Crimes against creativity come in three flavours: Cowardice; Denial; and Resistance.
Remi Baker, head of strategy at PHD, is also a badged agent investigating crimes against creativity.
“A number of cases coming across my desk seem to have a lot in common,” she told MFA EX in Sydney.
“The suspects, working out of the Australian media agencies, media experts, have stifled creativity.
“Briefs were coming in, media plans were going out. No chance to challenge, nor chance to be creative.
“So after years of seeing these kinds of cases, we decided to do something about it. I'm here to share with you the three most common crimes made against creativity in our industry, and to rally you all to join me in becoming law-abiding, creativity crime stoppers.
They are: Cowardice, Denial, Resistance.
“The first crime we're going to talk about today is the crime of cowardice … not having the courage to fight for your ideas in the face of adversity. Fear is the powerful enemy to creativity. And it's something that can really be debilitating and hold us back.
“We've all been guilty of it. Fear of judgement, fear of rejection, even fear of approval.
“Every one of you here should feel empowered to have an opinion, you should feel brave enough to stand up and share your ideas. And whether they're right or wrong, you should really be working on actually bringing those ideas to life, and fighting for them and believing in your own ideas.”
“The second crime we're going to talk about today is the crime of denial. Denial is committed when one believes they can't be creative within the restrictions of a brief. That might not be enough time, not enough budget, might not be the right client.
“No matter the brief, every opportunity is an opportunity for creativity to flourish. And for every one of you to be creative, no matter your role. Creativity is not refined to those in strategy. It lives in trading, and it's in planning and lives in HR. It lives in every element of the media.”
“And the third crime we're going to talk about today is the crime of resistance. This offence is committed when one forgets or neglects to source a diversity of ideas or perspectives on solving a particular problem. Resisting involvement from others really hinders creativity and flows it down in its tracks.
“Let's not resist creativity, but instead, work together to collaboratively come up with ideas and become an industry that really champions best in class thinking and working with a variety of different partners and stakeholders. Because that's such an important part of what we do. We have the power to lift the industry up and to work with one another to do that.”
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