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Wreck and vom: The Artist's divide

I guess, for the frustrated bookkeeper or medical intern who becomes a copywriter, it's a kind of redemption. She gets to re-identify herself as “a Creative”, and therefore be “creative” which, to many minds, is the only real virtue.

It's amazing how we all slot ourselves into categories. Tribes, as someone said. We choose a stereotype associated with the values we admire most, and play the part. Of course, everybody else plays along with us. When you were a bookkeeper, people saw you in a particular way: left-brained, conservative and, well, dull I suppose. Then miraculously, you became artistic, mysterious, witty and worldly because that's what copywriters are, as everyone knows.

So I've been pondering how this very human phenomenon affects the way the ad industry works, and I reckon it's quite fundamental, with some groovy and not so groovy ramifications. Basically, depending on whether you fall into the Creative tribe or the Suit tribe (account management), you get treated according to entirely different sets of “rules”.

Picture this. You're at your mother-in-law's house for Christmas dinner (pick another family-oriented tradition if you don't do Christmas). You get to the end of the meal, everyone's rosy and satisfied and chatty, and some uncle stands up and says, “That was lekker, Mrs Gumede-Smith, how much do I owe you for this awesome meal? Is R300 enough? 400?” Hear the silence descend. Feel that throat-closing awkwardness.

What happened? A line got crossed. It is the line between social norms and market norms.* He tried to use money (from the realm of market norms) to reward a labour of love (from the realm of social norms). Eish.

All of life can be divided into these two camps. Either you're negotiating something according to cut-and-dried value-for-value exchange, or you're in the much subtler realm of honour, emotion and friendship. Here, we might exchange favours and gifts but not cash. And when you mix them up, you generally get a right royal cock-up, unless you're clever about it.

For example, when you say to your senior designer, “Good job, Janet. If you work this hard again next weekend, I'll pay you the legal overtime rate,” what happens?

She thinks “Stick it in your eye, you ungrateful bastard!” Of course she does, because you have created a comparison between the value of her commitment, talent, sweat and tears, and some dumb market formula. Now you've put her in the mode of “fair and reasonable trade” - so she wants back-pay for every weekend she's ever put in for the company, naturally. You've screwed yourself.

Imagine instead that you say, “Wow, thank you, Janet. Please have my tickets for that f.tv bash, for you and Thabo, and when this project is over we'll all go and get sloshed at the Pig and Wrench!”

Now her thoughts are more along the lines of, “Working here can be tough, but it's a riot sometimes and the people are cool.”

In Ad-Land, we actually go one step further. ‘Round here, it goes down in terms of “artists' norms” and “ordinary worker norms”. Creative Directors instinctively understand that the way to manage (and attract) “Creatives” is through artists' norms. You don't have to pay the highest salaries. What you do have to provide are the other rewards: kudos, fun, alcohol, great working environment, accolades, recognition, alcohol, being part of the elite, and did I mention alcohol?

(Have you ever noticed that the agencies acknowledged as the creative hotshops - the big award winners - are also the agencies that throw the biggest, most notorious wreck-and-vom parties? Yes, PARTIES are the secret to industry domination!)

There's a reason that Awards have become the primary currency of advertising Creatives. It's because awards come with glory - a sacred dust you simply cannot substitute with money. It gets you included. It gets you loved - sometimes in interesting places. And if you can offer it, it gets you the loyalty of the hottest talent in the world.

The point I make is simple. We offer the Suits career progression plans, bonuses, increases; we offer the Creatives juice for their artistic souls. So how about this: treat the Suits like Creatives. Find ways to include them in the Artists' norms, make the glory available to them, and with any luck two things will happen. One, you'll attract the talented ones; and two, they may eventually be accepted among the artists… who knows what the industry could achieve then?

*Read Predictably Irrational by the brilliant behavioural economist, Dan Ariely.

28 Aug 2008 17:32

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About the author

Justin Cloete is a senior strategist at Draftfcb. He's pretty sure about the soul-juice, but he won't turn down the money...