The industry gives it a C, but is that too harsh?

I conducted a survey towards the end of last year among 60 of the industry’s elite director-level media people at the iMedia Summit. I asked respondents to give online creative a letter grade. The results were:

A: 5 percent
B: 26 percent
C: 53 percent
D: 14 percent
F: 2 percent

The consensus -- one out of every two responses -- was that we are at best satisfactory and at worst forgettable, lifeless and mediocre (paraphrasing with a degree of editorial latitude) when it comes to the all-important "C" -- creativity.

Clearly not good enough.

The fact remains that creativity in the online space has just not been a priority until, arguably, recent times. I come across several players in the space who talk a huge game when it comes to the importance of creativity, but when it comes down to it, this is nothing more than delinquent lip-service.

A different subset of laggards professes to understand what creativity is all about. They think they know what they’re doing, but it becomes readily apparent that they are operating industrial-grade heavy machinery without as much as a learner’s permit to drive a scooter.

Then there’s the direct-response obsessed, who pursue short-term conversion, not as a pig pursues truffles, but as a rabid dog pursues its own tail. This group would consider creative best practices to be the difference between click here, click now and click ASAP.

Perhaps part of the reason for this gaping void is the fact that those who truly are charged with evolving the interactive creative product -- the creatives -- conspicuously are missing from many creative conversations.

In addition, the pool itself needs to grow, as well as to be better integrated with the mainstream. We absolutely still need to figure out how to get better talent on board, together with piquing the collective interests of the traditional creative community who as yet are still largely unmoved by a medium that struggles to serve up the pomp and ceremony of pomp (exotic production locations that deliver nuance and differentiation) and ceremony (recognition or top billing at prestigious award ceremonies).

Furthermore, we do a fairly poor job at showcasing our work; we’re lousy at merchandising our achievement. Hell, we struggle to show our actual clients their own live campaigns. “Just hit the reload button 10 times” does not cut it.

But before I put pen to paper and sign off on this report card, I think it would be best to introduce another couple of Cs -- the Cs of comparison and context. 

Comparison: Are we really all that different right now from our offline counterparts? When last did you see a piece of memorable television creative which inspired, engaged and connected with you in visceral ways you never thought existed? Tick. Tick. Tick.

Why is it that the last great piece of television creative just celebrated its twentieth anniversary? Or when we reminisce about the best work ever produced, we’re constantly citing spicy meatballs, the absence of beef and a rather nasty Joe Greene?

Today’s advertising agency is no longer run by a creative leader and visionary, but by a board of number crunchers and so-called business people. This is, after all, a business of creativity, but when anything compromises the art of being able to tell persuasive, compelling and inspirational stories, then we are all knee-deep in trouble.

Context: Perhaps the problem with online creative is that we’re going about evaluating it all wrong. While sight + sound + motion is no doubt an aspirational formula for success, as long as we maintain our methodology of evaluating online creative on TV’s terms, we may never truly lift our grade from barely passing to flying colors.

Creativity today takes on more profound forms which transcend the message into the fabric and fiber of the medium itself. From being able to integrate itself into the page like 'Kill Bill Volume 1' did when a knife literally sliced itself through a page in order to break through the clutter -- to the ability to involve the user in the actual advertising like ABSOLUT did with its landmark series of online executions; to the wonderful GE work, where users could use their mouse as a pen to create and send their imagination at work to another colleague.

The more you care to find out about this medium and the progress that’s being made, the more you would have to concur that we’re getting significantly better.

Day by day. Execution by execution. Challenge by challenge.

I, for one, felt a change in the wind when the major dailies and trades devoted prime real estate to a rather decadent and if truth be told, Subservient Chicken. More telling was the fact that creative piping-hotshot Alex Bogusky was the man taking the credit (and rightly so) for this, as opposed to CP+B’s interactive creative director.

These are indeed exciting times to be a fan of creativity, but if and only if we apply the kind of commitment, focus and dedication we once knew and embraced in the glory days when I wouldn’t have needed to insert the last names of people like Bill, David and George.