A while ago, I was reflecting on all the noise that the advertising industry has been making regarding burnouts (work-related exhaustion due to stress) that have been affecting a significant number of professionals in the field. Coincidentally, I remembered that I had on my list of things to see a documentary called Kill Your Darlings by director Adam Broke, presented at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. In the documentary, a 26-year-old creative director named Anuk is introduced, who begins a personal introspection rooted in the frustration of whether she really enjoys what she is doing and whether it is worth continuing in the creative industry. She begins a search by interviewing industry personalities in New York, who call into question how the construction of an adequate business model to retain talent has been neglected by large agencies, and how the financial system has taken first place in the entire structure of the advertising business.
The problem is not only with the agency model but with the economic system, according to the documentary; it is becoming increasingly difficult for agencies to generate money, which in turn makes it difficult for agencies to focus their efforts on the main axis of the business: talent. But on the other hand, there is talk that the model will not change because for a few beneficiaries the model works very well, and as long as that is the case, nothing will change for the rest.
In Colombia, the situation is no different in a country with social and economic problems; advertising has been going through difficult times at all levels. Well-known agencies that merge due to the crisis and groups that are born anonymously on Instagram such as the well-known @publicidades marikas, where professionals from different agencies anonymously vent their frustration in the style of a wailing wall against directors, businessmen, executives and agencies themselves with questionable practices. Degrading stories can be read, such as that in a well-known agency at the end of the year party they held a contest for the ugliest executive, and made them parade, or an intern in a creative exercise at another agency says: "I had to vomit because of the pressure." Issues such as workplace harassment, egos between teams and excessive workplace negligence can be read.
Throughout my career as a publicist, I have seen creative professionals grow a lot, but I have also seen others become frustrated along the way in the same way as Anuk; many left university with a romantic idea of creativity and were disappointed, I have also heard many others say: "this is not what I thought, this is about many things but not creativity", or a dear former university classmate say to me, questioning herself 15 years later: "why do we study this?" The truth of the matter is that we are not in our best moment, it is true.
But there is also the other side of the coin. I assure you that there are lives beyond agencies. You have to learn to see other horizons and there are many; life is about perspective. Many of us talk about creativity as if it only existed for agencies; it also exists in independent development and creation.
Technology promises global and massive interaction from anywhere; there are companies that are born in networks in a family nucleus and without much knowledge they succeed, ingenious products that we invent in conversations with friends that have not yet been created and have enormous possibilities and potential. The collaborative economy has grown in an outsized way; the world deserves more creative people dedicated to building and creating a better place for everyone. We believe that the injustice and the mistake was in dreaming of making a career in an agency, and surely it was never the profession, it was the place we are in, the one we chose. We continue to allow others to tell us if we are good or not at something, and we believe them.
That decision became our automatic reality; we let go of the blindfold and now we believe that this is how it should be. It is time to let go, everything can always be simpler than we think; sometimes it is just a matter of doing a personal introspection, starting with something as trivial but powerful as writing down our goals and objectives by hand on a piece of paper, and just like Anuk, just taking a leap of faith, a leap of faith in ourselves.
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