Creativity is purpose enough

Creative awards schemes should stand for creativity as an end in itself. But the bigger industry players prefer a purpose narrative that keeps them on top.

For anyone new here, I’m a writer of poetry, downbeat diaries, branding and advertising projects, articles for Creative Review and The Guardian, and books about design. Thoughts on Writing uses language as a way into wider cultural and political issues.

This post may be a challenge for readers blissfully uninterested in advertising awards. But it also goes into deeper issues about the ethics of business and advertising, and may offer some clues if you’ve ever found yourself wondering why advertising is so weird these days. In section 5, I include two speeches that could be given to awards judges before the judging begins. I’d be interested to know which one readers prefer—I have included an excitingly interactive poll to find out [Update 29 Jun 6pm: turns out the excitingly interactive poll was only open to subscribers (didn’t know that’s how it works on Substack) so I’ve taken it down. Still interested to hear views in comments though.]

1. Purpose wins again

For the uninitiated, the global advertising and design world has two main creative awards schemes: Cannes Lions and D&AD. Cannes Lions describes itself as “an International Festival of Creativity that has been championing creative excellence since 1954”—mainly through its best-in-category Grand Prix awards. D&AD describes itself as “the most prestigious benchmark for creative excellence in design and advertising” with its best-in-category winners receiving a Yellow Pencil (“awarded only to outstanding work that achieves true creative excellence”), while the best-in-show Black Pencil represents “the ultimate creative accolade”.

By my count, there were 27 Grand Prix winners at Cannes this year. Six of them were in categories that are described as having a ‘social purpose’ or ‘for good’ dimension, leaving 21 that are billed as creative categories—things like ‘Creative strategy’, ‘Industry craft’, ‘Creative ecommerce’, ‘Design’, ‘Digital craft’ and ‘Entertainment’.

Of those 21 creative winners, 17 have a clear, upfront social purpose. Scroll through the list and you will find racial justice, vegan leather, climate change, women’s rights, organic farming, and ‘modest’ swimwear. Most of them are worthy causes, and much of the work is creatively admirable. But the obvious question arises: how likely is it that awards based on excellence in creativity and craft would align so consistently to progressive causes?

For its part, D&AD awarded 78 best-in-category Yellow Pencils. There is some subjectivity in working out which have a ‘social purpose’—I’ve tried to be fair based on a quick skim. For example, I haven’t classed the New York Times ‘Independent journalism for an independent life’ campaign as purpose-driven, even though many would see it as leaning in that direction (complete with its pointed erasure of JK Rowling—mentioned in this previous post). And I haven’t classed Burger King’s humorous radio ads as ‘purpose-driven’, even though they’re promoting plant-based burgers—maybe I should have.

The point is, there are grey areas at the margins, but the results are emphatic: 48 purpose-driven to 30 non-purpose-driven.

When it comes to the five best-in-show D&AD Black Pencils, the coverage is dominated by three that address social issues: Real Tone for Google (racial inclusion), Hopeline19 (supporting care workers) and Lost Class (protesting gun laws—winner of two Black Pencils). The single exception is Samsung’s iTest website, which aims to convert Apple customers to the Samsung operating system: a straightforward commercial motive. All these Black Pencil winners go alongside the White Pencil winners, which was explicitly set up as a separate category to award purpose-driven work.

Again, much of the work is both creatively admirable and morally laudable. But again, the obvious question arises: how likely is it that awards based on excellence in creativity and craft would align so consistently to progressive causes?

2. Circling the obvious question

To some in adland, the obvious question has an obvious answer. This time last year, I wrote about D&AD’s President declaring that “The best creativity has a social purpose”. That was an unusually explicit statement that equated creative and moral judgments. Usually the messaging is vaguer. D&AD frames its role as being to appoint the jurors and let them decide what counts as excellent—if they want to bring ethical and political judgments into it, that’s their prerogative: “Essentially juries want to encourage ethical behaviour and sustainable growth. As well as award straightforwardly great stuff” (see last year’s post for context). Note that this broader language usually appears in conversation around the awards, rather than in the criteria when people are paying entry fees. If you’re entering a campaign for a discount fashion chain, be aware that essentially juries might not want to encourage your kind of work, at least when it comes to the top awards.

Both Cannes Lions and D&AD use creative language to give jurors some leeway. D&AD’s Black Pencil is reserved for ground-breaking creative excellence, which could mean ground-breaking in the sense of pushing the boundaries of creative practice (a particularly innovative use of craft or thinking within a particular sector), or ground-breaking in the sense of furthering the march of progress. Similarly, Cannes Lions talks about game-changing creativity, which could mean changing the game of creative practice, or changing the political and societal game. Juries are free to decide which definition to use, and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests they see social purpose as a major factor.

This pattern becomes self-reinforcing. Judges see purposeful work awarded in previous years and come to believe that this is what the awards are meant to celebrate. Awards organisers see judges awarding purposeful work and come to believe that this is what the industry wants. And everyone comes out of it with a warm feeling: press releases are full of progressive work that reflects well on the organisers; judges are associated with work that reflects well on them; successful entrants have the double-win of being morally elevated and professionally boosted—after all, even if judges are using social purpose as a key metric, the awards themselves will always say for ‘creative excellence’, and a reputation for creative excellence can be monetised in many ways, including by winning lucrative commercial work.

The losers are less visible and often not that vocal. They include the people paying sizeable fees to enter creative work without a social purpose, the people who don’t enter that kind of work because they know it’s harder to win the top awards, and the wider industry whose key selling point of ‘creativity’ is consistently degraded by its own awards bodies. As a weird irony, the White Pencil and ‘for good’ category winners also lose out, as so much of the spotlight is taken up by the Black Pencil and ‘creative’ winners who bypass the explicit social purpose judging criteria and get through based on a warm glow.

The only counter-argument is that sometimes purely creative and commercial work gets awarded too— as though creativity should be grateful for edging into its own awards scheme. But then look at the preponderance of purpose work in the breakdowns above, and look at the press coverage where purpose-driven work consistently sucks the oxygen from the creative room: creativity is included in the awards but excluded from the narrative.

All this might be fine if the awards were billed as the ultimate purpose accolade, and if other awards existed for purely creative work. But instead the cuckoo of purpose squats in the creative nest, gaining all its kudos from the aura of ‘creativity’ that surrounds the awards, while draining ‘creativity’ of its real meaning.

3. Why do we put up with it?

Every year, these issues resurface. There are a few discontented tweets, maybe the odd contrarian Substack post, then the circus moves on. And in the end, it’s only awards, so why get too worked up?

Yet people do, because they rightly intuit there’s more at stake than gongs. Awards are part of the incentive structure for how the industry works, including how careers progress and agencies grow. They also reflect deeper, consequential questions about how creativity is understood and valued in the wider world.

The grumblings occur mainly at the less powerful end of the creative industries: the smaller, independent design studios, the freelancers, the ad agencies outside the M25, the creatives who haven’t been promoted to senior positions, the people who are thoughtful without branding themselves ‘thought leaders’.

At the more powerful end, things remain remarkably serene. At any moment, one of the big four advertising holding companies could withhold its entries until the organisers clarify that judges will be guided to judge based on creativity, and discouraged from making overtly political decisions. Yet none of them do, partly because they supply many of the judges and winning entries, and also because they are well served by the new status quo. An emphasis on purpose rather than creativity helps bigger players in three ways:

Firstly, the challenge of actual creative awards is that—in theory at least—they are a level playing field. A solo graphic designer can come up with an idea so ground-breakingly excellent that it blows away the competition from big agencies. This is inherently subversive: it makes shock results possible. But if you shift the game to be more about social purpose, it favours the bigger players who have the time, money and connections to invest in what are often pro bono or resource-heavy projects. How many solo designers could pull off a stunt on the scale of Lost Class, or afford to enter it in 19 categories in D&AD alone? Yes, any smaller player could still come up with a purposeful ad campaign or brand identity. But the latest purpose mantra is that it’s not enough to talk purpose, you have to take action. That advice might be well intentioned, but who does it favour? Again, it’s the agencies and big corporations with resources to spare. There’s a reason they see purpose not as a threat, but as a competitive advantage. You can use purposeful projects to build a reputation for ‘creative excellence’ that you cash in elsewhere—it’s the one game they don’t want to change.

Secondly, creativity is hard. Every year, you’re not just competing with your contemporaries—you’re trying to rise to the level of the legends of the past. And it’s daunting to look back at the greats and imagine you could ever compete. Purpose offers a tempting answer: at a stroke, you can at least be morally superior. If you apply contemporary ideas of moral value, then the giants start to look pretty small, with their unenlightened ads for petrol-guzzling cars, Conservative governments, and asbestos panels. This is particularly the case for the bigger agency networks, who continually face the criticism that advertising isn’t as good as it used to be. The response is to redefine ‘good’. We may not be able to compete creatively, but we are definitely more enlightened. (The one problem is that the right side of history is an unpredictable place. Some see the big-brand endorsement of ‘modest’ swimwear as obviously empowering and righteous, but commentators such as Yasmine Mohammed weep tears of rage at Nike and Adidas celebrating what her life experience tells her is a symbol of violent subjugation. You don’t have to take a position on that in order to at least acknowledge the complexity. Once again, faced with a moral choice, companies and their ad agencies tend to go with the one that involves shifting more product, not less.)

Thirdly, creativity is dangerous. In the wrong hands, it can help get Conservative governments elected! And in a purely creative awards scheme, you might get some uncomfortable results. What if a book cover wins, but it’s for Kathleen Stock / Kate Clanchy / Louis CK / Al Franken (dial the problematic-ness up and down and see how tricky the answers get). What if a TV ad wins, but it’s for Paddy Power—is gambling off limits, even it’s legal? What if a police recruitment ad wins? Do we like the police now, or are all cops bastards who need defunding? What if a brand takes a political stance, but it’s for a cause we don’t like, like Brexit—will Dyson ever win anything again? What if Cannes awarded ads for Paddy Power and a gambling addiction charity in the same year—wouldn’t they be shamed as hypocrites?

In all likelihood, these controversies wouldn’t come up that often. (Right now, they are hidden from view—we have no idea what doesn’t get awarded and why, but it’s fair to assume judges marking up purpose campaigns must be marking others down, for reasons unconnected to creativity.) But my advice to Cannes Lions and D&AD would be to embrace controversies when they arise. It means people are talking about the power of creativity and how it can be harnessed in different ways—sometimes contentious ways. It positions creative agencies as the source of a coveted skill that can be used to connect, persuade and convey a multitude of perspectives, not just one. And it promotes a grown-up idea of creativity that will ultimately win respect both in hard-nosed sales departments (try telling them that the best creativity needs a social purpose) and in genuinely purposeful non-profits (watch their stony faces as the awards case study video kicks in, complete with stirring music and social media stats, then wait for some annoyingly professional questions about long-term impact).

4. But can you separate creative from political?

That’s the big question hovering behind all this. In the current moment, it tends to hover everywhere—can you separate politics from food / architecture / dancing / floristry / yoga / algebra / insert any field of human activity. In some circles, the only proper answer is ‘No! Everything is political!’ And there is an academic sense in which that is right—all fields of human activity are inherently relational and contextual, and therefore political in some sense. Seeing and explaining those links with words like ‘problematic’, ‘trope’ and ‘narrative’ is a popular way for the highly educated to signal their status.

But in the context of this awards discussion, it’s not necessary to argue for a perfect separation of creativity and politics. All you need to argue for is pushing in one direction rather than the other. Awards judges can’t be perfectly objective, but they can at least try to lean in that direction. In the criminal justice system, we know it’s impossible for any jury member to be wholly detached from their own biases. But the system asks them to try—and it relies on the collective wisdom and good will of 11 other jurors attempting to do the same. It’s nowhere near a perfect system, because no system involving human judgment ever can be. But it’s a system designed to tamp down bias and appeal to the sense of fairness and rationality in each jury member.

If we can do that with murder trials, it ought to be possible when we’re judging ads and logos.

The added bonus is it means we’re asking judges to lean on the creative expertise that got them appointed in the first place, rather than making ethical calls where they’re no better placed than the average punter. A project like Real Tone sails through in the current climate, but a rigorous jury of professional ethicists might be tougher: is it ground-breaking or fulfilling what should be basic product hygiene? And is it game-changing in its sector or are competitors doing similar things—one report suggests Samsung came out on top in the relevant consumer comparison tests.

5. Two speeches

Here’s the speech I would like to see given to jury members at Cannes or D&AD before the best-in-show awards judging takes place:

You’re here to find the best creative work of the year, in terms of ideas and craft. The winners could be a poster for the Conservative Party or the Labour Party, an identity for Stonewall or a book cover for JK Rowling, an ad for a luxury brand or a refugee charity. In all cases, we’re asking you to judge the work on its creative merits. Entrants have paid money on this basis and we need to ensure all are treated fairly. We know it’s impossible for anyone to overcome their own biases entirely, or to draw a bright line between creative and moral judgments, but we are asking you to push in that direction. If you feel you can’t judge a particular project fairly, please let us know and you can abstain. There are separate categories and awards schemes for social purpose and impact—these are not those awards. We’re here to celebrate the power of ideas, creativity and craft in all their forms. Now, go find the best creative work of the year.

And here’s the speech that I think D&AD and Cannes Lions would give if they were being open about the current climate in judging rooms—I’ve tried to write a good-faith version of it:

You’re here to find the most ground-breaking creative work of the year. Some believe that a progressive social purpose can be part of what makes a project truly ground-breaking, and that we should send a clear signal to entrants and the industry about the positive role that creativity can play in the world. That is your prerogative: we encourage you to bring your whole selves to the judging. If you see a brilliant piece of work for a problematic cause, or a great piece of work for a cause that deserves amplifying, then please use your own judgment on whether to downgrade or upgrade it accordingly. As well as celebrating straightforwardly great work, we’re here to celebrate the good that advertising and design can do in the world. Now, go find the work that represents the best of us.

Here’s the excitingly interactive poll—votes are anonymous to me and other readers. [Update 29 Jun 6pm: turns out the excitingly interactive poll was only open to subscribers (didn’t know that’s how it works on Substack) so I’ve taken it down. At that point, it was 89% for speech 1, out of 44 votes. But it would have been hopelessly unscientific and probably biased towards me, although I’ve genuinely no idea what most readers think. Still interested to hear views in comments.]

Whichever speech was given, I’d like to see the same language used to describe the criteria when people are paying to enter. If creative category judges are explicitly marking down projects because of their personal ethical concerns, entrants are entitled to know about it.

6. Creativity will be fine anyway

I’ll end this post on a rare upbeat note—or you might call it defiantly upbeat.

Creativity is still alive and well, even in awards schemes. It’s genuinely heartening when you see it popping up like flowers between the paving slabs of purpose. Samsung won a Black Pencil for some creative subversion. Apple won a Grand Prix for a film that was funny and well crafted. Coinbase won a Grand Prix for its celebrity-free Super Bowl ad that made a dent in popular culture. (Coinbase is a particular challenge for people trying to decouple creative from moral judgments—first their CEO failed to credit the ad agency, then there was the crypto crash. But should any of that have a bearing on your judgment of the creative thinking involved in the ad itself? If you think ‘no’, I would like to invite you to be an awards judge. Then we can start arguing about whether it’s creatively good or not.)

The happy irony is that, whenever projects like these make it through to the top level, it seems an even bigger achievement—none of them had the following wind of purpose to ease them through the tougher jury stages. And the even happier irony is this: purpose desperately wants to be creative. While its leaders believe that purpose should be a natural part of the judging process, there’s still this desire for the awards to be outwardly branded as purely creative, because everyone wants the kudos that comes from creative awards—the awards that were made famous by creative legends doing brilliantly considered and crafted work. Purpose is the cuckoo that can’t be bothered to build its own nest—it’s easier to co-opt one built on decades of creative genius.

None of the above is calling for a boycott of creative awards, or even calling into question their personal motives. A lot of this works on a systemic level, fuelled by people with mostly good intentions. And all of it happens under pressure from industry forces far greater than ad awards schemes. (If you’ve read my previous posts, you will know roughly where that argument goes—ultimately in the direction of Larry Fink and the dark overlords of corporate purpose.) D&AD in particular is a fine organisation that does great educational work. I urge creative people to support it, but also to ask searching questions. Awards bodies owe a duty of care to all paying entrants, as do judges.

Meanwhile, creativity will look after itself. It has never needed the extra dimension of a social purpose to justify its existence in the world. It’s a force for freedom, experimentation, expression, subversion, entertainment, persuasion and connection. Creativity is purpose enough. It just needs to elbow out the cuckoo.

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UPDATE 1 JULY 2022: For anyone interested, I posted a further Twitter thread about all this. Part one here and part two here.