Advertising is an industry of celebration — we live by challenges

Advertising, which builds campaigns based on insights and then tailors them around topics that are true to a certain demographic, is a form of celebration and acknowledgment. We bring things to light, often by offering a different perspective — all with the aim of positioning the client or product as the vehicle for behavioural change.

We sell through telling stories. When advertising stops dictating the story and forces a client or product into a conversation, it seamlessly integrates into the world it wants to speak to by truly understanding its market and the way its people live, think and speak. This is a form of celebration — of a people, of a culture.

It’s a celebration because of the true understanding of who we are speaking to, and how we’re able to speak deeply and meaningfully to those people. Sometimes it’s about spreading joy and excitement; other times it’s about a responsibility we inherit to address people who are in dark places.

Storytelling isn’t all about joy, it’s about learning and sharing. The ability to tell effective stories requires an understanding that allows us to borrow from that world after observing and understanding it, to the point where you can slip seamlessly into the conversation because you’re a part of it. The ability to do that requires a responsible approach and, when it works, it serves as a celebration.

The ability to understand those different worlds and speak to the people who inhabit them goes beyond research. Someone needs to be part of that world and help educate the agency team working on the project how it works. This requires that agencies are made up of diverse people from different walks of life, who want to tell stories in the most effective and honest way possible.

When people come to work, they bring themselves to the office — their culture and experience — and the smartest agencies know to give people the space and safety to share their worlds. It helps us understand each other better as people and gives us an opportunity to speak to our clients more effectively and efficiently, which translates into work that is culturally relevant.

Bringing together a base of diverse people can be intentional, but it can also happen by luck. Someone on the team may connect perfectly with a brief because they were brought up in the culture of the people we’re asked to converse with. That’s where the link to challenges comes in. It’s only when you work with people who have faced certain challenges that they are able to offer them as the very insights that make great, authentic work. The industry is built by the challenges the people working in it have faced; we pour that into our work.

The other side of the coin — and this is the part that’s much harder — is where the team work hard to go out and learn about the people they’re being asked to converse with. The right kind of creatives are like journalists who dig and dig until they understand the nuances of the topic they’re dealing with because they have an insatiable desire to understand it.

There are countless examples of agencies that have failed to engage correctly with the market, or been forced away from the path they know is right, because of a misalignment between the agency and the client. This is where things tend to go horribly wrong for the brand. In almost every instance, the common denominator is a lack of understanding of the needs, wants and context of the market; this does far more damage than good to the brands. Agencies are responsible for knowing who they are speaking to — and how to speak to them — in a way that is meaningful.

Meaningful, in this context, speaks to a fair balance between the needs of the market and the client. This means respecting the culture and portraying a true understanding of it. It means finding a meaningful insight and building around it — if you agree or disagree, interrogate why, and the work will be better. When a creative is able to put themselves in a position where they’re able to influence human behaviour in a meaningful way, the spark of celebration shimmers.

Awards are great, winning and retaining clients is important to the bottom line, but changing human behaviour is the ultimate goal of every creative.

The advertising industry celebrates its challenges — and the challenges faced by its consumers — through the work it releases.

It’s time to substitute the word “brief” for “challenge” in the agency world. The client’s brief is the challenge, because without a brief there’s no challenge to tackle, problem to solve or work to do. We should embrace every challenge because not only does it represent a job, but also an opportunity to learn, grow and make a meaningful impact on the world.

* Khanya Sijaji is executive creative director of 8909

The big take-out: Changing human behaviour is the ultimate goal of every creative.