Don’t let yourself be labeled
Yesterday I ran into old colleague, now an art director at another agency. Here’s how he greeted me. “Hey, I heard you’re no longer creative. You’ve gone 100 percent digital and social.”
Now, I am under the impression that if you lose 30 pounds you may no longer be fat. Or that if you convert to Judaism you may no longer be Catholic. Or that if you have a sex change you may no longer be the same gender you used to be.
But I had no idea that if you went all digital and social that it meant giving up your creativity. Heck, for a moment I had actually believed that digital and social was the new creative.
Sure it’s possible, maybe even likely, that my encounterist employed the word as a noun rather than an adjective. But it was, nevertheless, a reminder that in our business we continue to apply restrictive labels far too liberally. Labels that affect how we think of each other.
Want a creative idea? You go to the “creatives.” Need a digital creative idea? Seek out the “digital creatives.” If it’s a social media idea you’re after, well then, find yourself a social media person.
We do the same with companies. If you’re an ad agency, you can’t be a digital agency. If you’re a digital agency, you can’t be very good at branding. If you’re a digital production company you can’t do digital strategy.
Certainly there are times when specialization, either as a company or an individual, positions us more strongly or enables us to differentiate ourselves in competitive pitches.
But in general labels holds us back. Worse yet, they become self-fulfilling. It’s hard to grow if you’re nothing but a boutique. Tough to get invited into the creative brainstorming if you’re merely the strategist. Challenging to win a digital client if you’re a traditional agency.
If I were to be labeled anything my preference would be someone who defies labels. Is that possible?
Comments
I'm cool with a label. But I have to ask, what did you say to your former colleague after he strongly implied that digital people were not creative? I confess, I would have had a hard time not scoffing a bit and letting him know that I thought he was a Luddite!
I've found myself getting *more* creative the more I delve into social media and spend my time writing, strategizing and basically creating content, but the thing about labels is that they are sticky. Whether you are labeled republican, or Christian, or jock, or geek, there are traits people assume on to you. I do see a blurring of lines coming in the future when it comes to the "digital creative", but there will have to be a lot of push on our side of the fence.
It's hard to separate 'label' from 'title' because obv we need titles but I get what you're saying. Shame that trying to stay current and embrace change is seen as not creative... but people with that attitude are destined to become obsolete, creatively
This is a big, much-labored-over thing for young creatives - what am I going to call myself is one of the zillion decisions to make when you put together your identity pieces. Sometimes it gets a little stupid or pretentious for my taste but at the same time, if you're just coming out of ad school, you've been trained to come up with creative ideas for any/all media. I do think eventually that will become the norm ... although not any time soon.
Personally, I decided on "copywriter and creative problem solver"
Labels seem more like defense mechanisms than good ways of offering information: "This is me! This is what I do! Know me for this!" Titles rarely describe what someone's day to day work looks like, and some of the newer titles, like "Chief Listener" or "Director of Relationships", sound more like therapists than communications / marketing / PR / social.
When people say, "Well, what do you do?" more often than not, I want to say: "Well, what do you want done?"
megfowler While I have the official title of "community manager" I don't like the box that it puts me in. We have a small team so I get to wear a lot of hats, community manager being just one of them.
Part of the problem is obviously that the meaning of these labels keeps changing. I agree that it is better to find the best person for the job at hand, rather than the best person with a given title.
jkretch, not used to the fact that these run in reverse, like Twitter, when my old comment system ran the other way.
edwardboches Is it something that you think you'd get used to, or would you want an option to change the direction of the comment stream?
jkretch can i change direction? also, not sure that the comments as comments (after the fact) are as valuable as content because they're more soundbites and Twitter-like chat. Might be better if there were a way to label or anoint certain comments as more real content than just chat.
jkretch I think they should run the other way, so it's easier to follow a conversation sequentially.
edwardboches jkretch I agree. It would make it easier to find the newest comments.
I'm constantly amazed that this remains a battle today...but then realize that the battle is alive and well within my own agency. There's going to be a lot of 2 step back 1 step forward on this front for a long time.
dweingrod it's not even just people and individuals, it's also companies. I don't want to be labeled only one thing as it restricts possibilitiies
edwardboches How would you re-label Mullen right now if you could? Would the word "agency" be a part of it?
jkretch probably but because it's how the outside world evaluates us
I've grown up in the digital age, so that's where my mindset is. What labels will we have 20 years from now? Will this all be a moot point or will we have a new breed of boutiques will more specialized digital agencies?
After ten years fighting to convince "creatives" that I was creative too even though I'd never written a TV spot, I had concluded that the only solution was time. I thought that labels would exist until the people responsible for creating them no longer had influence over client relations and the creative process.
I'm now an outsider, but I feel like things are moving the right direction a lot faster than I thought they would. Your agency in particular has gone through a monumental mindset shift that's resulted in great new client wins and even better work. In the past agencies have tried the "hired gun" approach... Hiring one or two people who get interactive, calling them creatives without specifying that they're digital, and expecting them to deliver. It doesn't work. The mental removing of labels has to come from the top.
jkretch You are right about the top thing, though sometimes we label ourselves. Creative, digital, one thing or another.
I think that if I was going to be labeled, then I would want to be labeled as someone who is progressive.
ilovetocomment How does that label fit into an agency structure? It's almost like removing labels and just calling everyone "creative" is about the same as calling people "progressive creatives." Which I actually think is a good idea.
jkretch Yeah, I would agree with that. Being known as someone who is progressive is a little vague. I think progressive creative makes more sense, and has a more appropriate usage in an agency context.
jkretch ilovetocomment we should have functions and expertise, but not necessarily labels.
edwardboches jkretch I agree. Labels means there is something you MUST be seen as all the time. It's not the safest way to view people.
I feel like creativity is even more imperative in the digital world. Technology and digital will continue to change, and those that can spread ideas in many mediums will come out on top. We can't think if each of these as different sectors, creatives need to work together to develop well rounded campaigns. I wish we could do away with labels and focus more experience and ideas.
He really greeted you like that? Wow.
ilovetocomment not sure he meant it as an adjective, but it sounded so odd. Especially the use of the past tense.
edwardboches seriously ha. I could imagine.
Note that I am trying out Livefyre's new comment system here. It should allow for a real time conversation, rating, and eventually better real time search results. Hope to see you here. Will eventually write a post about why I switched and solicit your reaction. In the meantime, do you want to be labeled?
edwardboches I'm curious to know how you responded?
jkretch I think I told him "yes," I'm no longer creative, I've moved on to digital and social which is where it's at. :-)
Jeff,
Have always wanted to call someone a Luddite. But I didn't think of it. Simply said, yes, I've moved on, digital and social.
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