Creativity Squared: Jerry Hoak Is Living in a Terribly / Well Designed World

 

 

I see the world in one of two ways. 1. Well designed. 2. Terribly designed. I went through some cancer stuff when I was a kid and spent a lot of time staring at medical forms and filling them out incorrectly. Which is the only possible way to fill out medical forms. I could never understand how something that could literally result in life or death could be given such little design effort. I went from wanting to be a doctor to needing to be a designer thanks to those clipboards.

 

I’m also incredibly competitive and team oriented. I grew up playing team sports, and I’ve realised pitching is my favourite part of what I do now. There is nothing better than building a team and going up against the best agencies in the world. Losing is hard but winning tastes so sweet. Or in our most recent case, sweet but not tooooo sweet (you gotta try Bud Light Seltzer’s Watermelon Mojito Cocktail Hour, trust me).

 

I think every human being is born creative. But for most people (including myself), creativity takes work. Ideas just don’t pop out of nowhere. You have to sit down and write. And think. If you announce, “I’m not a creative person!” you won’t be. The best idea in our last pitch came from someone in IT. His advice: “If you’re stuck, try turning it off and back on. You’ll think of something.” It’s true of your Mac and your brain.

I’m an ‘omnivert’. I really struggle at big networking events with tons of people. So, I’m definitely not an extrovert. But I realised pretty quickly that working from home wasn’t for me either. The isolation crushed my creativity (and my soul). I think the hybrid world of working is perfect for me. I see just enough people in person to fill up the human bucket and can escape to the virtual world when I need to.

 

I’m pretty pissed that Anselmo Ramos took the name GUT. So much of judging creative comes down to instinct. Does it make me feel something? Have I seen it before? Would I immediately share it on the text chain with my high school friends who don’t work in advertising? And just as importantly, what’s going on inside the bellies of my team members? As we get higher up, so do our egos. So while my gut is telling me what I like, sometimes it’s better to listen to someone else’s.

 

As an ECD, I’m most proud of the work we’ve done for DoorDash. Our first campaign, Every Flavor Welcome, launched in an extremely polarised political climate and made DoorDash’s core values clear. By standing for more than delivery, their business took off. And then within days of Tom Hanks going down with covid we launched a campaign called #OpenForDelivery. It started by encouraging restaurants to announce that their biggest competitors were still open despite the press reporting otherwise. The hashtag is still being used three years later. When the instinct was to shut down, we kept going. And so did our clients.

As a creative team, my partner Ray Del Savio and I had a career-altering three-year run on Prudential at Droga5. We were fortunate enough to piggyback onto the second round of Day One. As a 30-something-year-old kid, showing up at the doorstep of someone on their first day of retirement was an incredibly rewarding/eye-opening experience. There was no script or agenda. Just a camera and curiosity. Once we got a picture of how scary retirement was for people, we went to work creating actual solutions. Our Challenge Lab campaign used behavioural economics to help rewire people’s brains so they wouldn’t keep making the same financial mistakes. I’ll never forget driving to Harvard to pitch the idea to Professor Dan Gilbert. We managed not to humiliate ourselves and convinced him to be our spokesperson in the same meeting. A year later, there was a Freakonomics podcast about the work and we were on the Titanium stage shaking Dan Wieden’s hand. It was my first real taste of creative accomplishment, and it reset my expectations of myself. 

There is a ton of good work coming from all over the place. It just looks different. We’re doing a lot more in a lot less time and for less money in some cases. At Martin, our biggest wins are coming through social and technology. And for real clients with real problems.

Since we’re all watching different stuff and getting subjected to vastly different work on a day-to-day basis, award shows still set the barometer for great work. But even the best shows are showing a lack of agreement on what constitutes good. Maybe it’s just that we finally have more voices in the room. And what is good work for one person doesn’t resonate for another. And that is okay. But I don’t buy into the idea that there isn’t good work out there. 

I also disagree with the idea that new generations of creatives aren’t working as hard or aren’t as hungry. There have always been and always will be ambitious people and people who are happy doing this for the paycheck. Quiet quitting isn’t new and it isn’t a label the new generations deserves. Certainly not here.

 

I’m the kid who happily drew inside the lines. In fact, I outlined the lines so my crayon would hit the crusty, perfect border and NOT go out of the line. One slip of Burnt Sienna and to the trash it went. I love the craft of advertising. As a young art director I’d obsess on end cards, kern every letter of a print ad and flip through Pantone swatches until the strips fell out.

 

But big, pure, holy-shit creativity does not come easily for me. At Droga5, I realised I needed to treat ‘concepting’ as a job. I’d post up at a coffee shop every day a few hours before work. Same notebook, same pen, same seat at the corner of the bar. And I’d just start writing whatever came into my brain void. By putting myself in this almost meditative state, I’d will ideas into existence by blunt force. And have enough stuff to get me and my partner going when the day started.

 

As an ECD at Martin I have the luxury of surrounding myself with people who come up with the big, weird, messy ideas. And even though my job is different now, I approach it the same way I did as a young creative. I get in early and start working. But instead of inventing ideas, I’m calling a client to sell one. Or scouring culture to help influence another.

 

A piece of work is never done. Time just runs out or boredom sets in and you move on to the next one.

 

 

I was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1994 at the age 14. And thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, I got my start early. After two ridiculous/ungrantable wishes (a scholarship to Notre Dame and red Jeep Wrangler), I settled on a computer. I thought I wanted to be an architect, so they loaded it up with AutoCAD and CorelDRAW. I’ll never forget eighth grade physics. Our rocket was so bad that it exploded after getting less than two inches off the ground. But I designed the shit out of our report and we got a B+. It was the first turd I polished, and it set my career in motion.

I didn’t sleep in a real bed for a decade. It started in the Penn State computer lab where I’d push three rolling chairs together to try to get 30 minutes of shut-eye. Then to VCU Adcenter (Now VCU Brandcenter and I will never forgive Rick Boyko for changing it) where I’d pass out on the old stained couches or huge cutting board tables if the sofas were taken. I took that same work ethic to real jobs in NYC and just kept going. I went from the middle to the pack to where I am now almost entirely because it’s all I wanted. I didn’t have the raw talent to do it any other way.

Kindness: When giving feedback, say thank you and start with what you like. Every time. If you begin in a positive place you’ll end the call in one. Creative people are sensitive people. Make them feel appreciated and they will do anything for you.

Trust: If you hired a great agency, let them be a great agency. Set ambitious goals and reach them together. But give them room to do what they do. New relationships take a minute to develop. Make sure you’re giving it that minute.

Transparency: If something’s wrong, pick up the phone and talk before frustration sets in. Open, honest teams are the only teams that work.

Humility: Look at the work the agency (and your team) is doing for other clients. If you aren’t getting the same level of output, ask yourself how much you have to do with that. 

And don’t write scripts.