A copywriter once started a memo to his Production Director (who had screwed up his project by printing it on bog-paper) with the words "Where I come from, we have a saying. A dog doesn't shit on his own doorstep..." An Account Director got asked outside for a fight by another writer (our money was on the writer - a hard Glaswegian who now runs his own agency in New York). In another client meeting, the agency responded to the client's "I don't like it" with "I don't give a fuck whether you like it or not - does it work?"
Why get so up-tight? It's only a job, right?
No, not really. It may not be fashionable to care about what you do, but good creatives do. That's why they're creatives and not corporate lawyers, accountants or civil servants. It's also why they get stroppy. They really do give a toss about your brief for a bingo hall flyer or a new range of mild steel widgets. If they didn't, they wouldn't spit the dummy.
A good creative should have pulled your product apart, found out what makes it work and what makes it appeal, then developed a way to communicate it. They invest time, effort and sometimes even a bit of love in what they do. If they're like our team here, they'll have thought about your stuff riding home from the studio, in the pub, over supper, out walking. They'll have sketched stuff on the backs of envelopes and napkins. It's not a job you can turn off when you lock the door and go home. They'll have fought for their ideas over the studio meeting table and developed them further.
They give a damn, they really do. That's why they throw strops. And I hope they always do.
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