I’ve had a fantastic session with Impossibly Chic Creative Director and Not Gay Gay Satan Creative Director. We held it in Madrid, where (even though it was a Public Holiday) we stayed talking about the creative territories for four briefs until nearly midnight.
This is the bit of my job that I absolutely love. I’m lucky in that the Creatives I work with at my current agency are unquestionably the best that I have ever worked with, but I’ve always loved this discursive and fertile part of the process more than any other (certainly far more than the soul-destroying process of fine-tuning that the best Client Services people find real enthusiasm for…) and it continues to be the only bit of the job that is a real, unalloyed pleasure.
Of course, it can be threadbare misery: when I worked at Huge American Corporate Agency the process of briefing Creatives was more like negotiating a peace settlement than anything else. Hostile groups on either side of the table, clearly antipathetic to each other, trading facts with a barely-concealed animosity – it was hardly surprising that the work that came out of this process wasn’t brilliant. And maybe, when you’re involving Clients, Planners and Creatives in fertile, respectful and exciting discussions in beautiful places, when there is a real aura of excitement and collaboration in the air, it isn’t surprising that the work is so, so much better.
Eiljert Gabbles On 