Back Naiveté on demand When I was 30 years old and had just begun my career as an advertising copywriter, it struck me, as it strikes most of us early on in our ad agency lives, that there was a distinct lack of creatives older than 40 or so. People would say, “Yeah, it’s a young man’s business.” It didn’t make any sense to me. It seemed to me that if you were a talented writer or art director, and you practiced your craft diligently, there was no reason you couldn’t continue to be productive in that role until you chose to retire. Yet, looking around, that clearly was not the case. The few grizzled old pros still hanging around (some of them well past 50) seemed worn out, embittered and resigned to an imminent visit from the advertising reaper. It was weird. Here they were, members of the revered creative department, the engine that drives the most fun, craziest, loosest, freest business imaginable, and they were defeated, pale shadows. The only “elders” that still had a spark left in them were ascending the ranks, no longer creating ads because they were too busy schmoozing clients and going on the shoots when some juniors sold a spot. Since then I’ve come to understand why the ancients are weeded out or weeded up. There are several reasons. Some price themselves out of their job descriptions, forcing them either up or out, depending on their willingness to become managers. Some do in fact grow weary of fighting the good fight. It takes a certain kind of person to keep going back to the well in the torturous search for good ideas and the motivation to sell them, what with all the bashing of the head against the series of brick walls which such selling entails. Thus, deadwood, dinosaurs and hacks happen. Many creatives were never all that crazy about advertising in the first place. They move on to other careers that work better for them. On top of all these factors, advertising’s seniors are in fact victims of institutional ageism. Like everything else about advertising, this ad ageism is simply a magnified, distorted reflection of what’s going on in the larger culture. While all of these factors contribute to the attrition of the old folks, there is one other variable which I’ve just recently come to understand. It’s a skill, a gift, an ability which some of us have in abundance, and others not so much. The less of this ability you possess, the shorter your career as a creative is likely to be. I call this gift “naiveté on demand”. When you look at juniors tackling an assignment, they’re practically frothing. They’re all over it, determined to change the face of advertising with their ideas for the FSI or banner ad whatever. Agencies rely on this unbridled energy, they feed off it. And this energy is possible because juniors are sufficiently naive to sincerely believe they can sell their wacky vision for an ad. They see no reason why the client wouldn’t buy it. They are blissfully unaware of the almost insurmountable series of obstacles and barriers to selling a fresh, interesting, unexampled idea. If they knew what they were up against, they might just fold their tents and go home. That is what so many old guys wind up doing. They don’t become less creative, just less motivated to be creative. The deeper your understanding of the dark processes in place working overtime to defeat good ad ideas, the harder it is to laugh in the face of these forces and push forward. But some of us possess precisely that ability -- the ability to make believe the CD isn’t a scared bunny, the Group CD isn’t an ambitious egomaniac with his own agenda, the account guys have some other concern than which idea is the easiest to sell, and, most importantly, the ability to make believe the client has somehow transformed from the clueless, small-minded, riskaphobic, anal drones they were last time you presented to them, into open-minded, intellectually engaged, it-scares-me-to-death-but-what-the-heck-let’s-try-it-anyway, fully formed humans. Those of us who are fortunate enough to possess this gift are able to wipe the slate clean every time out. We don’t get lazy or cynical, we don’t lower our sights, because we are able to delude ourselves that this time we’re going to come up with the idea that’ll make heads explode. To paraphrase Tina Turner, what’s bald got to do with it. Naiveté on demand. Without it, there is no passion and no possiblity of generating the big idea. With it, you’re free to think impossible advertising. And, if you’ll recall, that’s where the fun resides, in coming up with the really funny, really different, really outrageous, really unusual, really provocative, really compelling really smart, powerful ideas — you know, the ones they’ll never buy. Remember, as Chairman Jimmy so sagely observes, “The client will surprise you — if you let them.” This is the mantra of naiveté on demand , the belief that the great, nervous-making idea can, at least once in a while, be sold, if only we have the courage to present it to the client in the first place. Most creatives start out with this invaluable naiveté and become seasoned, jaded, cynical, what passes for wise in advertising. With that wisdom, naiveté must now be called up consciously, as a discipline, or else it no longer shows up at all. For some of us, there’s an endless supply of this naiveté. I live in the constant hope that agencies and clients will come to realize it’s the old guys, with all that experience, quick-studyness, perspective and understanding, but who also possess naiveté on demand, who are the most valuable and productive creatives of all. How naive.