Orthodox thinking will be the death of agency

The prophetic George Orwell once wrote that “at any given moment, there is an orthodoxy – a body of ideas – which it is assumed all right-thinking people will accept without question and a genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing”.  Orwell’s sentiments, have, sadly, never been as resonant as they are today.

We live in an age when it is becoming increasingly difficult to have a nuanced conversation about a seemingly growing number of non-sensitive issues, whether it’s same-sex marriage, immigration, Islam, or Israel. Clearly, there are others – the list is not exhaustive – but the substantive point is the corrosive effect that this new norm has on our relationships and our future welfare.

To move from the conceptual, the idea of not being able to fully debate an issue is particularly problematic for creative work spaces, especially agency-side, whose point of differentiation is the imaginative value of their work to the client. We need to give voice to all of the feelings provoked by such issues during the creative process if we’re to achieve great work. A campaign’s objective is to persuade its target audience; that audience doesn’t think homogenously, so nor should we.

I would go as far as saying that our creative leaders – whether it be advertising, PR, or marketing – are obliged to push these boundaries, and not revel in the harmless and the anodyne. Pushing those boundaries undoubtedly takes courage, but it’s vitally important that we try as conservatism is a deadening force in creativity. Clients are increasingly risk averse, but creative leaders cannot allow that to influence their creative process. Political and economic disruption in recent years has shrunk the creative space; it can’t afford to get any smaller.  

Leaders cannot do this alone, but their freethinking will prove to be the catalyst for others to join them in looking to achieve better work. Ultimately, it’s critical that the dissenters and the heretics are embraced by business for a brand to stand any chance of succeeding. It is only with these people on board do we achieve a fuller understanding of the issue (and views) at hand, and only then can teams produce an honest depiction of such matters.

It has to be said, that I don’t look to undermine the real feelings that some people may have about such issues, but to acknowledge the need to legitimise all aspects of the debate irrespective of its flavour. So, I’ve done the easy bit of identifying the potential problem – what about the solution? The idea of having a richer creative business means we need to assess how our corporate cultures can be loosened; whether that’s in the shape of recruitment or our brainstorming sessions. For instance, we need to recognise the benefits of appointing those who don’t quite think and sound like us in terms of personal viewpoints; I would also urge us to rethink the notion of collective problem solving as the reluctance to voice ideas among team members is a lot more widespread in such situations.

The heretical ones need to be welcomed and orthodoxy has to be challenged. The dissenter can, ironically, bring us closer together as team members; they can also open our eyes to those threats that have yet to emerge and the opportunities that we cannot see.

This article first appeared in Mumbrella

Is Storytelling in PR worthless?

Naturally, there will be exceptions to the rule, but on the whole, the industry is not equipped to produce compelling stories. I recognise that’s a bold, if not heretical, claim which is in need of some supporting arguments, so here goes.

PR professionals, as with the rest of the communications community, have been slavish to the idea of story, but we haven’t been astute enough to recognise that we tend to do it wrongly. Here’s what I mean, as practitioners we rely on conventional rhetoric to persuade. We mirror our clients, who have been trained this way; as creative writing guru, Robert McKee says, we build our case on facts, stats and quotes from authorities. We see it as an intellectual process, because we can’t see it any other way. Subsequently, we miss the vital component that make stories persuasive – the emotion!

Which begs the question – why do we miss it? As I said, this is partly down to producing what we think the clients want – a safe, logic-driven, data-based approach that typically leaves audiences cold at best. Ultimately though, we can’t do this properly, because as practitioners we’re schooled to keep those emotions in check.  This is especially the case with agency staff – I include myself here as a former agency man – who are immediately alerted of the paramount need to keep clients happy. I’m not saying that agency folk lack maturity per se; of course not, there are some brilliant minds at work here, but I fear they reflect their environmental upbringing which is essentially about one thing – profit. If we don’t fully explore our feelings in this space, including the reality of failure and the uncertainties of a tech future, how can we expect to produce rich, meaningful narratives for others?

Disruption is affecting us all at dizzying speeds, businesses are feeling increasingly vulnerable, so it is incumbent on us as professionals to embrace greater emotional exposure – to demonstrate how we feel - to produce stories and relationships that are reflective of our growing sensitivities and befitting of a more engaged audience.

This article first featured in Mumbrella on the 19 December