Some of the greatest creative ideas can come from a meeting of the minds for the collective good.
At Advertising Week New York 2024, The Female Quotient, a business committed to equality in the workplace, hosted a panel conversation, “Unlocking Power of Social Impact Campaigns.” The panel included members of The Ad Council’s Creative Review Committee (CRC) who spoke candidly about the creative collaboration process for iconic campaigns that help tackle complex social issues and drive societal change and commentary.
The group included Michelle Hillman, Chief Campaign Development Officer, The Ad Council, Cindy Gallop, Founder & CEO, MakeLoveNotPorn, Shannon Washington, Global Chief Creative Officer, Gotham, PJ Pereira, C-Founder & Creative Chairman, Pereira O’Dell and Rafa Rizuto, Chief Creative Officer, North America, Ogilvy.
The Power of Collaborative Thinking
The CRC brings together creatives, advertisers and communicators that might actually see each other as rivals in the business world. Representatives from creative agencies at all levels donate their time and talents to work on important issues campaigns for The Ad Council. Through working sessions participants present briefs and ideas and these coexisting agencies assess and strategize and push each other to make sure the work makes a real impact.
“It's good to have someone from the outside that is not involved in the day by day…of the progression of the idea…to look at it like this is truly special,” said Pereira. “Or you're taking something that is so good and you're going the wrong direction because you're overthinking it. This just helps [creators] get [their ideas] to where they actually want to be.
Hillman said communicators and PR professionals can benefit from a similar approach.
“By convening a group like the CRC, we're able to gain invaluable feedback and guidance to create breakthrough creative on the most pressing issues," she said. "Communicators can leverage this same approach to drive impact, benefitting from an external perspective from other talented storytellers. The key to success (regardless of platform) is having trusted partners with diverse perspectives come together to lend their passion and talent to support a common cause or goal.”
Challenging the Status Quo
Collaborative cooperation also allows a diverse set of voices to be heard—which can illuminate pain points that might have been overlooked otherwise.
Gallop referred to a time during the creation of the highly successful Love Has No Labels campaign, originally launched in 2015. The message of the campaign, which aims to promote inclusivity, equality and equity was originally presented by an all-male team, with only one person of color representing. Gallop called this out, and nine years later, she notes she “delighted to report” she rarely has to make this point.
“Our industry has no right to be presenting campaigns that are about diversity, equity and inclusion, unless your team itself represents that,” Gallop said. “There's a very simple principle, which I believe came out of the disabled community originally, which is ‘nothing about us without us.’ And that should be the principle in every agency—if you want to sell to the world as it really is, your team needs to reflect the world as it really is.”
Sticking to Principles
And even with the advent of ad tech and burgeoning artificial intelligence use, Pereira noted the importance of working together, and just taking a breath from everything rapidly changing around us to make a lasting difference.
“Ideas need time to develop,” he said. “They need opportunities to change. You don't need to change everything every year, all the time…like you see in entertainment, incredible [TV] series last 10 years, and they have seasons. Advertising doesn't have seasons. You just have, like, one run and then move on. You take things like that Smokey Bear—making the world better for such a long time.”
Pereira said when thinking about the future, it’s important to be able to wade through all the changes surrounding you.
“Despite all those changes, and regardless of what we're being pushed into—being able to hold on to some core principle ideas, it's the way to go.”
Nicole Schuman is Managing Editor at PRNEWS.