Almost a decade ago, I was crafting creative communication for a hospitality brand, with its properties located mainly in Gujarat and Rajasthan. My communication head was a typical Bambaiya person, who is upfront and straightforward in his communication. By this ‘virtue’ of his nature, whenever he would come up with a new assignment, he used to explain the chicanery behind that scheme. This would give me thorough understanding of what I need to include and more importantly, what I need to omit. In a very candid manner, he would explain his requirement: “what should go in print”. Arguably, he was the best communication head I have worked with till date.
Very few people involved in the business of creative communication can adopt such a candid posture as Mr Bambai Ka Babu did. Following many such experiences (of roundabout communication), my belief that spoken words are sometimes deceptive is reinforced. This is not due to their sound but the way speakers use their words. In comparison, written words create greater impact and understanding on readers just because of their very nature of printed form, which has lasting impact in terms of longevity.
Speakers may forget their utterances easily or conveniently. But writers cannot, because readers won’t allow them to forget their writings by presenting screenshots/links/paper clippings et al. This difference causes friction between speakers and writers in corporate milieu in general and advertising agencies in particular.
In advertising world, marketing professionals normally like to instruct or brief the creative department verbally. Although it is prevalent in agencies to submit a written brief, which runs into 20-30 pages, verbal instructions become inevitable for managers, who might turn hostile to their words later. More often, marketing pros use their body language to express some ugly facts and figures about the project. And writers are expected to read between the lines. But writers have to be specific while working on the project. Hence, they need full clarity; to attain this clarity, they ask a lot of questions to marketing team.
This question-answer session turns unpleasant as marketing pros think they are getting bullied by the creative department. “Why should someone ask me so many questions” or “I am not answerable to you”. However, they forget that the success of any project – small or big – rests upon that communication, which needs transparency, at least in the minds of creative department.
From the example above, the message is loud and clear for marketing and brand managers: don’t just rave about the products/services in question; share negatives of the products and services with your creative team, so that they know what to avoid in their communication. This will help your writers and art directors to achieve minimalism, which is heart and soul of creative communication.
Note: The writer shares his thoughts based on his personal experiences and observations. Giant corporations may or may not have resolved the issue of communication gap discussed in this post. Here, the writer shares what he has seen and felt during his tenure at small and medium sized companies.
