What Does Modern Branding Mean For The Modern Creative?
There was a time when all we as creatives needed to do was write a pithy line or fashion a clever (or contentious) concept. Our job was to give culture something new to consider, a new idea to believe in. We said. People listened. If we were successful, people repeated. In those days we were the world’s orators. But saying isn’t enough anymore.
The world is full of wall post, tweets, memes and community conversations. Culture is creating enough new ideas without our help. Entire platforms (Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, etc. The list is infinite.) are dedicated to streamlining an individual’s ability to add to the ever-growing pile of stuff. In many ways culture is doing our job for us; culture is creating. I don’t think the same can be said about design or strategy (feel free to correct me in the comments if you disagree…I’m making this up as I go), and it’s hard to react when culture is just so damn good at it. Some of us have responded by trying to one up them with manufactured memes and even more clever cleverness. This isn’t an indictment of those tactics because some are damn smart in their own right. I guess I see a different role for the creative to play.
The problem now isn’t an absence of culture; the problem is too much culture. It rebuilds and redefines itself so quickly. I think the creative needs to stop trying to create culture and start trying to corral and curate it. Yes, we still need to write or name or give whatever we create some flair, but why stop at the skin of something. Personally, I spend more time thinking about how I can create tools, environments or processes that help to bottle up all of the passion and energy that is already out there.
I suppose now is the time for specific examples…
For tactical things like banner ads, we go as far as turning over all of the creative asset creation to the community. Headline writing? Yep. Photography? Yep. Decisions about which design options are the most emotional? Yep. In these situations, our job as creatives is to repackage the best content the community has to offer and give it a little context. Crowd-sourcing? Sure, I guess. But why try to say what the community is already saying? Or create photos that replicate real life when we can show real lives? This process is incredibly efficient, and (in our experience) performs very, very well. Sure, we don’t get to slap ourselves on the back for being the clever ones at the party, but we do get to bring the funny ones to the party…We think that is pretty cool.
When creating entire digital campaigns we don’t lock ourselves away in “creative isolation.” That’s a romantic notion that just leaves us smelling strangely. More concerning is the fact that that process assumes the creative is always right. Rather, we begin with something central to the brand like a core belief or set of principles that drives what they do. If that isn’t available, we begin with the clients. We work with them to concentrate their passions into a creative concept. In either situation, we aren’t starting from scratch. We are just turning what already exists into something more…powerful or succinct.
In the end, I hate calling myself a creative. The name implies some sort of mystical spark. The name belies the way I work and the way I see my friends and colleagues working. And maybe this idea of “curation” is BS – which would be OK by me because this isn’t a manifesto. All I know is that the industry is aflutter with talk of change. Designers and strategists have entire conferences dedicated to the subject. We creatives haven’t rallied with the same sense of urgency. So what about us? How has our position changed? And if it hasn’t yet, how does it need to? I don’t share these examples to shamelessly promote ZJ. Rather, I’m sharing my own experience hoping that anyone out there reading this will do the same.
Your turn.
By the way, I’m Joseph. I’m a creative – and I guess you could say I still do some designing – here at Zeus Jones.
@josephkuefler