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Trends and Insight in association withSynapse Virtual Production
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Why ECDs Should Help Young Creatives Fight the Fear

29/09/2014
Publication
London, UK
271
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Ogilvy China’s Graham Fink urges creatives to learn from the past to make advertising with real impact

On the final day of Spikes Asia 2014, Ogilvy China CCO Graham Fink got up on stage and did something very brave. He recited a poem entirely in Mandarin – a poem about baozi (steamed, bread-like dumplings). A poem that he had written himself. 

It was a perplexing start to a seminar and the audience met his lyricism with a stunned silence – but it was, nonetheless, a smart and punchy way to kick of a call to arms about creative bravery, the poisonous influence of fear and decisions-by-committee. He illustrated his point by sharing advertising work by his trail-blazing mentors like Paul Arden and Dave Trott, who showed what confident, fearless advertising looked like.


These days much of that confidence has been diminished, partially by demands of the increasingly competitive job market and a feeling of insecurity among young creative as Graham explained to LBB after his seminar. “I think a lot of it’s about conditioning. People get their first job; getting a job in advertising has always been incredibly difficult so when you’re in you don’t want to lose it,” he said “I think it’s about getting the creative directors and the ECDs to back the creatives. Young kids come in and they’re not really sure about the whole business and their own skills. They’ve got lots of energy and enthusiasm and ideas - whether they’re any good or not I don’t know, but they do have tons of ideas. It’s up to an ECD or a creative guy to get the best out of them. I’ve always thought it’s my job to help everyone be as good as they can possibly be.” 

It’s a global issue, but one which he feels is particularly acute in China where he works. “One of the difficulties in China is that the way people are brought up is very much about fitting in. It’s about not putting your head above the parapet. You never, ever challenge the teacher because there’s only one way of doing things. I think creativity is the opposite of that. It’s ‘challenge the teacher’. It’s ‘stand out from the crowd’. It’s ‘ask difficult questions’. It’s hard to do. And that’s why in the agency I have to talk to the creatives all the time. It’s an ongoing thing, I can’t just do one talk and solve it. I think it’s finally given them some confidence, to say, ‘iit’s ok to screw up’. In Asia, as you know, the whole thing about losing face is huge. Nobody wants to fuck up. I have to say ‘look, have a go, it doesn’t matter if you mess up’.”

But the lack of confidence may, according to Graham, also be the result of younger generations of advertising creative who are poorly-versed in the history of advertising – as well as photography and graphic design.  “I think a lot of people don’t understand much about advertising. They just come in and do their thing and they don’t look at other advertising around the world. They don’t the great people, the John Hegartys, the George Lowes… a lot of people don’t even know who Bill Bernbach is and that’s just staggering. Students would come to see me in London and they don’t even know the agency they’re coming to. You’ll ask ‘what is your favourite piece of work that we’ve done’ and they’ll have no idea. Why would we take you on if you’re not even interested,” he said.

While some might question the value of looking to the past, Graham Fink argues that it sheds light on creative thinking and is more relevant in ever in the contemporary advertising industry. “I think you learn from it. You learn from great work. If you’re looking at work, don’t just think about the work; think about the brief behind it. Think about what the strategy might be. How did they get to this point from a bit of paper which might be fairly bland? Most briefs, unfortunately, are very bland and uninspiring,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you do, whether you’re writing TV or online films or doing very specialised e-commerce, digital work. We’re meant to be creative. It’s like Dave Trott says, we’re supposed to outwit the competition.” 

For Fink, bravery is at the root of the best creative work. If it isn’t being talked about and making waves then it’s not worth the client’s money. At the seminar he showed the divisive campaigns by photographer Oliver Toscani, many of which were banned in the 1980s and 1990s. Though he wouldn’t advocate controversy for controversy’s sake, he says that when true to the brand that kind of confident creative vision can be incredibly powerful. 


In China, Graham is trying to create an environment where this kind of thinking will flourish. “What I’m trying to do with Ogilvy in China is talk about work that’s creatively influential. There are three layers: the first layer is it’s got to be work that people talk about and share; the second ins that it’s got to change their behaviour in some way; the third is more difficult – it’s got to start a trend. That’s not to say that every piece of work has to do all of those things, but it’s a pretty good lens to view the work through. Are people going to talk about it? Is it going to start a trend? Even if it’s a stylistic trend in that other advertisers start doing similar things. That’s great when you do an ad.”

Another issue that he’s trying to combat is the local approach to craftsmanship and production, which tends to follow a low-cost, quick turnaround model. Case in point is the Words Are Weapons campaign, which picked up two Gold awards in Design (for typography and promotional items) as well as awards in other categories. “I really like ‘Words are Weapons’. In China there’s a lot of creativity but the craft is often not finished very well. If you look at the Soho Galaxy building in Beijing, which was designed by Zaha Hadid, on the outside it just looks unbelievable. It looks like a beautiful spacecraft and we did some work for them. But when you go inside and look at the actual fittings, the way the lift doors close or the signage, everything is slightly skew-whiff. What I love about Words Are Weapons is that it’s a beautiful piece of design. We spent months on it, making it perfect,” he said. And talking of creative bravery, Graham also ended up pointing one of the fake guns at Sir Martin Sorrell’s head during dinner.

For all of his talk of advertising’s history, it seems that Graham Fink is also a man reveling in the sheer scope of contemporary advertising . Words Can Be Weapons is just one example of how strong ideas supported by great craft can really have an impact. “I think the great thing now is that as there are so many more media channels you can do so much more. An idea can appear in many many different forms. And that’s why you need a great idea at the centre of it.”



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