The problem plays out in countless ways. Among them is process. Creative ideas get log jammed and young employees’ progress gets hamstrung by stakeholders. That sometimes-helpful-but-often-toxic idea.
Stakeholders. It’s an idea that lingers from an era of excessive budgets, lethargic timelines, nepotism, and quite frankly, overt misogyny and racism. That goes for the creative team, too, not just clients.
Who are we putting in the room where it happens? Is it the Group Creative Director who’s not particularly close to the campaign but whose title holds sway? Is it the Senior Vice President who had drinks with the client last Saturday night or who (more likely given the times) has a private text thread with the brand’s CEO?
If there’s anything to be learned from this moment, it’s that the notion of “the room” is a total construct to begin with. Access needs to be completely reinvented. Why shouldn’t the junior designer who created the new look and feel be a driving force behind the discussion?
Where historically we might defer to title, there’s value to be obtained from new perspectives. Clients and creatives alike need to recognize the insight that new contributors have to offer.
Let a junior creative hop on a call with the CEO of a new client and pick their brain. Let an Associate Brand Manager riff with the Executive Creative Director. There doesn’t even have to be a brief in place or an action item at stake.
In order to accelerate the process of transforming advertising and branding into something better, we need to open the doors sooner. We need to circumvent the traditional barriers to entry.
This isn’t to say that structure within agencies is moot. We just need to give more people the opportunities and platforms with which to be heard.
In the event that younger or less seasoned people aren’t in the room where decisions are made, they need to be informed of what went down after the fact. Being able to transparently communicate how decisions happen is as powerful a skill as the ability to present and sell an idea.
Take a junior creative out for coffee and explain how the group in the meeting successfully landed on the new branding or campaign. That’s not a post-mortem, it’s called investing in your talent. Don’t just give them marching orders.
It’s this information-sharing that equips people who haven’t been in the room to take part in the conversation once they actually are in the room, so to speak.
There’s no doubt that “the room” still exists in this moment, lack of on-premise meetings aside. Even as we develop new ways of working that allow for more openness, more productivity, and less red tape, old assumptions around who should be in the room persist.
When we come out of this thing, let’s remember whatever steps we’ve taken (out of necessity) to improve access and sustain that momentum. Let’s hold the doors open so the room doesn’t stink like a catered lunch.
