I worked for a large brand and ran a large (25+) creative team for several years that completed work both in-house and oversaw external creative agencies out-of-house. During my time there, I creatively directed digital deliverables for literally hundreds of campaigns. After all that - I gotta say, something really bugs me about how most creative processes function inside of big brands.
There’s SO much WASTE - wasted time, wasted money, wasted resources - and SO much indecision. The agency bill multiples and then quadruples as more and more options are demanded but seem to take the project further away from the goal. Everyone agrees that the process sucks. Yet there’s a reluctance to plan better (and then actually follow the plan). Do y’all know what I’m talking about? Have you seen it too?
In my opinion, these are the MAIN reasons that projects get “stuck” or go over budget:
The person who’s running the project from a very high level is constantly giving notes. They may not have any hands-on creative experience, so they don’t realize how much their constant interference or redirections hurt the project.
There’s too many decision-making stakeholders and you can only move forward if you have 20 peoples’ approval. Most of the decision-making stakeholders also don’t have any hands-on creative experience.
There’s a culture of snobbery that prevents things from getting approved because no one wants to say they actually like anything. Liking something is suspicious. Finding fault is much safer.
People are too afraid of looking stupid to their colleagues if their preference or suggestion is wrong, so everything has to be “perfect-looking” before it can even be considered. The side effect of this is that you can’t have a proper brainstorm. Spitballing ideas without vetting them is dangerous to your career.
Beyond the project’s stakeholders, there are a partners on a company-wide level that have to be kept happy, and this is usually done at the expense of the user journey or fan experience. (Think: over-branding things, offering a million different ways to subscribe side-by-side instead of creating visual hierarchy).
The creative director or art director on the project can also be to blame - for example: if they require the entire design team to meet and look at a bunch of options pasted on wall and critique them to death 47 more times before even showing them to a stakeholder. This is a good example of something that was normal in design school, but IMO is absolutely bonkers in a large office situation.
You can see why no one wants to point any fingers. There are consequences to calling out your boss, colleague or a high-level stakeholder.
So, how is this waste issues solved? What’s the solution?
People keep suggesting “AI” because they think adding a software into the mix that can provide “infinite options” is going to make it better. OMG. No. All that it will do (if that’s how they intend to use it) is provide infinitely MORE ways for the project to meander off course.
The answer isn’t more more more: that’s what got us INTO this mess.
The answer is making more efficient decisions.
The way we do that?
We research, plan, and agree on a strategy together before diving into options.
We prototype & sketch rough ideas quickly rather than building 300 working versions of the entire app, website or poster for review.
We ELIMINATE what doesn’t work quickly - and then move the f*ck on.
We LOCK decisions at a specific point and don’t “unlock” them just ‘cuz “oh but this would be cool!” Maybe it would; remember it for next time.
We keep stakeholder groups small - and approve things at the conceptual level rather than the “in the weeds” level.
We do all this so that by the time you get to the design part of it - major decisions like “Is this the right actor to feature in this ad?” are a non-issue.
Sometimes when people hear about this method, they feel like there isn’t enough room for iteration or creative exploration. Or that it means that we don’t have a polished-enough deliverable.
But the thing is, developing the habit of cutting things off when an objective has been satisfied actually allows you to do MORE things (instead of getting lost on the same refinement for 6 months only to have it killed because the strategy didn’t align). Ideally, your time breakdown on any project, big or small, looks kinda like this:
All right, that’s all for now. Have a great weekend and stay tuned for more!
XOXO,
Cathy
They should just put you all the way up top, and it would all run like a well oiled machine haha
But no, seriously, these are really good points! Hope some companies will follow through on at least some of them.