Balancing Functionality with Creativity

I have always figured this to be a huge challenge!

A client brief traditionally moves from the Client Servicing/Account Manager to the Creative Head/Art Director and then onto the execution team in the Agencies.

The Account Managers are mostly hardcore networking and business development people, with good business sense and strong commercial acumen. But they are often a tad clueless about the creative aspects of their business proposals to the client.

On the other hand, once they brief their Creative head to handle the project, most of the "good business sense" is lost on the Creative genius , taking the brief. From hereon, starts a complex conceptualization process, which is an unpredictable mix of the commercial and creative needs of the customer.

I feel, often the end product is either highly commercial or highly creative but rarely an optimum mix.

And this is amply reiterated by the new "Most Effective Advert" category at Cannes. What it indirectly says is, that the most creatively wonderful adverts may be just that, "Creatively wonderful", but not really effective.

So getting the right balance is imperative for any collateral or advert to deliver a robust ROI , and everyone from the Brand Manager at the client end to the Account Manager, Conceptualizer, Visualizer and the entire creative team, need to be trained and sensitized to delivery the balance in full!