Why metal is precious

Sometimes it feels as if nobody in the entire industry besides us could give a monkey's. But somehow we just can't stop ourselves... Perhaps we have monkey blood, like Charlie Sheen has tiger blood. Well, as creators (commercial creators but creators nonetheless), our most important currency is creativity. And creativity is hard to gauge.

Marketing managers have numbers to rely on; client servicers have marketing managers' numbers to rely on. Agency owners and top brass have numbers of a different kind to use as a gauge for success - the numbers to be found at the bottom line. But copywriters, art directors and designers? Where are our numbers? As usual, we creatives have to be different. Our numbers take form and shape. The shape of a winged man. The shape of a lion's head, mane ablaze in Gold, Silver or Bronze. The shape of a human holding aloft a globe. The chunky hexagonal pencil pointing skywards in black or yellow. In the creative world, this is how we measure ourselves against one another; this is the way in which we quantify our success. List these shapes on our CVs and they will begin to add up.

Creativity is the voice

The folks sitting behind their Macs and PCs in the open plan section of an agency are often not its obvious mouthpiece. We're not the ones presenting credentials to prospective clients or sending out press releases to industry publications about the agency's latest TV campaign or appointment. We rely on our work to do the talking.

We aren't usually compelling orators or powerful Power Point presenters. Our TV, radio and print ads, logo and website designs, billboard headlines and promotional campaigns need to stand up and speak for themselves. We're not in the business of speaking for ourselves, not to anybody outside our agencies anyway. We rely entirely upon the creativity, the relevance and the straight up quality of our work to do the talking. It is the way in which we express ourselves. We are usually to be found behind the scenes.

When a fantastic new ad hits the public domain, is it the ad itself or the creator of the ad that's lauded? It's not like writing an article or a novel , painting a canvas or even directing a movie. You get to put your name on those. People say, "Have you read 'abc' by 'xyz' ? I loved it! What talent! Kudos!" When it comes to ads, they ask if you've seen the new Volkswagen, Vodacom or Toyota campaign. "Fantastic!" they say..." I just love that dog".

How then do we keep up our (good old South African) "gees" in a world which has no way of hearing us (one of the biggest reasons we chose our creative roles in the first place)? The answer lies on that shelf somewhere in a small, out-of- the-way corner of the creative department. You know the one - the one containing the Cannes, the D&AD and the Loerie Annuals, the ones which nobody but the creatives read. The answer lies in the occasional All Staff the ECD sends out when a really big award is won somewhere on a distant stage in a faraway land, a stage the winner will usually never walk on.

All is not lost

All is not lost though. There are three channels in which two-way communication with the creator is possible. The first is our local award shows, at which we do get to walk the stage, to receive and imbibe the applause, the recognition we crave. The second is the grudging respect received from our fellow creatives, usually manifested in the forms of delicious daggers pointed at our backs. (It is by nature a highly competitive role in which only the strongest, the most talented, smart, hardworking or a combination of these can survive). The final source of satisfaction is to be found in the foyer of our own agencies, in the form of metal.

The metal may be cold and indifferent, but the metal, without speaking, speaks. It speaks for itself and it speaks for creativity and it seems to embody the entire process of making an ad, a process which cannot be achieved without brand, client service, agency producer, media buyer, suppliers and, of course, the creatives.

The statuary is proudly and prominently displayed, freshly polished and shining for all who enter the agency to see. It is not a number. Which agency would make you look at a number as you enter its doors? The metal can be seen and touched, and in its way, quantified.

It is for this reason that you may, on occasion, see a slightly out-of-place-looking someone in the swish, sharp edged agency foyer, dressed in jeans, t-shirt and sneakers, a dreamy look to their eyes, running a finger slowly over a shaggy-maned lion statue. And here is what that someone is thinking: "I did that!".