The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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Diversity whitewashing, sentimentality and self-obsession: Creatives reveal the industry bugbears they'd banish for good

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By Gillian West, Social media manager

January 27, 2017 | 3 min read

With the first month of 2017 all but gone, New Year's Resolutions are slowly beginning to fall away proving old habits die hard. But what if you really could rid the creative industries of one thing forever, what would it be? The never ending diversity debate? Self-obsession and over inflated egos? Or something else entirely...

As the deadline for this year's Roses Creative Awards fast approaches, The Drum has asked this year's esteemed judging panel, which includes DigitasLBi's Helen Fuchs and AKQA's Wayne Deakin, among others, what they'd like to see banished - for good - this year.

Ego

I’d jettison the large ego out of the industry forever more. It’s tiresome, dated and boring. Coming across those characters that are posturing, putting others down, all in the name of asserting themselves is like watching something voiced over by David Attenborough.

To make work that matters today means collaborating, that means working with a wide range of disciplines from technologists to strategists, data scientists, media, the list is endless. When you come across a character that is wielding a massive ego you can feel the collective sigh as the team clocks the pain ahead. This doesn’t mean we’d be left with an industry devoid of interesting characters, far from it. We’d have an industry that has some empathy. - Helen Fuchs, executive creative director, DigitasLBi

Helvetica

I’m not sure about forever but, I am getting a little bit tired of minimalist branding and logo design as the go-to answer for everything. I love Helvetica as much as anyone, but I like serifs too. - Clem Halpin, creative director, Turner Duckworth

Diversity whitewashing – if you feel strongly about diversity, stop just talking about it and make it happen. If you think the industry is fine just the way it is – stop pretending to think otherwise.

I am weary of seeing people who have done little to help promote either women or people from a diverse background now trying to prove their diversity credentials in the most showy way possible. When the PR spotlight moves off them – they go back to their old habits; hiring and promoting people who look and sound just like them. - Caitlin Ryan, group executive creative director, Cheil Worldwide

Crying

Work that’s sentimental for the sake of being sentimental in order to make the idea feel bigger than it is. I’d like to see less of the fake ‘case study’ video with melancholic music. - Dayoung Yun, creative director, Mother

Our industry is often too self-obsessed – less backward industry thinking and dissatisfaction please. More getting on with it and exploring the future, Our industry, our people and the times we live in let us create amazing things and opportunities. - Wayne Deakin, executive creative director, AKQA

The Roses Creative Awards, sponsored by Become, Chesterfield, Create Britain & Tint, are currently open for entry for more information on this year's awards, how to enter and the judging panel visit the Roses Creative Awards website.

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