• by Larry Dobrow , October 30, 2003

The speakers at Thursday's Yahoo! Summit Series event in New York, dubbed "The New Creative Revolution," were given free reign to talk about whatever they wanted, so long as it touched peripherally on the creative side of the ad business. The result? A freewheeling, often boisterous, occasionally profane survey of the past and present creative landscape. And while the get-together touched on few issues of direct relevance to media planners and buyers - save for one speaker's brief plea to reunite media with creative - the event was as thorough and multifaceted a look at the business of creativity as one could hope to get in a few short hours.

In stating media's case to be included in ad campaigns from the outset, Y&R/Wunderman London executive vice president David Butter questioned the current model of buyers and planners only being invited to the table at the tail end of the creative process. "I've been a media director [and] I found it odd that we don't start with the channel through which we're going to communicate with the customer," he said. He didn't propose any solutions beyond the obvious (get media folks involved earlier), but said that the current arrangement could ultimately pose a problem for creative types, especially as they push further into the interactive space.

"Clients don't think we do [Internet advertising] very well," Butter noted matter-of-factly. "Without innovation, we're going to be increasingly marginalized... A lot of us don't really know what we can do in this space. We haven't grasped the technology or creative potential."

Of course, to hear Advertising Age and NPR wiseacre Bob Garfield tell it, those on the creative side of the business might still be at a loss once they do. "The opportunities are so enormous... that even you can't screw it up," he said to roaring laughter, little of it self-aware. Describing the Internet as "an abyss of creativity," he challenged the 200-strong throng not to make the "same self-defeating mistakes" that they have in hawking their clients' wares in other mediums. Similarly, he cautioned the crowd to be careful that their online work isn't overly intrusive. By way of example, he aired an IBM ad that might politely be described as busy, quipping, "It's always nice when you click on a page and wind up going into an epileptic seizure."

"It's about the client and the audience - it's not about you," he continued. "Don't be confused by the fact that they let you wear t-shirts to work. You are business people. Your job is to sell shit."

Garfield's message was echoed by ad legend George Lois, now president of Lois/EJL, whose old-school run through the recent history of advertising was one part education, two parts standup comedy. While he bemoaned the current state of creative thinking, especially what he views as a lack of ambition among marketers and a disinclination to think big, he seemed vaguely hopeful that a new creative revolution could spring out of the interactive space. At the same time, he expressed disbelief that so many young creative people rely on the Internet for inspiration. "I see young kids looking at a computer... [they] say 'I'm looking for an idea'... There's no fucking ideas in there!"

Kirschenbaum, Bond + Partners co-founder and co-chairman Richard Kirschenbaum's ideas revolved mostly around the steps creative people might take to sustain and grow their businesses during what has been a trying time for the industry. He pointed to his firm's work on behalf of Target as a prime example of integration - with PR, direct mail, online and traditional ad components working in conjunction - and stressed the importance of what he called "finding your inner multicultural." As for the other oft-bandied buzzword of globalization, he questioned whether marketers were up to the task: "There's a shortage of people with a global point of view. More ideas have to be able to travel internationally."

Campbell-Ewald executive vice president, creative director Mark Simon, on the other hand, confined his time at the podium to a straightforward review of his firm's work on behalf of the U.S. Navy. Noting the responsibility that comes with representing "a client that pre-dates the country itself," Simon related the challenges of motivating young people to make a life commitment. "We're not asking them to buy an MP3 player," he said dryly. He recalled how research revealed one of the Navy's major obstacles in recruiting new prospects - the lack of a formal decision-making process - and how his company was able to address this through an online "life accelerator" aptitude test.

Ultimately, Campbell-Ewald approached the assignment as a "lifestyle campaign," partnering with Hollywood studios (a Behind Enemy Lines tie-in) and current bands (the ever-delicate strains of Godsmack) to help contemporize the brand. The result: the Navy has hit its monthly recruiting goals for the last two years.

The conference was taped and will be available to view within the next few days at http://summitseries.yahoo.com.