“It’s been done”.

“JWT in Brazil already did it”.

“That idea won a Clio three years ago”.

 The list goes on…

I find so many of us are quick to dismiss ideas, and yet very few of us stop to try and bring something new to it.

 I’m not talking about blatantly ripping off an idea that’s already been done and accepting it. I’m talking about when an idea happens to have a tiny similarity to another idea and someone dismisses it on the terms that it’s been done before. For example, I once witnessed a team present an idea that involved using a tiger. It was quickly attacked (and killed) because back in 2000, ESSO Gas used a tiger in their commercials. For the record, not the same thing, at all. The idea being presented was for a clothing company (it had nothing to do with a gas company), and used the tiger in a completely different way. And further more, if the team had just changed the tiger to an elephant or a cougar, there wouldn’t have even been a problem.

I feel “its been done”, is such an easy way out of things these days. Budgets and brands make it harder and harder to stay fresh and unique, and while that’s our job, there’s a whole lot of grey area that isn’t being addressed.

Next time, instead of dismissing work, try to bring something to it to make it better, stronger, more distinctive and own able. It’s too easy to say something’s been done and move on.

While I’m on a roll here, I guess I’ll share a few other pet peeves of mine:

-       It bothers me when a project gets briefed under the pretense ‘it is what it is”. What does that mean exactly? Put less effort in? Care less about the work? At the end of the day, it’s our job to solve business problems creatively, no matter how glamorous they may be.

-       I’ve come across a lot of people in this business lately that really don’t care about what they do. It makes working with these people difficult. And further, it makes me feel bad that they haven’t yet found something they have passion for.

 Luckily, I’m in an environment where the feedback is solid, directive and incredibly empowering, there’s a unified team with common goals working towards similar things and whether an idea is ‘there or not’, or ‘similar to something that’s been done’, there’s always concrete suggestions to work from. I hope you are too. I believe direction and culture like this always makes the work better, faster.

Thanks for listening, or rather reading about my industry pet peeves. I hope this doesn’t leave you with a negative taste, but rather inspires you to be the one that always brings something more to the table.