A creative’s role has changed a lot over the years.
And that’s not going to stop in the future.
With agencies under ever-increasing pressure, on both time or money, there’s greater expectations on every member of staff.
As a Creative Director you need to make sure all those outside demands aren’t actually damaging the creative output.
Because if that drops then those time and money pressures will only get worse, you’ll lose accounts and struggle to gain new ones.
The most obvious example is the massive increase in meetings.
These days a creative’s diary fills up pretty quickly with calls and catch-ups, it’s just so easy to send out a video call invite.
But with the day so broken up when are they suppose to do the thinking?
And what quality will it be if they’re constantly managing messages?
I’m all for creatives running and leading jobs, but there’s a tipping point. And a good CD will spot that, either getting the wider team to cut back on the amount of meeting invites and messages or by stepping in to do the meetings themselves.
There’s even been quite a few cases where I’d take care of basic or simple amends, artwork or copy tweaks so the team didn’t get interrupted on something more important.
Another thing that works well is blocking off sections of the day. Have a rule that meetings can happen in the first and last hour of the day. And that messages only happen the 30 mins either side of lunchtime.
That gives two big chunks of the day that let the creatives get in a zone and push the work.
They create ideas and you create time.
