Back to basics
Why good ideas will turn your clients into tiny drug addicts
I get the same question emailed to me over and over again – Do you have any advice for dealing with clients who constantly have problems and changes? It a complicated solution but part of the answer to the problem is, like the headline says, because you are making your clients into little drug addicts and you don’t even know it. Before you think that I’ve finally gone over the edge – let me explain.
Let’s start by looking at the typical life cycle of any creative project. You get the project from the client, you come up with some concepts to solve the problem, you present those solutions back to the client and then you go build the solution. We can narrow down from there to say that problems with our clients start after the presentation and go until the project is finished. What happens after the presentation that makes this happen?
When you present a good idea to a client they get excited. They get happy. They tell other people about the idea. They put the comps up on the wall of their office. But most importantly they get an endorphin hit from all that excitement and they like the way it feels. It’s different than what they feel in all of their other mundane and repetitive meetings during the day. They like the way it feels so much that they are going to go looking for that feeling (another hit) again as the process goes along. The problem is that after the creative presentations are done they aren’t going to find that feeling again because you go from the creation phase into the production phase. So how do they get another hit? How do they feel that way again? They make changes to the work, no matter how good the idea is, in an attempt to get that rush and feeling of creating something new again. The problem is that making changes during the production phase is that it is the worst possible time to do it because it creates a lot of re-work and added expense.
So how do you give them that hit they are looking for and keep control of your idea and project?
Give them a road map
The best thing is to let your client know what the road ahead is going to look like and walk them through your process so they know aren’t going to get that feeling again until the end of process when they see the finished product. You should also explain what their involvement will be along the way with timing and milestones. It gives you something to manage to and something you can refer back to if the client starts getting restless and wants to make changes looking for that hit.
Mock-ups, prototypes and ripomatics
If you have a client who really needs that hit of new creative to get them through, then you need to build a bridge between the hit they get from the energy and optimism of the creative presentation and the next hit they will get from seeing the final finished version of the concept. It’s a balancing act that means you need to show them more work or include them in some part of the process so they feel like they are contributing and creating the end result with you. Each medium presents its own challenges for how to get this done and how to strike that balance between control and inclusion. For print work I create mock-ups so they can see the ad in a a real newspaper, magazine or mock-up of the final produced version. For digital work I will ether create prototypes so they can see the comps come to life or try to include them in the process for things like user testing so they get a hit from seeing the work in a new form and have a check-in point that they are good with the executional direction before we get too far down the road. For broadcast work I use a similar approach to what I do for digital by either creating animatics or ripomatics of the storyboards or including them in the process for things like VO session. I think all of these work because it gives your client a new thing they can show around the office and makes them feel like an insider who is getting to see the final work before the rest of the world.
Obviously this isn’t true for everyone and there are client who just want to make changes to flex their power and make themselves feel like their are control but take a new look at your problem clients and maybe you will see them in a new light. Maybe their constant changes are a twisted compliment to the quality of your ideas and the fact that they want more of them.
Read more of: Why good ideas will turn your clients into tiny drug addicts »
Presenting Creative 101 – Part 3: The Presentation
THE PRESENTATION
12 FEET VS. 4 FEET
As I have studied more and more about what goes into being a good presenter I have found that it happens on conscious and unconscious levels. There are a lot of things that you are naturally aware of on a subconscious level that you can use to your advantage. The first of those things is having an understanding of how you can use your proximity to your clients to your advantage.
Whenever you look at the physical spacial relationship between two people any time you move inside of a four foot radius from someone you are inside their persons space and that will create a strong positive and comforting connection or negative uncomfortable reaction. The inverse of that personal space bubble is if someone is more than 12 feet away from you they are in disconnected space. This means that there is so much space between you and your audience that they feel that they can disengage from you and what you are presenting. We have all seen this in action in school because it’s why all the slackers would always sit in the back of the classroom.
Use these spacial relationships to your advantage and make sure that whenever you have to give a presentation you’re in the sweet spot between 4 and 12 feet away from your audience. This means that if you are presenting in a large boardroom table position yourself in the middle of the table so you are in the sweet spot instead of standing at the end where you will lose people at the other end.
DEATH TO THE SEE AND SAY
If I wanted everything read to me I would have bought the audio book
One of my biggest pet peeves is going to a meeting or conference and having to sit through slide after slide as the presenter does nothing but read the content on each slide. A lot of people do this as a crutch when they are really nervous or think they aren’t a good presenter. The problem is that no matter what that presenter is really saying your subconscious is hearing what I have written on the slide above. That happens for two reasons. First, your audience can read the content on each slide faster than you can say it so they know where you are going and tune out after you have talked about 1/3rd of the slide. Second, and more importantly, is that when you stand there doing nothing but reading your slides you are subconsciously telling your audience you don’t know what you’re talking about.You aren’t providing them with even the most narrative beyond what is written on the slide and it creates a subconscious perception that you lack authority. Having a client or an audience come to that conclusion about you is catastrophic because they will never have any trust or confidence in you.
ALL EYES ON ME
Killing the skip aheads
Whenever you do a presentation it’s an exercise in keeping the focus and attention of your audience on you. I have found that understanding basic psychology helps that happen and some things you can do that will help are:
PROJECT OR USE ONE DECK
You want every client looking at the same thing, at the same time, so you keep them from skipping ahead, forming opinions about work without the benefit of an explanation and then disengaging from what you are saying. When you present either project your presentation or use one printed deck so all eyes are on one thing, This keeps everyone engaged, look at the same thing, focused on you and most importantly lets you control the pace of the meeting. If you give everyone their own copy of the presentation you lose that control and that focus which is so critic to being an effective presenter.
NO HAND OUTS TILL THE END
Keeping any hand out till the end supports the use one deck concept I explained above but it recognizes that clients will want to be able to look at the work after the meeting. If you do it sooner then you will have 50% of the group on the same page, 25% not paying attention at all and 25% flying through it ignoring what you have to say. Keep their focus on you during the meeting and then they can have their own copy to review at the end.
BUILDS. BUILDS. BUILDS.
I am a firm believer that the words ‘Powerpoint’ and ‘design’ should never exist in the same sentence but I think it is critical to use slide builds in any presentation. If you look at the slide above you see a a basic slide with a title and 5 bullet points. If you show this slide with all the content already revealed then your clients human nature is going to be to read the content you put up on the screen. They can read faster than you can talk and they aren’t listening to what you have to say. They know where you are going to go with that piece of your presentation so you will start to lose a high percentage of the room who will drift off until you go to the next slide. You have lost their focus simply by not having each of the bullet points build in when you want them to. So while it may seem like a small thing, using builds for each line of the slide will keep the room focused on you and keep them listening to what it is you have to say.
PASSWORD PROTECTED PDF’S
There are a lot of occasions when you aren’t going to have the luxury of presenting to clients face or face or even over a web cast. In those instances you still need to try to control the focus of the presentation as much as you can so I will send out the presentation as a PDF but make them password protected. This way I know I can at least control when everyone sees the work and I can try to minimize the people who skip ahead as much as possible.
It can be a controversial technique and I’ve had some clients get really at mad me for doing it. My explanation is always that my team and I have put a lot of work into the project and I want to the chance to be able to present the work and the thinking . I don’t want assumptions to be made ahead of time which are going to mitigate what I have to say because they have already made up their minds.
I also do this because on an unspoken level I have to maintain my position as a leader and have my client give me the basic respect of listening to what I have to say. If I send that presentation ahead of time, let them go through it without me and form their own assumptions then I am giving up that leadership and respect by subconsciously admitting I have nothing to add.
USE STRUCTURE TO OVER COMES YOUR NERVES
Think of it like presentation training wheels
If you are nervous about presenting them here are two different techniques I have used that may help you get over that fear and help to start to build your confidence.
CHASE THE RABBIT
The hardest part of a presentation is the beginning because you have to be the first to stand up in front of everyone, get all the conversations to stop, set the tone and get a rhythm going. It can intimidating and scary so when you are just starting to do presentation think about having a more senior member of the team start the meeting. It gives you time to get into the flow of the meeting, get rid of some of the butterflies and you can follow (chase) that more senior member of the team. It is a simple but effect way to get your confidence up.
HAND OFFS
Similar to chasing the rabbit, doing a presentation with another person so you can hand off from one section to another helps break the presentation down into smaller parts and lets you study and evolve your technique in the meeting.
BENEFITS
Talk about your work in terms of business benefits
This is associated with the concept I discussed in my last post that ‘Not everyone can see it’. In that case I was talking about the fact that everyone can visualize concepts and designs in their head. In this case it is the fact that most clients don’t look at your work in the same design terms that you do. They spend all day talking about business issues so you need to look at your audience and see if you need to do the same. Instead of talking about your choice in fonts, colors, etc. in terms of what it does for the design, talk about in terms of how it solves the business problem and what business benefits it will provide. So when you are presenting the work think in those terms so instead you will say things like “We chose this typeface and color palette because it resonates with our core demographic, that will build the brand recognition and that recognition will help increase sales”. I have also found that when you are able to do that then your client will see the thinking in a way they understand and will not try to find it themselves in the designs. If you have clients that rip apart your designs and nip pick everything little thing it is probably because they are trying to find that logic and those benefits so the designs make sense to them in a way they understand.
TAKE THEIR TEMPERATURE
Check in early and often
Checking in with your client through the course of your presentation is important for two reasons. First is that it makes your audience switch from a passive listening mode to an active thinking mode to answer your question. That simple switch in thinking modes helps wake them up, focus them and make sure they are keeping their attention on you. It is also a really good trick if you are presenting blind over a conference call because asking questions and checking in will keep your clients from skipping too far ahead. The questions will create a sense of risk and they may not be able to answer a question if they are too far ahead or not listening.
From here we will be moving on to how to handle problem clients and dealing the aftermath of the presentation. If you have comments, thoughts or additions feel free to put them in the comments because this is by no means a complete or definitive document and I always love to hear other opinions.
Read more of: Presenting Creative 101 – Part 3: The Presentation »
Presenting Creative 101 – Part 2: The Set-up
In the first part of this series we look at look at how as creatives we have to do more than just present our work and there are some key things we need to understand to be able to get a client’s trust. Now we are going to look at the most important part of any presentation – the set-up.
THE SET-UP
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
One size doesn’t fit all
Anytime you are going to do a presentation you want to find out as much as you can about your audience so you can so you can put together a plan for how you are going to sell you work. That plan should dictate your presentation style and lead to questions like should the presentation have a lot of detail and set-up or should you get right to the point? It should also lead to executional questions like do you need to comp up every single variation or will your audience be able to get the concept with just a few key visual? Working through these types of questions and use the answers and your insights to your advantage because they will help you find the best way to communicate with your audience and get your work sold.
ASSIGNED SEATING
Use seating to help control the focus of the room
Knowing your audience is also key to knowing if there are clients or group of people that will cause side conversations and distractions during your presentation. These problematic groups can derail your meeting, create a lack of focus on you or bigger problems. A simple way to control that is to use where people are seated in the room to control the focus. If there are two clients who usually sit together and have a side conversation then put them on opposite sides of the table but close to you so they can’t talk to each other without interrupting you. It is a small thing but it can really help the flow of the meeting and get the work sold.
KNOW THE ROOM
Seating, projectors, white boards, lighting…
Don’t let something as simple as not having the right laptop adaptor for the projector or the dial-in number not working make you look like you don’t know what you are doing. You haven’t even opened your mouth and your client is sitting there thinking “you want me to give $200,000 to someone who can’t even figure out how to turn on the projector to start the meeting?”. It may sound harsh but subconsciously it happens all the time. So don’t let something that small and simple hurt that critical confidence you are trying to create with clients. Before your meeting swing by the room you are going to use and to be sure you know where the room is located, how it is laid out, how the lighting works, what cord the projector uses and if there is a power outlet you can use. It will take 2 minutes to answer those questions and will be well worth the time.
MAKE IT AN EVENT
If it is an important meeting – make it feel important
If you are having an important meeting or are presenting a big project make it feel like something different from all the other meetings your clients sits through every day. I use things that are a part of the clients brand like take aways, snacks, flowers or even candles to create a visual impact as soon as they walk into the room. It tells my clients this is going to be an important meeting, that I understand their brand and that I am excited about the work. It starts to create that sense of confidence before the meeting even starts or they see one piece of creative. Plus all of this can be done for as little as $20 – $40.
TELL ME A STORY
Bring your creative process to life
You can use the concept of telling a story two different ways. The first is exactly what you would think in that your presentation should, like any good story, have a beginning, middle and end. The beginning of your presentation should set the pace, introduce the story and set the stage. The middle should elaborates on the beginning and be the heart of the story where everything is explained. The end should wrap up everything and set the stage for the next episode.
You can also look at it that when you present creative work you have the license to make the way you present more of a work of theater. I don’t mean put on costumes and sing songs but instead think about the fact that you have the license to improve upon the story you tell your client about the work. You can take the fact that you really came up with the concept you are presenting while sitting at your desk and make it into how you were driving to work, saw something, were struck with inspiration and the concept came to you. It is a more engaging and personalized approach than simply standing up there and revealing the work.
LIMIT CHOICES
Edit. refine. edit. refine.
Getting your client’s trust means that you present anything you have to have a point of view about their brand, their work and the project your are presenting. This is important for two reasons. First, is that point of view puts you in a leadership position as someone who is in charge of the business and that position creates trust and confidence. Second, is because it will help you refine and edit your the work you’re going to present down to only the choices that are in line with your vision. Not having that vision usually leads to two different actions – throwing in the step child and guessing.
We have all done it at some point. You have 2 really good options but you told the client you would present 3 concepts so you throw in that step child concept no one believes in to hit your number. You present all three, the client picks the third one you threw in at the end and now you have to put whip cream on the onion to make it work. For a long time I thought it was because clients, like dogs, can smell fear and you key on the one concept you were afraid of. Since then my thinking has evolved to knowing that it was my fault for throwing in something I didn’t believe in and not doing a good enough job of selling the two better ideas. If I would have stuck with my vision then the finished project would have been one of the concepts I knew would have worked better.
Onto the subject of guessing. I recently had an agency do a presentation to one of my clients where they presented 8 different campaign directions and I got the sense that they felt like they had really gone the extra mile to produce all of this work. I saw it as a group that was completely lost with no clue about where to take the business. They didn’t have a point of view, they were grasping at straws hoping something you stick and as a result I had no trust or confidence in them. I would rather they present a strong singular vision, even if it was wrong, than just guess wildly.
Have faith in your vision and have the strength to present it because your client will respond to that much better than if you just guess and hope you hit something.
PRACTICE. PRACTICE. PRACTICE.
Then practice some more.
If you want to get better at presenting then practice. It’s so simple it’s obvious but we all know because of the demands on our time it is really hard to find the time. If it’s early in the morning or at night after you have gone home you have to find the time and an audience to practice. It is so important because you have to be in command of the material and work on your personal style to get better.
It may sound silly but I used to practice with a video camera sitting next to my dog. I did it so I could look into somethings’s eyes when I was practicing instead of talking to a blank wall. I had the video camera so after I went through my pitch I could play it back to see if the performance matched the mental image I had in my head of the performance. Time after time I found when I watched the video playback it was like when I recorded my answering machine message and thought “I don’t really sound like that do I?”. You smooth things over in your head and create a slight different perception of yourself. Being able to step outside of myself to see how I looked and sounded was really important to understand how to do a better job. It’s easier than ever to do this now with pretty much every every iPhone and smartphone having the ability to record video. You can set it up anywhere, anytime to grab some practice time. Just remember to delete it before your significant other posts it to YouTube for some laughs.
WHAT DO YOU WANT THEM TO DO?
The most important thing in any meeting or presentation is making sure your team has a clear understanding of what you want the client to do at the end of the meeting. The way you build the deck, the story you tell and everything in between should all lead your client to taking that action. If you can’t answer that simple question then the meeting is going to be a mess that wonders around with no goal and too many chances for things to go wrong.
From here we will be moving on to the presentation before ending with how to handle problem clients and dealing the aftermath of the presentation. If you have comments, thoughts or additions feel free to put them in the comments because this is by no means a complete or definitive document and I always love to hear other opinions.
Read more of: Presenting Creative 101 – Part 2: The Set-up »
Presenting Creative 101 – Part 1: What are we presenting?
Throughout my career I have consistently been given high praise for being really good at presenting creative and it didn’t happen by accident. Early on I realized that my design skills were only going to take me so far if I wasn’t able to sell my work. The problem was that I left college afraid to talk in front of a group and hadn’t been given any tools to sell my work. I needed to get over my fear, understand hot to sell and the psychology of it all. I started to hanging around with people who sell to high end clients for a living like venture capitalists, sports agents and PR agents to study their techniques. I even went so far as to read police interrogation books to understand how to analyze people and what makes people tick . It may sound really extreme but like I said this wasn’t anything I was taught in art school so I had to make up my own curriculum. Like the illustration above points out , the further you go in your career the further you are going to get away from you brought you into it. You are going to be doing less design work and the more budgets and presentations.
As I traveled around and worked with other creatives from all over the world who graduated from the best design school I heard that they had the same problem. So I wanted to share what I have learned with a broader audience in the hopes that it can help you too. It normally takes me about an hour and half to do this starter class so I am going to break it into three articles and try to keep the points short and to the point. This first article looks at the core to any great presentation and what we are really selling. Then in the second article we will go over the set-up to the presentation and the presentation itself. Finally we will look at how to handle problem clients and dealing the aftermath of the presentation. I hope this helps, please share what I have learned and if you would like me to present the full class at your conference drop me a line.
EVERYONE PRESENTS CREATIVE
The first thing that EVERYONE from the designers to the project managers and everyone in between needs to realize is that everyone in the creative team presents creative. Even if they aren’t pitching concepts or showing comps they present their work and the core principle listed here work for everyone on the team because all the pieces of a project are linked together.
PRESENTING = SELLING
Present spreadsheets. Sell creative.
Once you get everyone to understand that this is a part of the core DNA of any creative group then you need to change the way you think about presenting because what we are really doing is selling. If you have the results of an ad campaign from last quarter then you present it to the client but when you have a new project you are trying to make someone BUY something. Making someone buy something takes a totally different way of thinking from presenting.
SELLING CONFIDENCE NOT COMPS
So we are selling not presenting but what is it we are really selling? Comps? Concepts? Sorry but none of the above. We are selling trust and confidence. Unlike a car salesman who will let you sit in the car and take it for a test drive, we are selling air. We are selling the idea of something we want to make. Something we think will move people. Something we can roughly sketch up but wont be able to really show you in a finished form until we go on that photo shoot with the high price tag you’re going to find at the end of the presentation. So you, the client, need to trust that I know what I am doing. You need to trust that this is a great idea. You need to trust that the future of your career is safe in my hands and I am going to make you look like a hero at the end of all of this. Without that the best idea in the world will never see the light of day and will never make a difference to anyone.
HOW DO YOU SELL TRUST & CONFIDENCE?
Selling confidence sounds simple enough when you say it out loud but I have spent most of my career trying to perfect the process and it is a skill you will have to constantly evolve and adapt to meet the challenges of new projects and new clients. Here are some of the big things you need to do and be aware of to build trust with your clients.
ONE VOICE
Everyone needs to support each other no matter what
Selling creative and conveying confidence are a team concept. As you go through a project a client will interact with a lot of different team members and anyone one of them can break that confidence and throw a project into problems and changes in a heart beat. Problems and disagreements will happen but they need to be worked out behind the scenes. You need to speak with one voice on every presentation and cast doubt on what someone is saying or presenting so your client gets confidence from seeing a team that is completely behind one concept.
SHORT TERM MEMORY LOSS IN THE IVORY TOWER
Look at your work with fresh eyes so you can sell it
When you work on a project for a long time you get immersed in the details and problems which is a natural part of the creative process. When it comes time to finally present that work to the client you need to be able to develop the ability to remove yourself from that forrest of details and problems to be able to see the project with fresh eyes. To get short term memory loss so you don’t skip over key details and selling points, assume the client knows thing they don’t and, most importantly, you won’t do justice to all the hard work your team put into the project.. It is critical to be able to see how to present the work in a clean and simple way to someone who knows nothing about it so they can understand it and have confidence that it will work.
NOT EVERYONE CAN SEE IT
Don’t assume clients can see creative the same way you can
Working in digital I have been in a lot of meetings where co-workers use terms they know the client won’t understand to sound cool. The problem is that you may think you sounded cool but you probably just lost the connection with your client, made them feel self conscious for not being in the know and none of that leads them to feel confident about you or the work. You need to realize that not everyone has the ability to see designs in their minds eye the way that we can so you have to take that into consideration when you talk. Be overly descriptive or sketch the solution on the back of a piece of paper so everyone can see it. This will also help eliminate any confusion and those dreaded words from your client at the next meeting – “Oh… That wasn’t what I had in my head after our last meeting”.
Also realize that coming out of any presentation your work will probably be re-presented and it won’t be done by you. I always want to be confident that when my client leaves a meeting with me to go back to their office to show off the work to their boss they will be able to talk about it confidently because they understand all the details that went into it. If I talk over their head then that next presentation isn’t going to go well and the project could be sidetracked before it even got started.
EVERYTHING COMMUNICATES
You aren’t just selling your work with your words
Think about the fact that when you are presenting you are communicating with more than your words and that your body language and tone can say just as much. Doing things like slumping down in your chair, looking off into space or having an ambivalent tone about your work all subconsciously communicate a lack of confidence in what you are presenting. Think of it like a poker game and your client is subconsciously looking for tells about what you are really thinking.
PASSION & AUTHENTICITY
It’s OK to love your work
When it comes to creative the TV and movie generated idea of a slick person standing at the front of the behind a podium delivering the information in clear monotone can really hurt them. You were asked to create something out of nothing and that process should have infused the final result with elements that mean something to you. You aren’t presenting spreadsheets so have some passion about the work and let your client see it. Saying simple things like “I really love this idea” will let them know that you believe in the work. It will let me know you are going to bring this to life with the same passion you had when you created it. It will give them confidence that you have something invested in the project and that it means more to you and your team than just another assignment.
EMOTIONAL FOCUS
Go to your happy place
From the time I was around 8 years old though high school I shot competitive archery at a near Olympic level. It’s a sport of control and repetition that becomes a head game because it all about you. There is no team to jump on a mistake and save you. You win and you get all the glory. You lose and there is no one to blame but yourself. As a part of my training I had a coach who drilled it into my head that in high pressure situations nervousness is a self created emotion. When you need to make a shot your emotions are completely in your control.
Standing in front of a room full of clients needing to sell them on your concept can be intimidating. Anytime I need to deliver in a big meeting or present at a big conference I get nervous. It’s a natural reaction. The key is be aware that this is going to happen, that it is OK if it does and try to develop things to help you deal with it. For some people it is practicing the presentation until they know it forwards and backwards so they can go on autopilot. For other people it is finding comfort in going about the presentation in a ritualistic way so they find comfort and control in going through familiar ordered actions. For me it is finding a quiet place a few minutes before I need to present to sit down, close my eyes and think about something that makes me happy. It is usually something outside of work and away from whatever it is I am about to go do. Something that helps me get myself centered, clear my head and my nerves. This should be different for everyone since your personal triggers are going to be different.
All of this is just the beginning and like I said I will be moving on to the set-up for the presentation and the presentation itself in the next few days before ending with how to handle problem clients and dealing the aftermath of the presentation. If you have comments, thoughts or additions feel free to put them in the comments because this is by no means a complete or definitive document and I always love to hear other opinions.
Read more of: Presenting Creative 101 – Part 1: What are we presenting? »
Death to the client version
I need to vent and say that the fact that designers portfolios and award shows are littered with “agency” versions of campaigns drives me crazy. I don’t agree with this thinking that there is a good “agency” version that was done by the smart people at the agency and a bad “client” version that through client interference was made into a weak and diluted derivative of the what the agency really wanted to do. The reality is that when that TV spot runs, that print ad is printed or that web site goes live, consumers only see and your success metric will only be based on the the “client” version. I think that if the “client” version sucks then it is your fault that you weren’t a good enough salesman to keep them on track. So since you are going to do a ton or work either way why the hell don’t you make it something you can be proud of?
Before everyone goes leaping for the comment box to tell me it isn’t that easy know that I say that having had more than my fair share of difficult, demanding, head strong, screaming and clinically insane clients so I know it isn’t as easy as just saying there should only be one version and call it a day so here are something to do to keep things on track.
Practice safe design. Use a strategy and concept.
I have written about this before but always get your client sold on a strong strategy and concept. It gives you a clear direction and standard that you can use to keep things on track after the presentation when the client begins to get nervous about if the idea is really good enough, what will their boss think about it and if it will really work. Those nerves make them start to rethink things and make nervous changes. Having that concept that answers their needs will help you weed out a lot of those changes because it is easy to take a pass through the changes to see if they will support the concept or not.
Also if you keep the focus on the concept for the project and show them how it will answer their business need then it takes a lot of the pressure of the actual visual design. When they don’t see that solution then they try and find it in the visual design and they will tear it shreds looking for it.
Don’t follow blindly – Listen and find a reason to make the logo bigger.
If you work for me you know that it’s not your job to not just blindly take orders and do the clients bidding. It is the job of every designer that if you get feedback that isn’t going to help or support the concept then go back to try and understand the reasoning behind the request so you can find a better way to solve the problem we will all be happy with. I have found a lot of success with this because the client knows you are listening to them, they feel like they are part of the solution, we can create a reason for the change to happen and I don’t have a concept that gets derailed at the 11th hour.
Embrace changes from everywhere.
We all know that change is a core part of the creative process. When a creative director tells you to fix something in a comp it is change. When you rewrite a TV script it is change. But when a client tell you to alter something then change takes on a different and negative connotation. I this happens because it is input that is external to the creative group so it isn’t accepted in the same way. It’s critical that you alter your process so all change is looked upon equally and, like I said above, you find ways to make those changes make sense in the concept so you keep your concept on track.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The last part of this whole process is the unspoken power struggle for trust and respect that is at the root of all of this. When you present the work you are in control. Things go well if your client respects and trusts you then they will trust your vision for the project so the final result is produced to your vision. If they don’t trust you then after the presentation they will take over control and show you no respect by dictating changes, tell you how to change the concept and doing your job for you. When this happens you have to find a way to regain control of the project and build up that client respect or you will find yourself in situations time after time where you weren’t in control of the creative direction but you will be held responsible for the results. I have an article I wrote a while back that goes into more detail on the issue and is a good read if you are having issues in this area.
I think that if you try to make this change and change the mentality of your creative group then you will not only have to no longer create two version of every project but you will see happier clients who get better and more effective work.
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Domino’s Turnaround builds up then destroys their pizza and brand
By now you have probably seen the new Domino’s Pizza campaign from Crispin Porter called The Pizza Turnaround where Domino’s monitored consumer comments about the brand on social media channels and according to this feedback they created new pizza recipes. Crispin did a great job with the TV spots and a slightly longer form documentary because it makes you want to give Dominos another chance. My wife who is a serious foodie even turned to me on the couch the other night after one of the spots aired and said ‘I always hated Dominos but after that I would give them another chance.’ The advertising did everything you could have asked of it because it changed people’s opinions and created an intent for them to act on it. Pop the champaign, make room on the trophy wall and tell the client to increase the advertising budget because we have a winner… or do we?
I went to the campaign site today to dig around a little more before I wrote this post about how successful the campaign has been when that feeling and my intent to actually try the new Domino’s came crashing down around me. On PizzaTurnaround.com you find the previously mentioned documentary, one news story and a Twitter feed that displays tweets with the tag #newpizza running down the right hand column. As you start to read down the column you quickly see that people’s love seemingly only extends to the campaign as I did not see one positive comment from anyone who actually tried the pizza. The first four found Tweets I read were “Tried the new Dominos pizza….. In my mind, collossal fail.”, “Meh it was ok…”, “im not feeling the new crust. i miss the old dominos.” and “not so great. Since when did “add more garlic/butter” = make things better?! Blech.”. That noise you hear is my intent to try the new product exiting stage left.
Using social media to give brand transparency to consumers can be a powerful tool but it has be used carefully and thought out to work correctly. In this case you are asking consumers to give your brand another chance and your advertising delivers that intent but it is a tenuous opportunity. From the time when you create that intent until the time when it gets paid off you can’t have any bumps in the road because the bond to the brand isn’t that strong yet. These Tweets are big bumps that are going to break that bond and kill the opportunity. I don’t know why this site didn’t take it’s cues from the video it was supposed to support and MAKE IT A TWO WAY DIALOG! Your video said you were listening to consumers and you were responding so why did that stop once the campaign launched? It makes the video feel like just an advertising stunt and that the brand really isn’t listening. You have a chance here to be transparent and let people post their thoughts BUT Domino’s has to be part of the conversation. They have to address these comments and not let them destroy what they are trying to build. It is the only way this is going to go from a quick fix to a real long term solution that will restore their business.
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Are you a creative manager or a leader?
Over the years I have come to embraced that fact that I am a process voyeur and I realized it happened because it is a skill I needed to developed to be successful over the course of my career. It first started when I went from designer to art director because that change requires you to be able to stand up and present your ideas to your clients and you become aware of presentation craft, the dynamics of team hierarchies and politics that create a need to tailor your presentation based on the audience and what they will respond to. I had to grow and refine those skills again when I moved into pitching new business because I had to have the ability to understand the dynamics of a new group quickly to find the best angles to sell ideas and win new business. That skill then transformed for the final time when I became a Creative Director and had to be able to understand the dynamics and motivations of my own studio so I could get the best work and the best out of my people. In the end it has given me the ability to read and analyze group dynamics, process work flows and individual behavioral cues to see how to tailor my process, communications and presentation style to get the best results. I wanted to talk about some general observations I see all the time within creative groups and companies that are worth the time to self analyze to see where you fall and if it is an area you should spend some time thinking about and working on.
I want to start with focusing on a big problem I have consistently found with the leadership style of senior creatives through my career – managers vs leaders. The best creative directors I have ever worked for had figured out a way to have the two characteristics combine but those instances were sadly very rare. I think that the ability to combine the two characteristics is especially important when you are leading a creative team because you are dealing with individuals who all create in different ways, get inspirited in different ways and who have different latent levels but all need to work together and produce a product that is in line with the creative directors vision.
Round the table we go…
Managers do just what the name implies and sadly not much more. Their leadership style consists managing the project load for the group and the individual deliverables that have been assigned to each person. They usually hold a weekly status meeting where the team slowly and painfully goes around the room reporting in on their progress of the previously mentioned workload and concludes with a quick rundown of the highlights from the latest company newsletter. This method maybe be great for employees who do repetitive and mindless tasks but anyone who is being asked to be creative it is a slow, uninspired death where you increasingly feel like your career is going no where.
If you are in charge of a group then being a manager has to be part of your tool kit but it has to balanced out with vision and leadership. Everyone says they want to be a leader and even talking like one is pretty easy but it is your philosophy, actions and follow through that will be the ultimate judge of if that is really the true or not.
Stand for something
Leaders have a vision for the way they want to run their studio, if they will focus on ideas or deliverables, the direction and focus of the work and how they are going to grow and evolve the people who work for you. They set the tone and have a plan for moving their people and their aspirations forward and not just manage their deliverables. But this means they have to take the hard road of doing things like having unpleasant conversations as they are trying to effect a change to actually standing up for their for beliefs and vision which may not be popular inside of the company. I think the willingness to stand up for yourself and your beliefs is found far, far too rarely because it is easier to just blend in, not make waves and accept mediocrity generated by diluted mass thinking. When you stand up for something you claim a position and no longer move hidden within the crowd and it lets the small minded managers and office politicians sit in the background and judge for your views, take shots at them and try to tear it down. It’s a hard road to travel and you often find yourselves traveling it with few if any companions.
It takes confidence to be able to go down that road especially since you have to create confidence in something other than what you got into this business to do. I got into this business to be a designer but the longer your creative career the farther you will find yourself from what you loved and got you here in the first place. I continue to move me farther and father away from being able to actually be a designer on a day to day basis and have had to add this tools to be a process voyeur and idea filter I spoke of before. Once I was placed in a leadership position it had to be done or else the growth of the development of my group would depend on the motivation of the individual creatives which meant it would be uneven, headed in the wrong direction or even non-existent.
The creative process by its very nature is personal and emotional and your leadership style should be no different. You are not going to find the secret to your leadership style in a book or anywhere in this blog because it has to come from you. You have to use your own experience to become an inspirational spark, a career mentor and guard against mediocrity. You have infuse your experience and vision but it will only happen if you really believe it and follow through with it every day. Be introspective with you own creative process to find the insights that let create great work and use them as a guide to be able to able to set a direction and tone for everyone else. It can be a hard first step to move away from the crowd and stand for something but it is the only way you will be able to create great work, keep people for more than 2 years and build a successful team. Any other thoughts or comments feel free to but them in the comments below.
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If a good interface is hidden and no sees it how does it make a difference?
I’m a car guy. I love to drive a great car and I love a great car design. The new Chevy Camero intrigued me in that ‘it’s a cool design but still won’t buy an American car’ kind of way and so I checked out the site. I was in the photo gallery and found one of those things about the site that is like the American car industry itself – a nice design idea badly merchandised and probably lost on most everyone. In this case you go to the photo gallery and the obvious move would be to go to the ‘view all photos’ tab at the bottom of the page that reveals the standard long line of tiny thumbnails that you can randomly click across to reveal the true content of the photo that looked like nothing but an amorphous blog in the thumbnail. After you select the previously mentioned amorphous blog the main photo changes along with two smaller photos on the right hand side. If you are paying attention you will realize that two smaller photos are actually the photos directly before and after the large photo on the left hand side. If you are really, really paying attention and curious to rollover those smaller photos you will find that they are also navigation that lets you move from photo to photo without the need for the standard interface at the bottom of the page. It’s a really nice elegant solution to this kind of content and surprisingly something I had never seen before. That being said my reaction to the good execution is quickly drowned by the anger generated from the realization that most people will never know it is there. If they just would have taken the time to develop the short term memory loss needed to see that what they have created is too much design and not enough usability. So all of your designers out there please take the time to look at your work with fresh eyes or show it to your mom, your dog or whoever you need to be able to see if your solution is as genius in the real world as you think it is in your head.
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Why is client-side creativity too often a self-defeating process?
I came across something really interesting this week that was near and dear to my heart for two reasons. It was a site called ‘Dear American Airlines‘ that was created by Dustin Curtis who wanted to show American Airlines what an updated design could look like for their brand. He didn’t take the subtle route with comments like “If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed–no ashamed–to have a Web site with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now…Your Web site is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.” Shortly after posting it Dustin received a response from a user experience architect who works on AA.com titled “ You’re right. You’re so very right. And yet…”. It goes into a long description of the reasoning behind why their corporate culture has blunted and paralyzed the design of the site to the point where the site and customer experience suffers greatly.
This problem, this brand and this trend are all very near and and dear to my heart because I worked on American Airlines’s advertising for 4 years and I spent all of that time begging to get my hands on their site. Those attempts were greeted with the list of excuses that are chronicled in the letter Dustin received. It’s a problem that I have seen too many times over the years with my clients and even in my current client side position. So why does it keep happening? What goes wrong inside the creative process of a corporate structure that creates this dysfunction?
Short term memory loss in the ivory tower
I think the first part of the problem is a matter of perspective and being able to look at a project with fresh eyes. When a team starts working on a project they forget that when it is released the site the customer experiences is completely blind to the logic, compromises and excuses that have been built up on the by the internal team over the course of the project. The consumer doesn’t know or care about why something was de-scoped to awkward solution or that you will fix it when you get around to version 2.0. You have to have the ability to develop short term memory loss and be able to see the work with fresh eyes or else those problems will be glossed over by the meaningless internal reasoning for why they it wasn’t right. You have to look at it from the customers point of view because that is the only true reality and that will determine the success or failure of the site.
I think this happens the most inside of a corporate structure because you live with the brands, their problems, their work and their excuses so you become desensitized to them. The symptoms of this are usually expressed as eye rolling and under the breath jokes in meetings when you try to propose solutions to fix long standing problems that are en-snared with internal politics and problems. It is a hard place to be in when you have to be the person who needs to stand up against the apathy and frustration that lives around these issues and try to effect change. You constantly have to work to keep a fresh view of what the outside world is seeing. The only advice I would have would to try and start with small problems that can really be solved to get momentum and then try to work up to the larger ones building on the smaller successes.
Better design doesn’t just come from better designers
I wrote the previous paragraph knowing full well that even if you develop the ability to rise above the internal excuse blindness you still have to overcome a massive problem. Let’s look at the problem by creating a comparison between a web site that is produced by an agency and one produced by an internal creative team. What is the difference in the process and structure between the two where you generally see more cutting edge and powerful solutions out of the agency than what you see out of internal creative teams? The divergence isn’t in the process of how the work is created but in how it gets feedback, gets approved and the hierarchy is has to travel through. At an agency the creatives are in a structure that puts them at the center of the universe and empowers them to be leaders and the voice in guiding the vision with supporting teams to help delivery of their vision. In a typical corporate hierarchy creatives aren’t the center of the universe and they have they aren’t empowered to be able to influence the final deliverable because their work has to go up a decentralized corporate approval system. This breaks the idea in to multiple directions by multiple stakeholders who dilutes it in to smaller and safer ideas a large group can take credit for and will satisfy the internal approval audience. This is a crime because the internal creative teams have the best view into the problems that need to be solved for the company and can bring solutions to market faster than those created by an external agency who aren’t as familiar with all the nuances.
If you ask any company they will always say how they want to be like Apple or BMW and produce these breakthrough ideas and designs but they don’t understand that better designs and ideas aren’t going to come from hiring better designers. They come from a fundamental structural shift where the people with the best ideas are given the most power and best ability to execute on their ideas without having to put them through a mouse trap like system that robs them of their power. Hopefully more and more people will come to understand this problem so more good ideas see the light of day.
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Creative is all about R-E-S-P-E-C-T
As of today I have been writing this blog for four years and I am not sure why I feel like this is more of a milestone than the previous three years but it caused me to go back and take a long look at what I have had to say over that span of time. There is a very clear focus in my writing on trying to analyze, detail and document what I think goes into making great ideas, great creative and great creative teams. In looking back at what I have written I did see that I have neglected what is probably the most important part of have great ideas, running a successful creative group and keeping great creative talent – respect.
Wikipedia defines it as esteem for, or a sense of the worth or excellence of, a person, a personal quality, ability, or a manifestation of a personal quality or ability. That is a great textbook definition but what does it really mean in real life? For me it means that if you work with me you not only say what you mean but then you follow through on it. It’s that action that is critical for me because lack of follow through, lack of inclusion or just flat out ignoring what I am trying to contribute shows me huge lack or respect to my work and my talent. I have gravitated towards that attitude because for me actions are clear and generally free of the bullshit , partial truth and spin that can color what people say.
When it comes to leading a group of creatives the problem is that respect is probably the most important thing you and your team need to have success but it also the hardest to control and develop. It is a multi-dimensional problem as it exists and is needed in several places throughout your process and an idea life cycle.
Respect thy fellow designer
I have written a lot about how I think that techniques like constant failure and even fighting can be used as essential parts of creating great ideas and running a successful creative group. The asterisk that should have appeared at the end of those statements is that those two techniques are only possible if the group has enough respect for each other that they are able to make those exercises work. If you don’t have that respect then those exercises won’t work because you don’t respect the talent of the designer next to you enough that you think they can come up with the right or better solution.
Leadership is more than a job title
During my career I have found that the two most common reasons why creative people change jobs are for money or because they feel like their talent or work is no longer respected. I have sadly seen a lot of designers who leave only for money rarely find success or long life in their new role. I think this is because they are usually blinded by that one dimension of the new position and aren’t taking the time to look at the whole picture to be sure it is the best fit for them. The issue of feeling like your work or contribution isn’t respected can come either as one big gesture here you see it quickly and clearly or it can come in a long series of small gestures that slowly add up over time but in either case it comes to the same end.
Even if you have the greatest idea…
Probably the biggest and most important area you have to have respect to be successful is with your clients. It isn’t hard to get a read on your client to know if it is going to be a relationship where they value your opinion or if they are going to just treat you like a commodity who needs to do what they say. I think this is the most important aspect of respect in the creative process because you could have he best idea in the world that would totally change your clients business but if they don’t respect and trust you enough to listen to it and then go through with it it won’t go anywhere.
So knowing where the problems come from only lets you know where to watch to see if you or your team is at risk but what should do to make sure you don’t have these problems? I try and do the following…
Talk and walk your talk
I have always believed that the biggest thing you have to to have people respect you is to always be honest people, tell them what you think and then actually do what you say. The biggest mistake I encountered time and time again in my career are boss’s who say what you want to hear and then they never follow through with it. As I said before people will judge you by your actions and showing them lack of respect can could be a small thing like a comment on a piece of creative all the way up to much larger things like no doing what you said when it comes to your career.
Respect yourself and your creativity
I think this goes hand in hand with that I had to say above because you have to respect yourself and your creativity enough to have the confidence to tell people the truth and to stick to what you say. If you don’t believe in yourself and your opinions then you tend to want to take the easy road and tell people what they want to hear. This is really the only part of all of this that you can have a real and immediate effect but your team can and will pick up on it and ti will effect all aspects of their confidence, focus and their willingness to go that extra mile for you.
I am sure this is a subject I will revisit in the coming months as I give it more thought and concentrate on other ways you can increase it in your creative group. If you have any good techniques feel free to post them in the comments.
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