1123 Presents
1123 is an advertising agency based in Omaha, Nebraska. We are constantly learning and evolving, not just for ourselves, but for the brands we champion. Join us as we delve into a multitude of subjects related (or adjacent) to the world of advertising.
1123 Presents
2. Harnessing Constraints to Make Great Work w/ Alex Carter
Ever wonder how the tightly bound corset of client demands, budget limits, and ticking clocks can actually breed good work? Together, we navigate the tightrope walk of creating within constraints, illuminating how enforced boundaries can not only kick-start creativity but also demand a sharper, more strategic approach. Alex shares insights on why too much freedom can be the enemy of innovation, and how the right kind of pressure can transform a blank canvas into a something interesting.
The conversation doesn't stop there; it dives deep into the art of refining creative decisions and the crucial role of trust and accountability in the agency-client dance. As we dissect the delicate task of revising branding elements like logos with Alex, you'll get an insider's look at the intricacies of client communication, the importance of articulating the 'why' behind each creative pivot, and the long-term nurturing of client relationships. It's a candid exploration of the challenges and victories that come with the territory, offering a treasure trove of stories and strategies for anyone keen on understanding or mastering the creative conundrum in the world of advertising.
Hey everybody, thanks for joining us once again for the 1123 Presents podcast. This is a podcast where we will cover lots of subjects advertising, creativity, analytics, media placement campaigns, branding and probably some miscellaneous along the way Definitely some. If I have anything to say about it, I am your host, dave DiStefano. I am the Chief Creative Officer and partner at 1123. My partner, shayna, and I started the agency in 2013. And this podcast is part of a rebrand from a 10-year anniversary.
Speaker 1:We've been wanting to do this for a while and we're finally getting our poop in a pile, so to speak, and we're doing it. With me today is our art director and copywriter, alex Carter. Alex, thanks for joining. Today. We're going to talk a little bit about creativity under constraints. Some folks if you'll agree with me or you don't, you can tell me, but I think some folks they think that's a strength. Almost it's like I have to be under pressure in order to create some great. This is what happens. I do this and maybe procrastinate. That becomes a strength instead of leaving. It becomes a quirk that gives them production, but other folks are. No, I've got to have this space. I've got to have this room to create and to tell everybody. Hold for a minute while I do this. I know I'm one and you're probably the other. What do you think? Let's launch off with that. Which one are you?
Speaker 2:I think that's one area to constraints for sure. I think there's other things as well, pretty much anything that limits possibilities. Sometimes that's a brand guide, client expectations, budget, obviously, timeframe. There's probably more factors than that that I'm just aren't coming to mind right now, but there's tons of constraints.
Speaker 2:Specifically on the time thing, I definitely think what you were referring to is you typically like to move a little faster and I typically like to move a little, I would say, slower, maybe not crawling, but I definitely like to make sure things are thought through. I think the idea behind that is, if we're launching a project and somebody's initial reaction is, oh, did you think of doing it this way, I want our answer to be yes, we actually took that into consideration and chose not to, rather than oh, wow, that's a great idea, why didn't we think of that 100%? And so I'm just trying to kind of work from that avoid that scenario when I'm working through a process. But I think, aside from time, the other constraints should also be taken into account Again budget, scope of the work, resources resources resource constraints.
Speaker 2:Time is one of those, of course, but yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:What do you think about the fact that, like the point of view of, well and first of all, yeah, you're right, I mean I chose time was the first one the budgetary thing we run into all the time? I mean we're an agency, we have clients that are different levels and that's nobody's fault, like it's a thing that happens. So I think what makes us good at our job is that we're able to assess where that's at and go okay. Well, I mean, if we're not, you know, if I'm not dragging Dwayne Johnson into this thing for a commercial shoot, then we're going to come back and have you know, it's a voiceover and this is that. There's, I think, the versatility there that breeds versatility. If you're not versatile when it comes to these things learning not only creatively how to make something or write something that's going to further, whatever brand we're trying to further, or sell a product or whatever you're also going okay, I have to creatively look at the constraints that's a creative skill too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think too, when you get into, you talk about dealing with constraints it's all about expectation, because you can go in with budget constraints, time constraints, and if you set, you know, yeah, if the client or whoever is expecting Dwayne Johnson, you know, then they're not going to be happy. But there's, you know, there's really creative things that we can do. There have been multi, you know, million dollar campaigns that have been done. You have a single shot, right, that's the whole premise, like if it's there's successful, some of the most successful TV ads, it's just one shot. You could walk in and do the whole thing. And I'm not talking about like elaborate one or is either. I'm talking about just well conceived spots that are, you know, a shot or a statement. Because, yeah, the constraints help you discover what that is. But then sometimes there are no constraints and I guess what? That's almost harder, right, when there's no constraints, it's worse do anything.
Speaker 2:Then you're like oh my gosh, you lose.
Speaker 1:You like focus at that point yeah, that's one thing I was going to say later on is, like you know, when it's wide open, that's almost worse. I think that that you know for me yeah, I mean, I'm the guy that you know of course I can come up with something on the spot. And you know, with with quick, quick data, quick detail, you know here, this is this and we need to do this. Oh, why don't we just do that? I'm into like a lot of times the simplest answer is the best one. A lot.
Speaker 2:Sometimes there's constraints built in, sometimes you need to build in constraints and I think when you're directing a project from a you know, from a creative director perspective, you almost you need to know when to draw that line. And my question would be kind of where do you? You know we need to introduce some artificial constraints, or the constraints are here, how do we deal with them?
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times for me is like in my brain and this is, I know this is a bad answer, but like I do think about this is like is this what the client? Is this what the client is expecting? Is this what they want out of this? Is this going to achieve what they're expecting If we're doing a whole lot of extra pardon me, bullshit and we're not actually doing, you know, and we're just. We could boil things down. I think that's where my alarms go off in my head and go we don't need to do all this. Yeah, they said they're looking for X. We know how to do that. We know what this is. So I mean for me you know I've got a great example and we can talk about that in a minute because I want to bounce this back to you but I think the you know the clients goals and what we're achieving.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of times, you know, I have that on my mind and I'm like that we don't need to do all this. This is an extra, this is an We've had. We've had chances, like you and I have worked on campaigns where it's been kind of wide open. We've had a nonprofit that we worked on in the spring, I think where we had a lot of latitude to create whatever and as I hit the radiator, the, the, the, the campaign ends up being Simple, but because we thought about it and thought this is all that needs to be done. This is what says the message clean and I think that for me, that's I want that out of everything we do.
Speaker 1:There are, there are, there are definitely projects that I know I've worked on in the past in in, you know, whether it's a design thing we have or it's, you know, video or whatever, where I've definitely felt like, well, the clients expecting more elaborate something or whatever. You know you, you have a discussion with them about that. But you, you definitely know, I guess, knowing client expectations as part of this, like, if you know what they're expecting, that's a constraint. If you know how much time you have to do it, that's a constraint budget, that's a constraint budget's always a constraint. But like that's, I think that's to me, those things are. It all ties back to the client.
Speaker 1:I think that's a conscious that has to be. A conscious question is like, do we really have to add this stuff on? Do we need these extra things? What does it do Okay. Well, if there's no really, if that, if it's like, well, we're already here and we've accomplished x, or we're going to with you know however many impressions or people reached, or you know I have confidence in our, our data, then no, I'd yeah, yeah yeah, what's the best here?
Speaker 1:I like that. Yeah, what's what's the best? Yeah, and we've had I mean, I've got an example talking about we had a production shoot. We've had a couple of production shoots where I think the possibility of extras is always there. We can throw the kitchen sink at you if you want, right, but for some things, a client, you know, they're like we want to dial this down. I want to dial this down. It needs to be simpler. Simpler needs to look like this Okay, you know, lots of discussions happen in pre-pro where it's like we could add this, I could have an extra camera here, I could do this or that, and it was like, yeah, but we don't need to.
Speaker 1:We actually don't need to. And for me, what happens is you accomplish what you. You know we do a, we do a great job. The team accomplishes what the client wants. The client's ecstatic and that's where you get your extra money later, like this is sort of an investment in stewardship. You don't have, you know, you're not like give me it all right now because you know I don't know if this doesn't work. No, I, we didn't need to do that. We accomplished what we're doing. We got the message across and look how good this is. Yeah, it's great, let's go do some more. Yep, that's the kind of relationship I think that I I want. I know Shayna wants out of our agency with clients, yeah, so All right for you, though, because I'm talking a whole lot.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about like. Let's talk about unexpected creative opportunities, let's, let's, let's. I mean I don't know if you've got an example or like as far as like an opinion about this, but a Lot of these things, these constraints, a lot of times feed. I mentioned the time thing, but it could be budget, it could be whatever it feeds. I think in some people, that sparks them to Creatively solve a problem, and then you end up. And then you end up with, you know, something really cool that you wouldn't have landed on if you had all this time or all this money. You know what are you? How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I think unexpected is one of the best things. I think it's really easy to you're given parameters for a project and it's really easy to get pessimistic about that and you can complain we don't have enough money, we don't have enough time, we don't have, but whatever the constraint is, it's easy to complain. But I think the more effective strategy and what's more valuable to clients and to the outcome of what we're making is to approach it more from okay, what opportunities could we get out of these constraints? And when you start looking for opportunities, then it opens up a whole new world. And I think the challenge then becomes, once you've established that baseline or that mindset, how do we keep these opportunities alive? So, in that process coming from client, going to account executive, going to making its way into creative and then working its way down through the department how do we keep those opportunities alive? Cause it's super easy to.
Speaker 2:We talked at the beginning about killing ideas, but it's super easy to squash possibilities and to really almost lock yourself in or box yourself in unnecessarily. And so, yeah, that's always the thought that I'm having is how are we keeping opportunities alive? Because a lot of times the best solutions are the ones that you just happen upon. And those are the ones that they're not really pre-planned, they're not kitschy or they're unique. They make everybody in the agency, and hopefully the client, say, wow, how did you guys come up with that? And then you can grow from there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I don't think constraints are necessarily a bad thing. Obviously, everybody wishes they had more time and more money, but it's up to you, it's up to us how we choose to view those things and then if we create good work, then hopefully the clients will see that, and I think the key to doing that is not squashing those opportunities before you get to implement them into the process. Do you have any examples that you know that come to mind about? You know, when maybe an opportunity was something that didn't seem like a solution at first ends up being maybe it's the byproduct of constraint, or something that didn't seem like a good solution right out of the gate turns out to be the answer to the problem.
Speaker 1:Well, I do. We talked about our logo. Our logo was one of those examples. That's what came to mind, with me too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, we talked I talked about that with them in another episode but I think the the logo itself you know that that's a great example of like. All this time went by and the creative process went through and and I'll even like I said, I'll even say I was like OK, we're set, we're good, let's go forward. And then it was like oh, but if we look at it this way, with this older logo that's been sitting there on the, the contact sheet in the file room floor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been on a file full of, like you know, 100 other logos. All of a sudden it's like, oh, if we revisit that, then this completely taps into everything we've been trying to talk about message wise and everything else. Like, oh my god, it's been there the whole time. So that's a great example of like that working out. I do think there's there.
Speaker 1:Can, you can have some analysis, paralysis about this, you can. You can second guess yourself to death, but once it's, it's, it's analyzing, like, ok, what is our? It's just like I said with the client stuff. It's with this. It was what is our meaning? What is this supposed to say about us? What does this thing represent? How you know? Is it clear enough and all those things? Is it checking all the boxes? Well, we had a couple of logos and then we had this one and when we went back to it was like, actually, this does check all those checks, every body. So in that situation, that was a. It was like, ok, this is this was worth going back and redoing, even though it was freely uncomfortable to go back to everybody and go hey, yes, what? Remember the one you saw, that's not the one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, let me, let me ask you sorry, to add one more thing.
Speaker 1:This, this just popped into my head. No, go ahead and host, you're good.
Speaker 2:How would you approach a client in that situation? Because that suddenly, you know, I think the benefit of the logo was it was more internal, right, yeah. But if you've gone to a client and you come back, I mean this is probably more of a hypothetical case study but you go to a client and you say, hey, this is what we've decided on. And then it becomes abundantly clear in the day or so after Right, this other one that we we didn't think was the best is actually the best for you know, again, going back to what the client expectations are, this is going to fulfill those expectations the best. How would we approach?
Speaker 1:that I think the well that's. I mean as a thought. I think it depends on where we're at with the client. I think this goes back to creative and like sort of the artistic, the artistic integrity, or artistic the artistic side of things and the corporate side of things or the commercial side of things, and having a good dialogue. I think if we have a good dialogue with our client and, you know, if it's a brand new client, it's probably a harder sell. To be like, hey, I know I took you down this road, but now I'm going to turn, that would be really hard for me and I would have to really do some convincing, I think, and to myself to be like I'm comfortable with telling this person let's do that, yeah, and so as a client, we have a lot of longstanding relationships where they know we've been able to navigate things with them, adjust media campaigns and all that. And, as a matter of fact, if you look at media campaigns now and digital and testing and versioning, that's literally something we do organically on that side of the business, right. And so I'm like look and okay, well, this one, we thought these two would work. These are both options. Now, this one is working more than we thought with this copy. So let's merge those together.
Speaker 1:Hey, client, guess what? This is actually achieving more, and here's why. And if you give them the why, you're good. That might be the key. I think, yeah, I think you're right. Just find them the why and be like this is why I'm not doing this. Just because I'm changing my mind, yeah, no, not just because I'm uncomfortable and I don't have a rational reason. Actually, you do. I think I like, and I know maybe this isn't something that maybe you don't subscribe to this, but I think there's always a great. There should be a really good why as to why you're changing something like that.
Speaker 2:Right, and that's where it's difficult on the creative side. Right, Because when you're on the analytics side, yeah, you're like why? Because we've been doing this for a while and there's a really strong gut intuition, right, and you and I can kind of we've built a trust in each other's intuition. But then, yeah, with the newer and older clients, but with the newer client it's like why you don't have that analytics data set to be like, well, this is why, yeah, you get twice as many clicks. It's more like because the feelings are right, right.
Speaker 1:Because the feelings, I think, yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2:I marked this down and, like we got to ask a client this at one point, well, what they're sitting there side?
Speaker 1:Yeah, somebody, I think, somebody we know would be. I got somebody in mind to ask that question too, and it would probably be really good. The I think they hired us or they came to us. Usually in our case, it's a lot of recommendation. A lot of our clients come because other clients know us and have worked with us and they go hey, you got to work with these guys. Here's why they did this for me or they did that for me. We get a lot of good. You know we get a lot of contacts and hits, but we get. You know that, and so I think you know the trust is there.
Speaker 1:We could sit there and we could go back to a client and say, yeah, okay, so you hired us because you know what we're doing, or we know what we're doing. This is what we're seeing. We better fix this now. We better pivot this now, and here's why how do you feel now that can go two ways. You could have a new client look at you and go, like Are you kidding me right now, like all these emails and calls and meetings and like you're wasting my time? Yeah, or you could have somebody who looks at it and goes this is part of the process and, you know, go back to, you know, whatever company made changes to their logo or whatever and had to switch it back quick because they didn't realize, hey, it's part of the creative process. It's part of and I say, creative process. It's more than that.
Speaker 2:Well, you use the gap example. It makes me wonder Did anybody, was anybody like? I don't feel good about this.
Speaker 1:I don't know, during that, you know, I'm sure there was.
Speaker 2:I think and this is coming from and like I think you and I might have different perspectives, but I'll look at things and I'm like I almost wish that there was more accountability on the creative side, to be like, hey, like you know, this might not be the best solution, or like I feel like a lot of times, what will happen definitely bigger agencies and we've both seen this is they will support an idea or present an idea and even if it's not the best, they'll back it because of some kind of political reason or something that's not focused on them.
Speaker 2:I mean, you get to bigger agencies. There's a lot of politics. It's like it's not the best solution, but you know, we're politically stuck here. We're going to keep pushing this as if it's the only only idea, and I almost wish that there was more accountability on the agency side. And I think you know, I think we've done a decent job at this is like right, you show the accountability of like look, we get it wrong sometimes, but in the long run it's you're a lot better off. You know, you're a lot better off taking that honest way rather than just trying to explain.
Speaker 1:Don't you think? I mean, I think this is really case by case like that's just my personality maybe, but like I think sometimes there's just nothing you can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I don't know, and sometimes you're too far down like you're too close to the deadline, right, and it's like, look, there's just, we're here. Yeah, let's do the best work we can do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can say, I can say we don't, we don't, we don't run into that a lot. We, you know, there's a lot, I think on the R side of the on on in our agency that we don't leave a lot of air for like, oh no, we got it so wrong, we have to shift at the end of this, like I don't mind shifting, like making mistakes is part of life and, I think, part of us learning, you know, even with our clients, like our client may have an idea when they, when they meet with us for discovery, right, yeah. And then we go, okay, yeah, that sounds like it might work. And then you know, maybe it's not so late in the process. It's like halfway through and we go, yeah, you really should do this or do this. Yeah, I've had plenty of clients that look at me and say they want you know XYZ.
Speaker 1:Well, we're a whole bunch of direct mail for something that doesn't. That's the only thing I think of is, like I want all this direct mail, I want to do all this. Okay, so the return on investment nowadays for that is rough. Like, if you want to do that, you're going to have to really put a whole bunch of budget to that. We could do that better if we had this delivered digitally, if there was you know there was targeted ads or there's anything like that.
Speaker 1:Behave your old stuff. It's just. You know that's a little bit of an old fashioned approach. I think it works. Direct mail is great.
Speaker 2:When you're sending coupons, it's great, yeah, but you know even coupons, though like I can't remember the last time I've taken the coupons and I think you said accountability, didn't you?
Speaker 1:about agencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, accountability and just that. Yeah, being able to almost admit this and this is.
Speaker 2:You know, I don't want to turn this into a word to your own horn thing, but I do think it's. This is an advantage of having a smaller agency and more self-contained unit, because you're not dealing with as much of the political turmoil, and it's a big value proposition. A massive value proposition, yeah, because, yeah, I mean, you know, when you're dealing with something that's large, it's a lot harder to get that you know. Granular, I think, accountability and just to kind of clarify what I'm thinking of when I say accountability, it's just being able to step up and be like got it wrong. We're human. That, yeah, it happens. But really realistically, I think long-term, this would be a better option.
Speaker 1:There are. There's so many times, I think, where that is and that's. Maybe it's just a marketplace thing or but you know, old, old school business, yeah, that is seen. That is seen as weakness.
Speaker 2:I think yeah, do you think that's?
Speaker 1:changing. It depends on the client. It's case by case. I'm telling you Like I can't say that societally it is. I would love it.
Speaker 1:My problem is, I think, if I'm gonna get into a social commentary on things like society in and of itself is getting worse at accountability. We've seen a lot of that all over the place in past years and like it doesn't matter how you messed up or said something wrong, it's that other person's problem for calling me out or if it's that other person's problem for so. No, I don't think it's getting better. I think it's. And it puts more stress and pressure on businesses like ours to be like okay, we don't wanna come off like that, we wanna make sure we've got our shit together, because if we do, then we don't have to go regroup. Yeah, yeah, I would love that to be always, but yeah, there has to be room for that.
Speaker 1:The way forward in that, I think, is just trust between client and agency. Yeah, and that accountability grows to where you have a relationship with somebody where there's a couple clients. I know I could text and be like hey, I know I sent you this. What do you think of this? Hang on a second Like before we send this as final cause. You're like I love it, let's try this. Do you like that?
Speaker 2:And we've taken advantage of that a couple of times, yeah, and not taken advantage in like a manipulative way, but like no, it's been useful, absolutely useful, and I think some of the best work has come from that kind of how do you get to that point with a client, do you think?
Speaker 1:Is it just you have?
Speaker 1:to build trust Reiterating and you just have to build trust New clients. It's really hard to do that. You may get thrown to the curb on that one, but, like I think, if you build trust and you have a relationship with people, if they've been through some stuff with you as far as like campaigns, and you know, there's a lot of clients that I can think of off the top of my head that we started with at 1123 and had you know, it was just that sort of grassroots starting like we were starting. They were smaller, we helped them grow. You know, once you get that longevity with a client and it doesn't have to be like a decade, it's a couple of campaigns in or you do a campaign you have some success it opens up the ability for you to say like, hey, trust me on this. I don't think you want to do that, even though you feel like you should. Yeah, it's time. That really just takes time. It's just like any relationship between humans yeah, absolutely, it takes time.
Speaker 2:It's hard to build that into your brand, but I think the best brands have been able to almost right. You know, it's reputation, right, right. And if there is a way to do it with a new client, it's to carry a reputation of hey, this is what, this is how we do it. And you know, the best agencies are probably the ones that aren't afraid to take accountability but also, at the same time, with a new client, they have that built-in trust to where they're. Yeah, it's an interesting thought experiment.
Speaker 1:I can't say, like, this is the thing where, like, we're saying, we have this sort of like you and I are talking about this for like, oh, we really wish that this would be like this sort of utopian, you know, accountability and room and trust. Sometimes there's just nothing you can do. Yeah, 100%. There's a lot of instances. I've heard from other people in the past that I've worked with agencies. You know, myself and Shayna, on this journey with the agency we have.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's just like a completely outside factor just shuts it down and they're like, nah, and we're going a different way. And then you're like, whoa, whoa, what you know, like, look at all of the longevity, look at all of the success and they're like, yeah, we don't feel like it, yeah, and that would be it. Like, I don't love that, but I think that's part of agency life. That's, you know, definitely builds my anxiety. But I think that's hard because, as somebody who has sort of an ideal about like, if I do a good job personally with a person and I build that rapport and that trust, they're going to trust us and even if we're going away, that they don't feel they have the strength to say or they have the room to say I don't like this, you shouldn't do that, and we have the same room, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's a true collaboration, more than a. You wish for that.
Speaker 1:But sometimes it doesn't that way and change is never like, usually, it's not always like what a great change. Change is usually like ugh. You know, now I got to do this different. I'm used to this. You know, I'm definitely a creature of habit with things, and so I don't. You know, it's a conscious effort to be like no push, think like, consider these things, Don't just be like no, no, ugh, you know, absolutely, because you may miss some really great nugget of input from somewhere and then you're not growing. Yeah, but yeah, all right. Well, I mean, we should probably wrap up here. This has been a good convo.
Speaker 2:I don't even know what we specifically covered, but we have like the outline here. Yeah, for sure, I don't these outlines.
Speaker 1:I don't think we're going to follow these much so early episodes. This is kind of working out the kinks folks. But anyway, alex, thank you so much. This was a really cool convo. Yeah, really appreciate it. And for everybody listening, please hit the thumbs up the heart whatever the little icon is that makes it so that you can see when we make more content, so that you can listen to it more. Again, my name is Dave DiStefano and this has been 1123 Presents and we will get you next time MUSIC.