Boyle’s Stop-Start Ten Commandments
JWT’Sglobal planning director, Sean Boyle, was one of 8 winners (from 84entries) of the Transforming Advertising competition hosted by theAmerican Association of Advertising Agencies. He recently presented hisStop-Start Ten Commandments at the 4As annual conference held in SanFrancisco. Listed below, the Commandments are “five things we need tostop doing; and five things we need to start doing, in order totransform the ad business and make the world a better place.”
1. START TELLING THE TRUTH
To each other. To our clients. About our brands.
2. STOP THE BLOODY POLITICS
Becausewe’re an industry run by bankers, it is the conniving crowd pleasersrather than the cream that tend to rise to the top. A general rule: inmost agencies, those with vision who ‘get-it’ are bullied andundermined at every turn by those with no vision, who don’t.
3. START HAVING FUN AGAIN
Weused to be the envy of the salary-man. Why have we let it become soserious and dull? The greatest work ever done in our industry, hasalways come from places where people like each other and enjoy…reallyenjoy… playing and partying together as a team.
4. STOP OVER-THINKING EVERYTHING
Whatwe make doesn’t really matter. If we accept this, we get somewhereimmediately! It is also true that what we make matters less when weover-analyse it in order to appeal to lowest common denominators.
5. START DOING SOMETHING!
Insteadof taking 8 months to do 1 thing…we need to be doing 8 things in 1month. Many of these things may fail. Allow. Today, one in tenmeetings are necessary, one in ten people at those meetings actuallyget it, one in ten jobs get made, and one in a hundred are any good.
6. STOP THE INCESSANT RESEARCH
Putten industry professionals who know what they are doing into a room,ten people who know what makes people tick, and who understand a goodpiece of communication from a bad; and whatever comes out of that room,can and should go straight into the media. We absolutely do not needto waste time obtaining prior validation from a postman, a bus-driveror a housewife.
7. START DOING GOOD
We need tobring our clients to CSR programmes…all of them…not just the cigaretteboys, the oil companies and the huge conglomerates who make sugary,cheesy comestibles…all of them…doing it cos they want to, not cos theyfeel they have to.
8. STOP BANGING ON ABOUT “DIGITAL”
There’sno such thing. We are all one and the same now and have been since thestart of this century. Agencies need to start walking the talk becauseright now, clients are leaving.
9. START UPS AGAIN, PLEASE
Goout there and do your thing. Don’t suffer it…change it. Make itbetter. You’ve learned how not to do things…now put that learning intopractice. Be ethical. Be creative. Be nice to other people. Protectand care for your staff. Be the next Clow or Hegarty or Chiat. Bebrilliant.
10. STOP USING ANIMALS IN COMMERCIALS
Adswith chimps, dalmatians, koalas, ostriches, mooseseses, rhinos,warthogs, water buffalo, lizards, clydesdales, horses that aren’tclydesdales, dolphins, the list goes on. These are today’s equivalentof Two C’s in a K. And we really can do better folks.
You can link to his speech HERE
3 Comments
Seanie you look great on stage mate!
Love what you’re saying and I agree totally but how do you get this through your bosses at JWT?
nice!
“Put ten industry professionals who know what they are doing into a room, ten people who know what makes people tick, and who understand a good piece of communication from a bad; and whatever comes out of that room, can and should go straight into the media. We absolutely do not need to waste time obtaining prior validation from a postman, a bus-driver or a housewife.”
Agree with the sentiment, research shouldn’t be used in replacement for expertise. However, I must say – with so few women representing the upper echelons of this industry, don’t you think its a bit wonky to gather 10 ‘industry professionals’ (read: 90% men) to create communications which are primarily targeted to the key purchaser in the household (read: 70% women)?
As a woman in advertising, it frightens me the huge gaps in ‘insight’ that these industry professionals have, and for the most part are blatantly unaware.