Ordering takeout creativity.

October last year saw my first trip to Los Angeles in a very long time.

When I was a kid, LA had been a dream of mine to visit. Maybe listening to Beach Boys records singing about California girls or watching films like American Graffiti and Grease had romanticized it too much. But I had to see it for myself. So I first rocked up there in the mid 80s with a backpack and a youth hostel membership and quickly the dream turned sour.

Youth hostels in those days were mostly fully booked by cockroaches. And Aussies.

The Aussies were nice.

I learned that the only way to do Tinsel-town for us mortals was definitely with a sponsor.

Cut to 2025.

I was there as a global representative for the global team on a big pharma shoot. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and it felt like visiting one’s old school, everything was much the same but also somehow different.

West Hollywood is still pretty cool. However these days driver-less taxis, huge video-billboards, four-wheeled robots delivering ‘takeout’ that navigate crossings, pedestrians and traffic, give it a futuristic Bladerunner vibe.

I confess to not really leaping at the chance of sitting in a driverless taxi. Call me old fashioned.

The actual shoot was fundamentally the same, of course. All the main characters were there, the producer who was juggling multiple new requests and location and casting issues with remarkable calm and professionalism…all while simultaneously organising his wedding.

My brain would have totally fried dude.

The account team were there in force, reminding me of remote surgeons operating robotic arms via mac screens on absent clients. The wardrobe team who were doing an impossible job with a warehouse full of clothes that looked more like TK MAXX and the incredible production company, who deal with this kind of crazy circus every day, who appeared unfazed.

There really is no place like LA if you have a complicated production with no time. They just do this every day.

And of course there was the client dinner.

I was sitting next to a really nice young (to me) client and we got to talking about client vs agency gripes. I thought this was actually a nice open exchange of points of view, which one rarely gets when in the thick of a meeting or presentation.

What really irked her was when she asks for a change (we didn’t get specific) on something and the agency comes back with a solution that doesn’t even include her idea or design suggestion.

‘Even if it’s just to illustrate that it doesn’t work’.

I am sure this was a genuine frustration. But in my experience, with more disingenuous clients, this can be a trap that is set because people tend to have a fondness for their own ideas. It’s natural. And if you’ve been doing this for a while you’ll know it takes a lifetime in this job to be objective about your own work. Possibly longer in most cases.

My response was diplomatic, er…I think.

Something along the lines of:

“I think that’s why agencies prefer to hear your problem with the design rather than just doing your solution…after all we’re supposed to be the experts and if we know the problem, we can solve it…just doing what you tell us – especially if we think it’s a bad idea – is wasting everyone’s time.”

“But I’m paying the agency I expect them to do what I want”.

This is the kind of comment, like a Beverly Hills orthodontist drilling a tooth without Novocain, that can strike a nerve with creative people.

The account guy, who had been listening quietly began to shift nervously. I sensed him leaning in.

‘It’s not really the agency’s responsibility to educate clients in design is it?’ I asked in as non-loaded a tone as I could muster. Although reading this back it does seem a touch confrontational. Oh well.

“It’s the agency’s job to make the client happy”.

And there we have it. The dilemma we all face. Is that really our job?

It’s certainly what we spend most of our time doing. And we definitely want them to be happy.

But is it now our job to just package up the creative work? Are we to send it as per their order via a robot over to the clients’ offices? Do we also send a text confirming the delivery? (Some pitch RFPs have certainly taken this approach)

Now at this point the evening could have gone either of two ways, and I’m not a complete idiot so I managed to steer us into calmer waters but the exchange has stuck with me.

Sure, modern agencies are all about collaboration but creative development, like a decent dining experience should be convivial and respectful of certain skills. Order what you want but from what the chef has spent time creating. Maybe with the odd adjustment for allergies and taste.

Or you can take the Friends approach.

‘Can you give me trifle and shepherds pie combined to show me it doesn’t work?‘ does seem to me to be a waste of time.

At the risk of mixing my metaphors, I still prefer my taxis with qualified drivers at the wheel.

After the expensive meal at a top LA dining establishment we decided to walk back to the hotel, in itself an original approach in LA.

That night I spent it glued to the bathroom in a gastronomic reenactment of the battle of the Somme.

So much for expert chefs.