Please Feed The Animals

Tell me. When you have a killer idea, who do you trust more to get it through? An ego-driven, bombastic leader? Or a group of individually sound-minded, patient people who believe everyone should get a say? There are pros and cons to both approaches, but I’d bet any future award show money that the ego-driven leader has a better track record than any sensitivity-trained committee. Advertising used to be full of strong-minded leaders. You knew who they were because they named their agencies after themselves. And they had really big offices. The halls reeked of ego, but dammit, they would fight. And fight hard. And fight to the end. If they believed in you, or your idea, they would fight for you too. Sure, a lot of feelings got hurt along the way, but the work got done. These are the people every agency needs. Because sometimes a little blood on the floor is a good thing.

I’m not saying everyone should ignore everyone else’s sensitivities. Nor am I saying that we need an office full of bullies who scream until they get their way. There’s an art to the act of persuasion (you work in advertising, remember?). But think about it, if you’ve been rising in the ranks of your company, there’s a chance someone put blood on the floor for you. And the higher you ascend up the ladder, the greater the chance that you’ll have to unsheathe that office machete yourself.

Now what makes the notion of blood on the floor even more bizarre are the things we actually fight for in this business – goofy TV spots, casting picks, a style of typeface, a background color on a homepage, a line of copy that borders on risqué. And risqué in advertising is always 20-years behind what the popular culture thinks as risqué (two men accidentally kissing? Hide the children!). In the end, all the decisions that affect advertising executions don’t amount to a hill of beans in the world outside of advertising. However, in a business staffed with creative people, the work is our lifeblood. Egos can be easily bruised. The creative mind wants what it wants, and that’s when the push-pull of negotiation can become someone’s battle. Blood, meet floor.

We all know what happens creatively when there’s a lack of a strong leader: mediocrity and milquetoast. Ads that once had promise now look like they need resuscitation. Compromise may be necessary in a friendship and/or marriage, but in a creative field it can mean the difference between awe-inspiring and awful. All because no one bothered to fight for what was good.

After all, once the ideas are shown to clients, it becomes a different battle altogether. No one can control what clients think and feel. They are going to make changes to whatever is presented to them. It’s their right and their money after all. However, the troops shouldn’t be made to surrender before leaving the building. A good leader prevents this, even if it means shedding some invisible red stains on the carpet.

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Brad Mislow is a freelance senior copywriter/ACD who lives in New York. No blood was spilt in the writing of this post. However, he’s sure plenty was in the work found on bradmislow.com