My dear creatives, do you sometimes push back on purpose because you just can’t be bothered?

Sometimes, I get the feeling that my creative team just doesn’t want to do something and finds ways to confuse my execs with questions that will result in pushing the delivery date.

Ps: no hate, just asking for my sake!

likefunny
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I don’t think I’ve ever pushed back just because I didn’t want to do the work.

But I have pushed back because I knew the end result of that work would be a massive waste of time. Or in other words, that the request would make the work worse, or the same. And nobody wants to waste their time working hard for minimal or negative results.

Also, I’ll frequently get dismissive or “small” requests from clients or account that they may think is an easy fix, but is actually hours and hours of work to complete. People need to understand time management and boundaries when requesting changes of any kind - and that’s applicable to everyone.

likesmart

Are you asking Creatives to do something trivial, pointless or detrimental to the work because you can’t be bothered pushing back on the client? That’s the real question.

Creatives are inherently motivated. It’s a very competitive job that’s tough to get into and hard to hold onto.

If they’re not riding your wave, it’s not out of laziness. The answer lies in the question. Why are you asking them to do this minutiae. Is it really necessary and have you done your job to protect the work?

likesmartfunny

🙄

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On a personal level, it really bothers me when the account team just sends me a copy/pasted email or just runs through a list of “small” client changes. Now I have to take the time to both digest this feedback and execute it? The lack of filter and/or critical thought when asking for changes is the bigger problem, IMO. What I need to know is WHY not WHAT

likesmart

Agree! It’s outrageous. Account people are more like order takers. Should be called client waiters.

likefunny

Sometimes simple things to you like “can you make that bigger.” Or “can you add this to the line” aren’t actually that simple. They throw off the balance, or complicate the simplicity. And we’re trying to protect that. Or sometimes those requests are handed down to us in a lazy way without letting us know WHY they wanted to add the word or make the thing bigger. There are lots of ways to address client concerns and sometimes we’re just trying to get to the bottom of why. Or maybe you should get them on the phone with the client have the dialogue with everyone in the room

likehelpfulsmart

100% this. I find that a lot of prescriptive “small changes” aren’t actually solving for what the client thinks they are. That’s usually when I’ll push back and/or offer a different, more effective solution

like

“My dear creatives” isn’t a great way to start off a condescending question in a non-condescending way.

likefunny

CD4: hence the apology. :)

General point, reading the authors posts and comments, you sound like you’re in the wrong industry. You sound like the creative is just a piece of the pie, when in fact, it is the pie. Your job does not pay the bills. Theirs do. Maybe they are trying to ensure highly effective, quality creative so that your clients boss doesn’t fire the agency and thus, put you out on your ass.

likeupliftingsmart

Good Clients buy from the excitement and passion of good creatives. Bad clients don’t care.

like

Tbh that’s how a lot of us creatives feel when account doesn’t push back on the client. Like how hard is it? Please just have our backs.

likesmart

Occasionally there seems to be things that are lost in translation between departments. Everyone wants to meet clients needs and exceed expectations. If creative is butting heads with you, it could be for a number of reasons.
1) they are passionate about an idea or concept, and ppl aren’t helping to develop it. Or they’re not fighting for it when discussing it with client, or they’re not in the room discussing it with client. So feedback ends up diluted and passed through too many messengers, then receiving a request feels like they weren’t heard.
2) they could possibly be overworked and have a ton on their plate with insane deadlines.
3) they could have minimal assets to work with to meet the request.
4) the client could be very difficult and stuck in their ways and aren’t showing any trust in the team because they just want things done their outdated way. It makes creative feel like grunts executing things while they know the client needs to adapt and be more open to things.
5) strategy could be leaving all the work to creative to come up with the ideas. So you might be giving requests to a team that’s burnt out.
6) creatives are fine with delivering something they know the client will want, especially if it’s something that’s a straight forward request from the very beginning.

If it’s something that’s open ended, has a large budget, and could be a win for everyone... creatives will put their heart and soul into the initial stages to sell their ideas. After handing it off for client review, radio silence and being left out of the loop while presentation happens and feedback is being given, is frankly insulting. They know the idea better than anyone, and if they were able to convince internal, they can add their two cents with client. To be left out of that, be given a request through the grapevine for unknown reasons, and realize that the request diminishes the work they fought so hard for feels like someone isn’t doing their job. It also feels like a total tease.

Talk to creative more throughout the process, everyone needs transparency, constructive criticism, and to be heard. It could also be useful for creative to prepare something the client expects along with something they’re willing to convince the client they want. Also, in internal reviews, everyone should give feedback on everything, what’s working, what isn’t working, and why.

likesmart

Agree wholeheartedly. It should always, always be a team approach. Creative is what we do. It’s important to defend it.

Thanks for your perspective!

like

Ideally there isn't a scenario where creatives "push back" on account people because the account people shouldn't be bringing them tasks to do, but problems to solve. Theres a big difference between "client said make the logo bigger" and "client is concerned about the level of branding, is there a way to solve for that?"

likesmart

If you cannot honestly discuss the requested changes and why or why not your creative partners want to make them, then you are addressing the wrong problem.

The actual problem is that you don’t have a functional, trusting relationship with your creative partners. Fix the relationship and the other issue will disappear, or don’t fix the relationship and eventually you will disappear.

likesmarthelpful

This advice gets to the crux of the matter. OP, read this one carefully and internalize it. This can influence your entire career for the better if you're ready to hear it and live it.

like

Thank you everyone for the comments, it really helps me gain insight on how to deal with creative teams, I’ve realized I often find it difficult to get to them and this truly helps. I’ve been able to manage all other teams but creatives. So thanks once again.

For the ones being salty - I’m not being condescending. I understand it’s difficult to get tonality across posts, but stop being cynical please. Not all account people are against creatives, chill. ✌🏻

likehelpful

ACD 5:
- I’m a SAM.
- Secondly, I am a woman. And bringing gender for this discussion is a tad unnecessary, but alright.
- If you read it again, you’ll realize it was for the bunch of people getting personal at me in some of the other comments about me being unfit for my job, etc. I don’t want to respond to those comments separately and behave like a child. Thats too petty.
- Again, this platform is to gain insight and talk anonymously with other industry colleagues. I’m not comfortable with my ECD (we don’t have a CCO) to start this conversation.
- agreed, the language people use reflects their personality. In a separate post, I did say my post didn’t have an ill intention and I apologize for all the people I pissed off. I am personally working on getting better with my choices of words/phrases. We’re all learning here.
- Probably all the teams you’ve worked with/are a part of don’t subscribe to the mindset of being lazy, but some can be?
- I know what the Peter principle is, what are you trying to say by referring to it?

Haha, creatives can’t be lazy and still keep their job. Their portfolio is essentially the only way they can get promoted or switch jobs. If they are pushing back it is most times to find a way, either through time, money, strategy etc. to do better work.

likesmarthelpful

🤣🤣😂😂🤣😂🤣

Can't be bothered means they're lazy, and honestly, it's lazier to just make the change and let it be mediocre. If you're getting a no, then 9 out of 10 times it's because it would make the work worse. Maybe 1 out of 10, it's because it's so trivial that it's not worth making the change.

likesmart

No. I personally find account people have become so inept at selling anything and creatives and producers have had to step up to compensate and are probably just exhausted.

likeuplifting

@leo your projecting is #bestintheworldbarnone

funny

Everyone's so defensive.

Yes, we all push back and otherwise delay stuff we can't be bothered to do.

But also to everyone's point it's usually an effort vs impact calculation against insufficient resources.

like

Great advertising often has a level of simplicity to the idea, and almost always portrays a clear, singular vision.

When you have a bunch of people in an internal, especially from different departments, they’re all smart, experts in understanding the work from the vantage point of strategy, account, etc. And the feedback they give may individually make sense. But the more pieces of feedback we receive from different perspectives, the less possible it is to satisfy all of them. In the process, a bunch of well-meaning and perhaps even logical requests dilute the simplicity and singular vision of our work. There’s certainly a tact to politely and clearly defending the work, but there’s a reason why we creatives do so

likesmart

Wow, really? I never heard the term “push back” until I joined a rinky dink unprofessional firm with semi professional account people who understand nothing about creative work, people or process. Once that term “push back” began to surfaced I stamped it out quickly and focused on educating the uneducated, my dear.

likeuplifting

Speaking of:

Post Photo
like

No, we don’t push back for kicks. We push back because you want to play Creative Director and we’ve spent our entire adult lives working on that skill.

Account folks don’t back our work. If the client could do this work then they wouldn’t need us. Stop letting them push pixels.

There are actual reasons we do what we do. Color theory, typography, ratios... It’s not just “Make the logo bigger.”

likesmartfunny

To add to all of the above—they also may be doing this because they’re pissed at you. For not sticking up for their work, for expecting them to throw hours and hours of work and thought out the window and “just change something” — or even for a hundred other reasons that have made the relationship degrade. Get together, tell them you want to be a better partner, ask what you can improve, make changes and see where it gets you. I wouldn’t give nearly as much shit to account people I understood had good intentions, and were on my side. But once you become a client shill who drops bullshit on my desk every day, you’d better believe I’m going to make your life difficult too.

like

^This^ communication is key OP.
Just have another account person lead the charge. We’ll forget about all this once the notifications stop. Growing pains are a good thing.

like

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