“Do you want to see the industry improve? Let’s get creatives and creativity back in the boardroom and in C-level leadership roles.” These are comments echoed by a score of leaders in conversation with Campaign Middle East over coffee, so we decided to write about it and share their voice with the world.
Several leaders have opined that across brand-building, marketing, and advertising the industry is witnessing a diminishing presence of pure creative expertise at the highest levels of corporate leadership.
“Paying lip-service to “creativity” by placing isolated creatives in senior positions where they are nothing but a silent minority, in the current model, is nothing but a sham. In an age where consumers are cutting out the middleman and going straight to the producers, the massive padding that C-suites provides its clients is nothing but an expensive stifler of courage and originality. The industry doesn’t need creatives in the C-suite. It needs the C-suite to be creative,” Ramsey Naja, Creative Partner, Das Kapital said.
What can spur a creative renaissance?
For those who’ve been closely following the conversation for the past few years, the request to get creatives and creativity a permanent seat at the table is not new. The industry’s “suggestions box” is overflowing.
Joe Lipscombe, Partner, The Romans, and Das Kapital’s Ramsey Naja say it as it is – with more than just a touch of sarcasm. (To be read in context, and in line with years of similar requests going unheard).
Naja said, “I think that the best thing that could happen to this industry is actually for creatives to vanish permanently from senior and C-suite positions and leave their place, once and for all, to the hordes of bean-counters, data-scientists, tech boffins, assorted business wheeler-dealers and brown-nosing aficionados.”
He added, “This way the ‘transformation’ would be complete, purveyors of predictability would breathe and the whole edifice would be seen for what it is: a soulless machine that churns out machine-assembled beige rubbish at an ever-increasing rate, until the fraudulent façade crumbles. Only then can a renaissance truly happen.”
Benefits of setting creatives loose
Taking a creative approach to the call for creativity at the highest levels, The Romans’ Joe Lipscombe said, “When Richard Feynman won his Nobel Prize in Physics, he said it came from watching students throw plates in the cafeteria of Cornell University. He decided to try and crack the equation for why the Cornell medallion was rotating faster than the plate itself. When asked why he was doing it, he said there was no reason at all. He was just curious. It was completely selfish, random, and unnecessary. And yet, it led to the Nobel Prize in physics.”
“Creatives are a nuisance. The creative process requires randomness, curiosity, and a defiance of the rational and predictable. C-Suites tend to operate in contradiction of that. They’re risk averse and (try to be) efficient. You can see why they’d rather keep the fox out the henhouse,” Lipscombe added.
He went on to say, “Creativity isn’t a product, it’s a method en route to innovation. Having a creative chief at the table isn’t about increasing representation, it could influence the entire mindset and method of the company. Our commercial approaches are stagnant, we’re stuck on how to fix the working model, and we’re commoditising our services more and more. A creative renegade set loose on these problems could spark radical solutions, but we rarely see the potential.”
Status quo isn’t effective anymore
While it seems to be good that boardroom are becoming more data-led and analytical in their decision making, there’s an apprehension building that this is leading to a non-emotional, formulaic, numbers-led form of marketing, which is an industry that ought to focus on empathising with consumers and their emotions instead.
“The region needs to embrace more pure creative force within corporate structures and most importantly, give them the freedom to create. This is going to definitely pay off in the medium to long term because consumer behaviour and attention spans have changed. We need creatives who can identify this and communicate to consumers using their own terminologies,” said Ibrahim Abudyak, Founder and Creative Director of JOKES ASIDE, and the CEO and Co-Founder of The Smash Room.
“The traditional way of managing the corporate environment isn’t effective anymore, because in this age of social media and technology, creatives in top leadership will ignite interesting conversations and drive innovation from within, enabling corporates to adapt their communication,” Abudyak added.
Has the time come to fix the balance between invaluable business acumen and the irreplaceable power of creative vision? Will the industry make a concerted effort to ensure that creative voices are not only heard but have a prominent seat at the table.
The optimal scenario sees creative experts work hand-in-hand with data scientists, strategists, and technologists to craft holistic, forward-thinking marketing strategies.
But is this merely a utopian or overly idealistic dream that will always remain slightly beyond reach?
Only time will tell.
