Ioana Mucenic, CEO of Minio, says the Romanian advertising has reached the opposite end of reality: cheerful, optimistic, and warm. And as the story in the title shows, the reasons lie in the arms of both agencies and clients. “True creativity ends up becoming a luxury of those who can afford it,” she says.

The FIBRA Awards want to make that luxury a common good. Well, not quite. But at least get past the wishful thinking stage and into the local reality. If you know what we’re talking about, you’re wanted here.

Status

The large number of awards at Cannes and other festivals have greatly motivated people in the industry to develop their creativity.

We talk about awards more than ever, precisely because the impossible has been achieved: the heavyweights of the industry manage to beat their opponents, of the same level, from other countries (Publicis in Gunn Report, McCann at Cannes…). Moreover, independent agencies are succeeding in European advertising, GMP being a model and an inspiration in this regard. The local FIBRA awards come to complete, I think, this initiative.

There is more and more talk about creativity in more concrete terms than before. This creativity has come down from ATL and has crept more and more into the multitude of communication channels and media: PR, digital, shopper… we all talk about creativity.

In the operational reality of the day-to-day job, creativity is more of a desideratum than a basic tool of the agency man. Many of us don’t understand what creativity means – identifying patterns, making new connections, reinterpreting information to create a different conclusion, the ability to generate new solutions to old problems.

And so, the next step is not taken either: we don’t know how to develop our creativity, how to train it, like the muscles in our legs when we ride a bike. To be able to train ourselves, we need time (which we don’t have), specialized training (which is extremely expensive), and mental change (which is harder than it seems like).

Although we all want creativity and claim we have it in our job description, true creativity ends up becoming a luxury for those who can afford it – as a financial and time investment. And hence creativity is often empty talk, just like innovation.

In addition, the agency and the client understand creativity differently. The former wants creativity with fireworks, something that no one has ever done before, that breaks the mold and reinvents a field. The client wants creativity that is calm, tamed by the fires of passion, and, above all, risk-free; they want interesting ideas that have been implemented somewhere but not by a direct competitor.

Truly creative campaigns are formed when there is a great relationship between the client and the agency when they know each other well enough to really trust each other. Until then, it’s like the song goes: He tries, she refuses…

The specifics of the Romanian marcomm

Romanian films, at one time, resembled each other. They had communist melancholy and were very sad. Romanian advertising is at the opposite pole: it’s all cheerful, optimistic, and warm. All the people in the visuals/spots are energetic, optimistic. And, if they have a small problem, the product solves it until the 30 seconds are up.

The millions of voices that can be raised from social media worked as a roadblock. I hear so often: let’s not get people upset, let’s not seem like we’re not talking to them too, let’s not end up with bad comments on Facebook, let’s not have some crazy person file a complaint with RAC.

On this background, the targeting is getting wider, when it should be more diverse, with differentiated messages. And these messages are being cleansed of any nuance, becoming just as generic.

I want to see a new Zan like Banca Transilvania, a new Dorel, a new Zarea, campaigns and characters that respond to deep needs and motivations, to powerful insights.

Instead, most often I see campaigns that are cute, tender, and fluffy. I want to see what the aforementioned Romanian films had in full: drama, intensity.

Mistakes on both sides

It’s such a big list, I’m embarrassed to write them here, lest I embarrass my guild. 🙂 But I’ve noticed that mistakes often come from two reasons: superficiality and lack of time.

When I say superficial, I mean we don’t go deep enough into the consumer’s soul, we don’t look closely enough at their small gestures and words, at what motivates them, at the points where they might connect with the brand. We work a lot on mimicry – we see what others are doing and we try it, we go with the flow, as “that’s how it’s done”.

Hence, countless generic campaigns with the same kind of communication mix and painfully similar executions: a contest for bloggers (let’s send them something nice), an app where you can do something (the eternal question: what should we get the consumer to do?), an event that must include messages on cards and pictures in front of the spider, a more creative but scrappy execution (called as such a special project).

Lack of time is an eternal problem in advertising, and one that erodes our creativity terribly and the pleasure of a job well done.

Briefs with 2-5 days of execution don’t allow you to go to the market, you can’t read a book specifically for that campaign, you can’t do your own real research (i.e. not just Google).

For me, the lack of time, standardizing the initial brief time under 2 weeks, is the main mistake clients make. And it often results in the one-size-fits-all approach, the main mistake agencies make.

Courage in advertising

True story: the client writes in the brief in block letters that they want an innovative campaign, to be revolutionary, to have never been done before. We come to the pitch with the best we can and wait for the reaction with bated breath. The client – amazed.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, what do you mean no one else has done it in the market? Well, how am I supposed to support something like this to the board, without clear results, without a model?”. I gather my words “But you said innovation, that means by definition something new.” “Something new indeed,” the client replies, “but not so new that nobody has done it. I was just saying, new to us.”

That’s about it. Courage means believing you can reach the consumer with a new or different approach, without relying on hard numbers or data. Courage means taking the risk that you might get it wrong and, at the same time, taking the necessary steps to improve along the way. Trusting yourself as a marketer and your agency as a business partner, not just a supplier.

Inventors make hundreds of prototypes until they come up with that final spectacular object, capable of revolutionizing an industry. And in advertising, you are expected to deliver the same result, but on the first try, DDL COB.

Courage and creativity don’t have to be shocking, as I sometimes hear this wrong understanding. It just means trusting your instincts and the ability to risk your job for an idea you believe in, having the courage to perfect it along the way because you understand that it’s more important to evolve than to be perfect.

The fear of failure paralyzes us all – the client loses their job, the agency loses their client. Hence, most choose the simple path – we mimic what others have done, with a little twist, so it’s not quite the same.

I strongly believe that the wall between client and agency should not exist. We are two parts of a whole. So the courage should belong to both of us.

Great campaigns

As an agency person, I’ve had many campaigns with creative components that I was proud of. But I can count on one hand the truly brave, innovative projects.

At MINIO, we work daily to change our mindset and train our creativity by developing our own tool called Reframe. And we force ourselves to be creative, to dig a lot after the first 10 ideas that come up in a brainstorming, because it is only at a depth that the water is cold and clean, and not warm.

I am convinced that this sustained and disciplined effort will train us so that we have campaigns to be proud of daily.

What the industry needs to move forward

I like advertising and I think the level we deliver at is much better than in many countries with better conditions (like the Czech Republic, Poland…). But we are far behind Western markets in terms of vision and budgets.

I think we need to change the relationship between the client and the agency, to make it more and more a partnership.

I stress that good results, impactful campaigns come when the two main actors trust each other, align their way of working, become friends as people, and have a common goal.

Also, the issue of time is a painful one. From the initial idea, to planning, to implementation, you need time to get it right. Tying up the agency to the maximum only breaks its mechanism and forces us to work in a factory system.

We all need the courage to step out of our comfort zone, to test new approaches. It’s important to accept that we are in an era where it’s more important to try and improve as we go, rather than just do what worked last time.

Source: iQads