Working With People Far More Creative than I

Our morning guest speaker was Eric Bauchet, Marketing Director at Whirlpool (Gladiator Brand).

He gave us a great talk on how to work with ad agencies and their creative personnel, something many of us will be doing this summer at our internships.

He walked us through a creative brief, basically the cornerstone for every advertising project. He also helped us identify potential sources of conflict when working with very passionate and artistic individuals.

Do you want someone on your team that will have a brilliant idea enter his/her head at 2 a.m. and then work furiously to flush it out until 8 a.m.?

Of course you do.

But what happens if you don’t like the idea or it is not consistent with your marketing objective?

How do you communicate that to a “creative” while not discouraging them from being as passionate going forward?

It is certainly a fine line to walk and something with which we will all need to practice this summer.

Eric Bauchet explained to us that it wasn’t enough for an ad to be memorable, viewers (and specifically viewers interested in buying that product) needed to be able to tie the ad to the company that made it.

He closed by having us all group up and take a look at real print advertisements. Our goal was to work backwards and re-write the creative brief that led to the ads.

It certainly was a stimulating exercise and a great morning session that taught us a lot.

Mike Hardman