‘Amateur’ creative is strictly vanilla
Published on 04/09/2001 under Budgeting
Everywhere I look, I see marketing and sales people dabbling in the creative aspects of marketing communications—doing layouts for product flyers, designing Web site pages, even roughing out concepts for magazine ads—and it’s ripping my heart out. And not necessarily for the reason you might think, because while this does tend to take money out of my pocket, there are much bigger implications for marketing communicators when people start doing things they’re not qualified to do.
The ultimate effect is that marcom work done by amateurs is just not good, and that’s a brush that paints our entire industry in a plain vanilla hue, dragging us all into one ugly, commoditized quagmire.
Think I’m exaggerating? Consider this possibility. What if your local community leaders decided that housing was too expensive, that it would be a lot more affordable if the options on home design and materials were limited? All non-standard designs and materials would be considered wasteful and declared illegal. Furthermore, all building contractors would be outlawed, because they mark up materials and labor, and charge exorbitant fees. To get a new house. you must subcontract the work yourself using pre-approved designs and pre-approved materials.
Isn’t that pretty much what you get when a “hobbyist” art director uses any of those layout-in-a-box software kits?
Or consider what might happen if the garment industry decided that clothing costs were getting out of hand: In the future, they’ll only make clothes in red and white, and there’ll only be two styles (casual and formal) and three sizes (small, medium and large) That would save a lot of money, but saving money isn’t necessarily the objective when it comes to new outfits or buying houses. And yet, do-it-yourselfers think they’re saving money when they buy software kits and design Web sites or brochures themselves. The reality, however, is that they’re not saving money once the value of their time vs. the value of the work produced is calculated. Marketing managers tend to look at the hourly rates of advertising and graphic design professionals and think them highly inflated. They see $75 or $100 per hour and think, “I don’t make anywhere near that much.” But they’re confusing “total time” vs “productive time.” Any human resources professional will tell you that if a person puts in 40 hours a week, only a certain percentage of that is time spent being productive.
Here’s how the exercise goes. Forty hours per week times 52 weeks is 2,080 total hours per year. Subtract 10 days for sick leave (80 hours), 10 paid holidays (80 hours), five days for jury duty, voting and other authorized absences (40 hours). two weeks for vacation (80 hours) and five to seven more days for various family and personal emergencies such as car trouble, sick kids, plumbing leaks and funerals (50 hours). Now, you’re down to 1,750 hours.
Most people would also be willing to acknowledge that one to two hours of every workday is devoted to unproductive activities such as rehashing the weekend trip or sporting event, and making or receiving personal telephone calls. The upshot is that any reasonable consideration for nonproductive work time would bring the total time spent being productive down to somewhere between 1,250 and 1,500 hours a year. (In my agency, we strive for five billable hours per day, or about lOO per month.)
Now, consider what it costs to have a person on your staff. Benefits and payroll-related taxes usually equal at least 35% of direct salary costs. If you calculate other direct and indirect costs, such as office rent, utilities, furniture, computers, supplies and training, you can easily come up with another 35% in overhead costs that are directiy attributable to each employee.
So, let’s say an employee makes $50,000 in annual salary. lf you add 70% to the base salary, you’re looking at $85,000 in annual costs to have that person on staff. Divide that by 1,300 productive hours, and you get an hourly cost of about $65. In order to make a modest profit on that person’s time, you’d need to charge at least $75 per hour, and that probably wouldn’t be enough.
So you see how the numbers can be deceiving. A $50,000 person might think his hourly cost is $25, when it’s closer to three times that amount.
But let’s assume for a moment that some savings can be demonstrated. Is it still a good use of time for sales or marketing managers to prepare layouts for brochures, ads or other creative projects? Because I don’t think money is the issue at all. To me, the main consideration is the quality of the work, and my experience is that creative work requires lots of practice before you get good at it. In fact, most professional graphics software programs require daily practice. I’ve watched experienced art directors exchange suggestions for improving productivity (that is, speed) and the quality of special effects for programs they’ve used for years. One of my senior art directors teaches night classes at an art school, and yet he’s constantly learning new techniques and shortcuts. These people are good, because they work every day at getting better than the day before. They practice, share tips, attend seminars. read trade publications and, most importantly, they make a living by creating things that satisfy paying customers’ diverse demands.
If one of advertising’s objectives is communicating memorable ad messages, you should work with professionals who have dedicated their lives to meeting this challenge. This isn’t a computer game we play for kicks; it’s a serious business. If you want vanilla, go to the grocery store. Leave the more exotic flavors to the professionals.