met, some are truly thinking ahead of this market. There are obviously two sides to this story, too.
Both sides agree that we live in a highly transient society. Except for some ‘anchors’, I am told many are flitting in and out, of jobs and the region. In a business like advertising, and a function like marketing, the connection with roots needs to be strong enough for one to draw on ‘natively’. That takes a bit of time – and effort beyond
Are you rewarding risk or the ability to avoid it?
working to keep your job. And that’s the lesser challenge.
There are clients, agencies, and individuals and teams in both, who are willing to stick their necks out and proof of it abounds. But as adland admits, a transient ecosystem can ensure comfortable inertia in the status quo, rather than stoke the desire to grow, and the appetite for risk.
My only plea would be that if a transient workforce is not motivated enough to innovate, please consider who is to blame. As a management consultant once explained, ‘The bottlenecks are always at the top’. If the reward structure is based on how risk-averse one can be, no agency hand or marketing head is going to be keen to do anything beyond the tried and tested. And if a reward structure penalises those who failed trying, it must be awarded for being the least innovative way to kill initiative.
The risk of ordinariness is real, because not all in this ‘transient’ workforce exit the market. Their compromise breeds a new hybrid culture of its own.