Marshall Ross is a big believer in the adage “You are what you eat,” but he isn’t talking about food. As chief creative officer of Cramer Krasselt, Ross evaluates creativity both inside and outside of his agency: “If you eat client engagements that are unhealthy, you will perpetuate that unhealthiness.” Ross believes that an agency must find clients who believe in creativity and understand its importance and power to solve business problems. Without such clients a creatively led agency might not survive
This purpose of this selectiveness is not to simply make the partnership between client and agency easier, but rather it plays a key role in the constantly changing and growing identity of Cramer Krasselt. Ross says that when the client understands the importance of creativity, the end product further illuminates his agency’s future: “People outside of the organization look at [the work] and say ‘I want to be a part of that.’ You’ll keep the quality and the caliber of your creativity within your creation high.”
Ross says he is “constantly learning,” a trait he also looks for in his employees. Inquisitiveness, an insatiable curiosity and life experience are far more important than textbook advertising knowledge: “I think the people who are good, or who are successful within creative organizations are people who are learning constantly from lots of different resources.” According to Ross, this broad wealth of knowledge is key since the “essence of creativity is just posing items.” He says that “attention-deficit syndrome is a good thing for these kind of environments,” since one must take two separately familiar items and combine them to become a single new unfamiliar item.
With its open offices, chalkboards and “random tables all over” where people can gather and collaborate in a heartbeat,” Cramer Krasselt strives to create an idea-sharing culture that fosters creativity. Ross believes that the next evolution within the industry will be about changing the definition of the creative team, which has historically been “a sort of sacred relationship between writer and art director.” He says at this point, however, they need to learn that their output is now dependent on technology, consumer insight, contact planning and content creation activity.
In an environment that fosters so many different ideas at once, how do they decide on the right one? Cramer Krasselt’s answer is the “idea-illuminating strategy,” which is described by Ross as the following process: “Is the idea magnetic? Do you want to spend time with the idea? Does it feel surprising? Is it share worthy? What about it makes me tell my friend more about it—makes me want to participate?” The idea should lead to the end product, and according to Ross, “You should have a story that you want to tell about that.” For him, the biggest failure is when you put in ideas, effort, time and even money, and in the very end you don’t have a story you are proud to tell from the process.