Gregg ONeill

Ten things Creative Directors can learn from Rick Rubin. The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin sits on my coffee table, something I reserve for only a handful of books. Every day, while having a warm beverage, I’ll grab a book, flip it open at a random spot and read a few pages. Whether you’re a fan of his or his book, or not, is not the point here. A good Creative Director/Leader should draw inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, then filter it for what works for them and consider how it could help inspire those they're tasked with leading and how it could shape the work their championing. Below are ten pieces of inspiration and wisdom from Rick Rubin’s book. 1. Rubin talks about the power of stopping. Taking a moment to stop what you’re doing to make a note, draw or capture a thought. It’s such good advice, you need to remember to hit the pause button as a Creative Director. Step back. Take a beat…and think. 2. He also advises that you should commit to being open to what’s around you. Seek out stories, find beauty, and look for the interesting things. Curiosity will be one of your best friends as a Creative Director. Never lose it. 3. Rubin talks about how sometimes the most valuable touch a collaborator can have is no touch at all. As a Creative Director, only add something if it’s valuable and serves the idea and elevates the concept; never add out of ego, as that is only serving yourself. 4. Another gem is that you need to be able to look deeply at the creative work. To get to what might be invisible to others. Something I tell everyone I coach is that your gut instinct will be one of your most important copilots as a Creative Director, I call it - your eyes in your stomach. Trust that second brain of yours, it knows some stuff. 5. He makes a great point about acting on ideas, because if you don’t, someone else will. If you’ve been in the advertising business long enough, you’ve heard many a person say, “I had that idea years ago”. You may have had it, but you didn’t act on it. You snooze, you lose. I've run out of space...points 6 through 10 are in the comments. 👇 … ✳️ I currently have spots open for Creative Director Coaching. DM or email me - chantcreative@gmail.com ... If you haven't subscribed to my Creative Discourse Newsletter on LinkedIn, please check it out.  … ®️©️ 🤘 ⚡ …  #creativedirector #creativeleadership #rickrubin #creativity

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There's a creative identity crisis in advertising. Who are we? For some time now, ad agencies, and many creatives, have been like a dog that sees a squirrel. Oh look, let's chase that. I still remember when we had a DMZ zone emerge. There were the ‘digital’ agencies and the ‘traditional’ agencies. With this division came title changes for some such as ‘Digital’ Creative Director, ‘Digital’ Copywriter, and so on. Last time I checked, everyone was using a laptop, nobody had a typewriter. Everyone was digital. Then along came social. The same thing happened, people plonked down ‘Social’ at the front of their title. And now we have AI. Yeah, you guessed it, some people are now adding things like ‘AI’, ‘AI Specialist’, etc, to their Creative Director title in a mad scramble for relevance. It's all a bit ridiculous. Whatever happened to being a ‘Creative’ Creative Director (or ECD, CCO), or a ‘Creative’ Copywriter, etc. Creativity and ideas first. Platforms, media, and tools second. I don't recall many people changing their title to 'Photoshop' Creative Director. As far as I'm concerned, creativity is not limited to one channel or tool. By adding that descriptor to your title you're effectively saying you're a one-trick pony. Imagine if musicians limited themselves like that? When Trent Reznor became Chief Creative Officer of Beats Music it wasn't 'Music' CCO. In the fashion industry, Creative Directors are not ‘Fashion’ Creative Directors, they are just Creative Directors. You're either creative or you're not. I once went from being an ECD in advertising to being an ECD in design & branding, no ‘Design’ descriptor was shuffled into the front position of my title. Why do so many agencies and creatives do this to themselves? Why make yourself a one-trick pony? A good Creative Director should be able to direct work in any field. Why? Because it's first and foremost about your taste, eye, gut, and point of view. Just as a good Copywriter can write anything they're tasked with. I honestly believe, moving forward, the successful Creative Directors won't be limiting themselves to one category, instead, they'll be multi-disciplinary. Working across all brand creativity needs and able to think beyond the tools and the media to see the bigger picture. Because, that's the job. I believe that the smart agencies, brands, and creatives who embrace that will be a step ahead. … I have spots open for my Creative Director Coaching, open to all ‘Creative’ Creative Directors. For details, DM me or email chantcreative@gmail.com … … When I'm not dissing silly titles, you'll find me running my own creative ventures, being a Fractional ECD, working on my own creative projects, or coaching Creative Directors, Creative Founders, Copywriters, and others looking for creative career direction. … ®️©️ 🤘 ⚡ … Image from Unsplash

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Every panel. Every talk. Every rosé-fueled conversation. It all looped back to AI. Tech platforms are racing to outdo each other. Creative leaders are scrambling to restructure teams (and don't know how). And young creatives are quietly wondering if there’s a future for them in this new era of our industry (god knows many already bailed). I witnessed a downer of a talk at Microsoft Beach about integrating ads into Copilot AI's interface — meant to excite marketers, but judging by the room’s reaction, it mostly creeped people out. (there’s no escaping ads.) But amid all the noise, one thing became clear: creatives need to double down on the two things AI can’t replicate: Vision & Taste. That’s our value. Our job is to pair it with speed, craft, and an understanding of how to wield the tools of this new age. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle. And agency structures are about to shift. Roles will change. Job titles will change. And this might finally be the end of Bill Bernbach’s art + copy duo. Change is coming! So let's do what we creatives to best and make good use of it.

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My first year at Movement, I helped establish a design department. Absorbed a department outside of traditional creative. Had an article written in AdAge about a campaign I led. Then went on mat leave. The next year I built digital production. Advocated for then transitioned the agency to Figma with our Design Director. Scaled an account from $4 million to $12 million. None of that was in my job description. That's the thing about agencies. Especially rapidly growing ones. Your job is whatever needs to happen. One day you're a creative director. The next you're building operational workflows. Then you're training people on new software. I used to think this was chaos. Now I think it's the point. Agencies that can adapt quickly are the ones that survive. But to do that, they also need people who can say "we'll figure it out" and actually mean it. People who don't just react to growth. But plan for it. When that big account comes in, you need systems ready. Not scrambling to build them while you're delivering. The difference between scaling successfully and burning out completely is having the infrastructure, foresight, and agility to handle what's coming next. Even if you don't know exactly what that is yet.

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'Stop asking 'When will I become a leader?' Start asking 'How am I leading right now?' Over the years working in creative strategy, I’ve seen this clearly:  The leaders I admire didn’t wait for permission. They started solving problems others ignored. Elevated their colleagues’ best work Asked questions that pushed thinking forward And cared deeply about outcomes, not just outputs. Leadership isn’t about controlling the process. It’s about creating conditions where new ideas can grow. Whether building brand strategies or leading teams, the question is the same:  What positive change will you create today, title or no title? Because leadership isn’t a destination you reach. It’s a choice you make every day. P.S. How are you leading without needing anyone to notice? 

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Strategy Online’s Creative Report Card (CRC) dives into the minds of the CRC’s top creatives and strategists to explore how they work within their craft and think about the future of advertising. https://lnkd.in/g9-tY-Rp

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Building the Utah person Campaign: What We Learned from Editing Years of Archive Footage for 8 different spots. We just wrapped the new Utah person campaign, and it taught us a few things about working with archive footage. The challenge: Match-cutting across multiple years of material. When you're editing fresh footage, your vision clicks into place. But piecing together archives from different seasons, different cameras, different everything? That's where it gets interesting. What we learned: Consistency is earned, not given. Ski footage changes dramatically—light, snow conditions, camera tech. Our post team spent hours color-correcting to make 2021 powder days match 2024 bluebird runs. Ski is genuinely one of the trickiest environments to color grade. Trust your team. Our editors and post production crew turned a massive puzzle into something cohesive. They saw connections we missed and found moments we'd forgotten existed. The result? A campaign that feels fresh, even though it's built from years of stories. Working with constraints forces creativity. Sometimes the best material is already in the vault—you just need the right people to find it.

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