My CDs are brilliantly smart and I look up to them, but my partner and I are constantly being put on projects with these two where it feels like we’re competing with them. They have 15+ years experience and their scripts are always better than ours. Like why torture us? Our CCO and client are just going to pick their script anyways and we’ll never be able to beat it. I wish they could just help make our scripts better instead of us having to beat theirs. Anyone else have this struggle?

likesmarthelpful
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The only way to progress here is if you start writing better work, and they need to help you do this. Try really pushing for critical feedback on your work. Ask them for what they see potential in, why they think it has potential, how it’s missing the mark, and ideas for how to get it there. Not every CD is a great teacher, but if you ask the right questions they might be able to share their knowledge with you.

likehelpful

I‘d also add that it’s extra hard to be a leader working remotely during Covid. No matter how seasoned you are, it’s really hard to guide people, to sell work through, to get anything made. Everyone is doing their best. Just stick with it, learn what you can and don’t give up.

The fact is, good creatives are rarely good mentors. Early in my career as a JRCW/CW, I would ask my ACDs/CDs/GCDs for feedback and the sad fact is, they were never able to make someone else’s work better, they were only able to write something in their own voice. My advice is to make sure your insight is solid, lean on your partner and lean on your peers to interrogate your work and to get that critical feedback. They will be more honest, they will be more ethical, you will get better that way.

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I’ve quit a couple of those CDs. But there are some rare good ones who do help you get better.

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Wait, CDs are writing scripts? And against teams working into them? That’s just all kinds of wrong.

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What about it doesn’t sound familiar?

In 2020 agencies don’t have the margins or the timelines to wait for you to get good, much less NOT put their best people on important assignments because it hurts your feelings. They’ll stop competing with you once your work is good enough that they don’t have to work on it, too.

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CW1, how do you propose one “outwork” the person in power? I am all ears.

I struggled with this for years. Just keep learning until your scripts are the best ones.

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At a holding company, here’s what typically happens in this scenario. I present the sausage:
A: they help get your ideas to the meeting, the client chooses their idea, you’ll ASSIST them on their campaign, they shoot it.
B: they help you on your ideas, client chooses yours, ecd swoops in, cuts them out of the equation and acts as the cd. They get let go, because they aren’t creative directing anymore, and the idea was yours to produce. Agency just saved 300-400K

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😱

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See at the big shops, we have the duty to make sure the work gets done so we have happy clients that pay for us. But we also need to make sure there’s enough money left over from that retainer, so people that make fake ads for award shows, on”genius visas” can get paid so it seem like we create work better than the work you make. Understand?That’s why we do award shows, because we’re embarrassed by the paying day to day clients, so we steal from them to make more attractive work that an employee on a functioning account will never be able to sell. So on your staffing plan, there are probably 2-3 teams under the cds. But one of those teams is actually the new awards cd from Curitiba and another is the entire activations group, maybe a designer you never get to use, and “unnamed team”. Those saved hours are all dedicated to profit/self promotion. That’s also why there are like 12 people in creative staffing, to keep moving around the shell game.

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Another thing to remember, Wieden is a rare place where there’s enough good work that title inflation isn’t rampant. At most places at this point, we make any good creatives CDs way faster, so that they don’t leave. Which means CD is the title we give our best creatives, whether they’re running something or not.

funny

Creative Director 1 nailed it. My partner and I prefer not to jump on a brief if we have teams working on it...however...we can’t blow a meeting. So if we are not 100% comfortable we can get there with the staffing assigned, we jump on. But in our agency that “ACD level” that you can usually count on got eviscerates by layoffs, so it feels like there is a lot of mentoring going on...which is fine...that’s our job. However, then you need to increase your odds by putting more teams on the assignment, and the manpower just isn’t there.

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Is there anything you can learn from reviewing their scripts? Anything you can pick up from their script ideation strategies?

Depending on your relationship with them, can you suggest improvements to their scripts? If it’s a part of a series can you pitch other spots in the same series? They might not take your ideas but it doesn’t hurt to try.

It could be lack of time and clients asking for a shit ton of options. In most cases it’s in mine and the agency’s best interest to help you improve YOUR scripts. Usually even if I wanted to I wouldn’t have time to write scripts. Probably a temp thing?

Yes it happens here all the time! Also going even against GCDs who pick their own work.

The best CDs I’ve worked with found time to sit down with us and write it together. Or at least give you an idea to try write up in the best way you can- then working with you to make it the best it can be.

Both situations aren’t ideal but hey, it’s worth it in the long run. As usually their ideas sell, you’ll go on the shoot(well perhaps not these days) go through the shooting, editing etc process and you’ll come out the other end with work you can still put in your book, tons of experience, and more of a chance at cracking the next brief.

Sometimes the CDs won’t have time and that’s ok. But usually they should make it a priority. As the more the do it, funnily, the less they’ll have to do it.

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