Heath Collins on the Difference Between Good and Bad Creative

Creative director Heath Collins has been with cummins&partners Melbourne for the past 11 years, during which time he was lucky enough to be involved in creating one of Australia's first Super Bowl ads for Doritos. As Heath tells it, he's been riding the spot's coattails ever since.

In his time with the agency he's made ads for the things he loves, including alcohol, the AFL and hot chips (in that order). He has also lead campaigns for brands across categories, including for the Cricket World Cup.

LBB> Person: What kind of creative person are you?

Heath> I’m the sort of person who recoils from the words ‘creativity researchers’ for some reason, even though there’s really nothing wrong with that concept. I don’t think that’s cos I’m overly cynical, but I think at heart I am a bit of a hippy when it comes to the concept of creativity.

I believe creativity is innate, but I reckon it’s innate to all of us. I think it’s all about unlocking your access to that creativity, which comes easy to some but needs to be ‘learned’ by others.

I know creatives who seem to be completely uninhibited and open to their creativity, prolific ideators, quick to great execution. But I also know creatives who swear they aren’t creative, whose process is all about diligence, research, insight, and introspection. They still seem to come to a great place.

Ultimately, though, my hippy summation is that whatever your process or brain type, I feel like any great bit of true creative inspiration (in any medium) is something a bit magical that we are all lucky enough to snatch out of the ether. Some wave a big old butterfly catcher, and some hatch elaborate traps, but it’s all about being lucky enough to land something.

LBB> Product: How do you judge the creativity of a piece of work?

Heath> I think it comes down to how you define creativity, especially in advertising.

We all call the executional part ‘the creative’, but I think there can be super clever things that aren’t necessarily super creative, and super creative things done that aren’t particularly clever.

The best stuff for me is the stuff that is both of those things.

I define something as being truly creative in execution when it feels like it’s completely new and original, like when you see or hear or experience it and you think, “How the fuck did they come to this? Where did this come from? Why this? How this?"

Thoughts like those make me think it’s really creative.

There’s clever creative, which is good (sometimes great), but doesn’t have to be super creative, as long as it’s good.

Then there’s creative creative, which can be good (even great), as long as it’s clever.

And there’s bad creative, which may be quite creative, but if it’s not clever, then it’s not good.

Capiche?

Yeah, you piche.

LBB> Process: Tell us about how you like to make creative work

Heath> I prefer working in a team but dig working alone. I like to have enough time on a brief, but I’m also a sicko who kind of digs crazy deadline pressure. My desk is that of an advertising memorabilia hoarder, but I like it really clean.

Yeah, I’m either a complete mess or a champion of an enigma. Tomato tomato.

The one thing I think I can say with certainty about my ‘process’ is that I reckon I have my best thoughts in the actual briefing, and if it can be the actual client briefing, then all the better. There’s something about hearing it straight from the source that makes me feel like if there really is an ethereal stream of inspiration from which we magically pluck our creative ideas, then it’s at its richest and most viscous at this point.

LBB> Press: What external factors have shaped you, and what can make or break a creative project?

Heath> I was always a creative person, art, music, writing, comedy, stuff like that -- but I only became a paid creative person in my mid-30s. Although a life as a struggling musician/artist with shitty supporting jobs in hospo, removals, demolition, fruit picking, carpentry, warehouse work, guitar shops, roadie work, and as a voiceover artist was phenomenally detrimental to my economic development, it’s also probably given me the thing I lean on most to generate ideas relevant to the real world.

It’s also given me a healthy appreciation for my job as the best job in the world, creative struggles or not, and maybe that’s the secret to it.

Maybe not.

I don’t know, I’m not a scientist.