Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell Talk Team Talks

After the Irish Rugby team’s win last weekend and in anticipation of next weekend’s game, I thought you might enjoy this interview. Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell talk about what inspires them, team talks that they remember and what motivates the Irish  Rugby Team on match day.

The first part of it, never fails to make me smile.

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Been there, done that. Now let’s do something new

This isn’t a great time in the advertising business, but it isn’t the first time that things have sucked, and it won’t be the last. There’s always been recessions, downturns, emergencies, and whatever, that makes money evaporate, and makes us all feel like Chicken Little, crying that ‘the sky is falling’.

Of course, that knowledge doesn’t make it feel any better. The worst part of it (aside from the fear or the actuality of unemployment) is the damage that’s done to our creative spirits.
Even in better times, creative staffs are usually stretched so thin, that everyone is working 24/7 on more assignments then they can keep track of. Creatives on set are often spending the day staring at their computer screens more than they’re watching what’s in front of the camera. Their participation in pre-production is often limited to the pre-pro meeting. This is okay, as long as the director truly understands the needs of the commercial, and is watching the agency’s back.

But even when that aspect of the job is well covered, what always suffers in this situation is the time to reflect on what we’re doing. The time from when an assignment is given out, to when it’s presented, has been reduced to a joke; the time from approval to production is often even quicker; and the time from wrap to cut is down to one or two days. of course there’s additional time to fine tune and finish, but all the decisions have been made and cut into stone. Where is the time to step back and think about what we’re doing? That time isn’t scheduled, because it’s ‘non-productive’. The schedule is based on what is technically possible, and thanks to all of our digital aids to ‘productivity’, that schedule is getting shorter and shorter all the time, with the creative community chasing after it with our tongues hanging out.

Sadly, things aren’t going to change. As the saying goes: “Money talks. Bullshit walks.” Guess which category “time to think’ goes into? So the thing is, what we have to do, is try to be more creative than ever. To have ideas that are so different than anything else out there, that are so strong, that all the details of production become obvious.

Of course, this is easier said than done. But I’d rather be trying to hit the stars, than chase my tail, trying to satisfy a cobbled together list of requirements that inevitably leaves no one satisfied. In the end result, if a rat ever manages to win at the rat race, they’re still a rat.