The one place where I believe you are wrong is when you say “there isn’t anything I can do about it.” If you believe that, you are defeated before you start. There are things you can do. I don’t know the particulars of your situation, nor do I have to know them. There is always something you can do about it. Might the options be unpleasant or might they feel like steps back? Could be. But making any change is better than staying in a bad situation without doing anything. I’m close to finishing a post about why most people in business are creatively unfulfilled. If it doesn’t help you outright, maybe knowing you’re not alone will relieve some of your angst.

I hope this blog can provide inspiration. No one ever said it was easy realizing your creative potential.

I hate to say this, but a large part of the problem is society itself…not in the way that has already been addressed, but in the fact that our society has become one that likes to play it safe. Clients really hate untested, unproven ideas, and the end result is copying something that they know and understand…even to the point of copying their competitors just to be within the “safe zone”. And “committee think” only makes it worse–boiling everything down to the lowest common denominator out of fear of failure. And the result is blandness. No life or energy or personality. And completely forgettable.

Personally, I see being different as an advantage and that it should be exploited to its fullest. But in a world where the high school mentality of being like the other guy is supposedly cool, that is not possible. Especially when money is involved. I have never been exposed to a client that didn’t want to be everything to everybody, and the end result is mimicing other’s work because you can say “see, this works”. My ideas are not valued, but the stuff in Communication Arts is, so that’s what I do. I hate it, but there isn’t anything I can do about it.

Sorry for the rant…I couldn’t resist.

Tom, thanks for everthing you do. You are an inspiring guy (I had a chance to meet you at a seminar a few years ago). I only wish I had the opportunity to take advantage of all that inspiration…

Thanks to everybody who replied above. I really enjoyed reading their responses especially about students!

I would assume there is some short-term success to be gained by outright stealing of others’ ideas. Conversely (or is it inversely?), I would also assume this success would plateau at some point.

To me, the greatest success would be found in the creation of new ideas (even if they are built upon the accumulation of ideas past).

“Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.”

This is one area I think we’d rather see stealing than borrowing. You don’t own what you borrow. If you steal, you have to own it. (i.e. Don’t borrow from others’ ads, but steal from the experiences they gave you.)

;-p

My first gig out of college was for a major B2B ad agency. Art director regulary flipped through CA and took, not got inspiration from, but took ideas and put them down as his own.

As for these kids today, the cannibalization of pop culture seems to be getting worse. Forget satire of things from a decade or two past, seems anything two months old is fair game for use in ads and mashing up.

Where do we get inspiration from if what we’re now recycling constantly is the same eye candy?

Are schools hurting or helping the cause? Or are they merely holding up a mirror to agencies and giving them what they want in terms of new recruits? (Seems many programs today are pushing visual solutions while 20 years ago, copy was king.)

But no matter which, ethics is something we need to have taught in school in relation to the industry. Have a two-day seminar for students to talk about issues they will face in the real world. Things as simple as dealing with agency people who put you in the awkward position of having to choose “Oh, just go ahead and use the song, we have permission.” (wink, wink.)

Maybe it’s also the new ‘I’m entitled’ Napster generation who don’t think twice about downloading ‘free’ music. Technology has made access to so much easier, but we haven’t stopped to ask if we should.

Ernie, it’s good to see some of “us” accepting the blame. But I fear it’s the “us” who are not willing to be accountable who might be the problem here.

Matt, interesting to take a society-wide perspective. My focus is usually a bit narrower. Business. But, hey, much behavior in business is certainly influenced by greater forces.

As I work weekly, in lots of different categories, I might add, I see fear as the primary reason for sameness. Fear of being wrong, looking bad, or failing, on the part of the ideator, the ultimate approver, and, of course, those in the middle.

The second force I see that leads to sameness is simply laziness. It’s just easier to get others on board a warmed over idea. The old tried and true thing. Who ever said creative ideas sell themselves probably never had to sell one. Truly creative ideas are a damn hard to sell.

I actually see laziness as the main reason behind sameness in the music business. In the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s label execs found it much easier and less risky to reissue existing vinyl material as CDs, so the talent development mill slowed down dramatically. Starving artists either learned to conform or went underground. In fact, to the purist, commercial success was selling out, i.e. Green Day’s public abandoning them when Dookie went platinum.

Funny, but the area where talent development and creative groundbreaking had commercial success was in the hip hop/R&B world, where the execs and producers; Diddy, The Neptunes, Babyface and others, had been starving artists only a few years before.

Perhaps it’s simply comfort that discourages creativity. Which maybe does lead back to society. We have this cushy lifestyle. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t wrinkle my Sean Johns.

Whatever the negative forces, there are leaders in business who see creativeness as a component of success. That’s why people like Roger von Oech, Edward De Bono, yours truly and many others have client lists that read like the Dow and Nasdaq. I believe there is hope. A lot of it. Is it easy to free business execs from the forces of evil? Not usually. But it can be done. And I like challenges.

This is a huge topic. Expect to see it from different angles in this space.

The advertising world is falling prey to the same scenario. All these kids want, coming out of college, is a job. And while the elitist ad execs are quick to judge the lack of good, original portfolios, the students are caught not knowing what to expect. If what you want is originality, you better make sure the product these kids are seeing is original.

Why is that? Because it works, that’s why. Look, we can talk about original work that’s never been done before. And yeah, we can talk all we want about getting their noses out of CA and into an art gallery or an Annie Proulx novel. But here’s a truth you can bank on. Derivative stuff wins. At least, for a couple of years or so. Do a masterful job of dressing up last year’s big winner and there’s a great chance it’s going to do something in some show somewhere maybe everywhere.

And who’s fault is that? Ours. We preach about finding your inspiration in the real world but we keep rewarding derivative work year after year after year. And the hell of it, if we didn’t, there’d be an awful lot of very very very– did I mention very?– thin awards books out there. So let’s not just blame the kids. Lets blame ourselves too.