"My Job Is To Make Good Ads"

I am writing a novel about a creative director at an advertising agency. Or perhaps, more accurately, I was writing a novel until a few months ago when I ran out of words.

Last week I was re-reading what I had written. I found something from the novel that I thought would make good blog material. The creative director is explaining his job...

"...my job is to make good ads.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. Good ads are easy to make at home. They’re easy to make in ad school. They’re remarkably easy to make in bars. The one place, however, where it’s almost impossible to make a good ad is at an ad agency.

Ad agencies are staffed and structured in such a way as to put the maximal number of obstacles in the way of creating good ads. This is because agencies analyze everything there is to be analyzed about an ad. 

It has been my experience that nothing creative can survive the indignity of being broken down to its smallest constituent components. It’s like trying to decide if a movie is good by scrutinizing the frames."

One of these days I'll finish the damn thing.