Most in the industry still think ‘time is money’, while pretending to sell ‘creativity is money’.
POSSIBLE Head of Strategy and Planning, Asia-Pac Willem van der Horst on how having perspective and staying open minded helps create rewarding work.
WE UNDERSTAND READERS WHO TELL US TO PISS OFF BECAUSE WE DON’T PROVIDE SILVER BULLETS TO GETTING A JOB IN THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY. That is why it is pleasure to speak with Willem van der Horst, POSSIBLE Head of Strategy and Planning Asia-Pac.
His story again re-enforces that there are many different paths that lead to working in the creative industry.
We caught up with Willem to learn his path and get his take on how to prosper in the creative industry.
“I think perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned from him was about what we call ‘Système D’ in French — basically making do with whatever you have, taking shortcuts to get the job done, or putting lipstick on a pig.”
Willem van der Horst
Q: First of all how did you get started in the creative industry and end up in strategy?
Willem van der Horst: It’s a long story… I hope you have a few minutes. After studying Cinema at university in Paris, I was working at a large bookstore over the summer. While it was an interesting experience, meeting colleagues who had been working there doing the same thing day in day out for years quickly motivated me to figure out what next.
Design and computer graphics was another area I was interested in and one of my best friends was about to start a degree with a private school so I looked into it. I couldn’t afford the full time course but they also had an apprenticeship scheme available, one week of class work for every three weeks at work.
It would give me a professional design degree if I could find a job, and the idea of learning by practicing on the job sounded a lot more attractive than the previous very academic and pretty dull couple of years I’d just spent at university.
It turned out another of my best friends was working on a similar apprenticeship scheme (in a business management course) at a small events marketing agency and they were looking for a designer. He got me an interview and I got the gig.
Meanwhile in class once a month I was learning the basics of graphic design and typography, as well as courses revolving around publishing and advertising. I learned a lot in that time and really enjoyed it: my designer boss was self-taught and taught me most of what he knew.
I think perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned from him was about what we call ‘Système D’ in French — basically making do with whatever you have, taking shortcuts to get the job done, or putting lipstick on a pig.I don’t mean we weren’t doing good work though, because we were.
That’s how I started, then I did a few different things before ending up in planning and strategy. I left that agency after a couple of years.
I had a hard time finding another design job, and was working in a CD music shop near my house to pay the rent for a few months when I had a chance to interview with a training and development company called Landmark. I had participated in several of their courses which is how I had the contact, and I received a lot of value from these courses so I was pretty interested in the job opportunity.
I worked there for three years in Paris and then London, and I use a lot of what I learned there as a background in planning even now, both in terms of effective work practices and better understanding people and they way they behave.
After I left, I wanted to go back towards marketing and communications but I wasn’t too sure in what capacity and I didn’t have the luxury of time, finance-wise.
A couple of friends told me I could be good at recruitment. I didn’t know about it, looked it up, lined up a few interviews and found an agency specialised in sourcing digital marketing talent. I thought that could be a good stepping-stone to get back in the business while making some money.
I met a lot of different people, found out about all the different roles in agencies, and figured strategy was what I wanted to do and what I’d be good at.
At about that time a friend of mine recommended reading Strengthsfinder, and I found that my main strengths were correlated to what I was learning was expected in planning and strategy.
I left my job, and after two months wandering around China I geared myself up to find someone a job in planning. I read planner blogs, started blogging and attending any and all planner meet-ups and events I could find.
I considered myself to be a planner; I just didn’t have a job yet.
I was particularly interested in being in a digital environment — I haven’t mentioned it but I’ve always been a bit of a geek with computers, video games, glued to the Minitel back in the day and then to the web later on.
After a few interviews, I met with iris. It started as a casual chat and turned into a three hour-long first interview with five different people.
They were looking for a digital strategist, it turned out they had just split off the digital team as a new business unit, and it was growing fast.
They offered me to start part time as a strategist if I could set up an internal recruitment function and hire as many people as possible from my own network for a few months the other half of the time.
After three months I joined the strategy team full time.
Q: What are some of the risks and opportunities facing the creative industry?
Willem van der Horst: It’s a vast question — I’ve been reading a lot about the risks in particular, even before I started working as a strategist; it is a popular topic.
The model for selling creative communications solutions by the hour is flawed: several professions (accountants, lawyers, architects), are moving away from this model, or starting industry-wide debates about it.
I think it is important the creative industry starts having this discussion too. Hourly rates and billable hours are just not an appropriate measure of value and creativity.
Every time a piece of work is achieved in a certain time, a standard is set regardless of the actual work or its quality. Value is then gauged against that time standard. Every brand, brief, project presents different challenges; is it really fair to assume they can always be translated in the same frame of reference, time, often even before the work takes place?
Another way to say this is that the industry by and large operates on a very traditional ‘Time is money’ model, while pretending to sell some kind of ‘Creativity is money’ model.
I really believe creativity makes exponential growth possible for clients. I actually first got in this business because I believe mass communications can be used to create unpredictable results, as well as make a difference to people.
However, as long as agencies maintain billable hours as a standard without exploring alternate ways to measure and sell the value they are generating for clients, I think we are preventing ourselves from fully expressing the potential of creative communications for clients.
As a result, we will likely keep hearing about dangerously shrinking margins and business going to other types of services, such as management consultancies or production companies.
The creative industry often says their people are their most important assets, and I believe it is true. Many just don’t walk that talk .
Just look at the number of talented people moving on to work in different industries, going freelance, or creating their own businesses. The industry risks becoming like an aging population country with a negative [talent] population growth rate, and stocking up the fridge with beers on Fridays is not a long-term solution.
While I can be cynical, it’s not why I’m pointing out time and talent as risks for the industry.
Thinking of this from a different perspective, these two are equally great strengths and could work in a virtuous circle: if the industry can find new ways to generate revenue away from time and based on creativity, then we might have happier people (they are not filling time sheets), that in turn can lead to more creative work, etc. I don’t have the right answer and these are tough challenges, I definitely think this debates are worth having.
I’ll finish with something probably more immediate:
pop culture +
technology adoption +
shopping habits +
consumer behavior +
Are changing and evolving faster than most corporations can follow.
Agencies have a chance to help their clients navigate, make sense of, and simplify what is going on with people and culture, as well as explain how that is relevant to their bottom line.
An environment where everything is changing faster than ever before sounds like a pretty perfect testing ground.
It’s a good time to experiment for the creative industry, may it be with new revenue models, ways to collaborate, measuring effectiveness, emerging technologies, creative ideas, media placements — anything that will support the end objective of increasing sales and market share for clients.
Q: New technology has amplified old and created new forms of behavior. How do you decide what to invest time and money in to build skill-sets around?
Willem van der Horst: Being honest, whatever I personally enjoy and have fun with comes first. I’m generally interested in many types of new technologies so that’s already a pretty broad spectrum.
I do my best to keep in touch with what’s going on in new technologies and media generally, mostly to sound smart or entertaining at meetings and dinner parties, sometimes trying to come up with ideas at work. Then there are things I have to learn, like social media listening applications.
I enjoy finding out about new technologies more than I feel the need to own or sometimes even use them. I’ll use whatever makes sense to me but there are no hard and fast rules for me so I will give some examples instead:
Even though I’ve always loved computers, gadgets, games, and the Internet, I didn’t own a mobile phone until 2004. I just checked, apparently Western Europe had a mobile penetration of 86% then. Mobile is not an area where I can claim to be an early adopter.
When I left London to travel long term around Asia, I thought it didn’t make sense to keep a smartphone (iPhone 4 by then). I kept an old feature phone, got an iPod Touch for entertainment, and didn’t particularly miss the smartphone.
I had never bought a tablet until late last year — and that’s only because I lost my iPod Touch, and it was Christmas time. I always figured I wouldn’t have much use for a tablet. I just bought a new smartphone so I rarely use that tablet now. I much prefer using a ‘real’ computer.
I did a weekend long Arduino workshop last year, I thought it was pretty interesting. I think I did one complete exercise with my starter set just after the workshop and it has been gathering dust on a shelf since then.
But I’ve re-learned some basics of electricity / electronics and I can knowledgeably think and talk about Arduino principles, capabilities, and possible applications, which is fascinating in itself.
Q: What qualities do you look for in a successful strategist?
Willem van der Horst: Many planning and strategy directors talk about curiosity, being inquisitive, interested in a variety of things, having original hobbies, etc. I agree though I also think there is more to it, I thought I would try talking about some other qualities I think are important, such as being:
Articulate — strategists are supposed to be fairly social creatures, working at the intersection of several disciplines such as creative, user experience, client services, etc. We also present to clients, the way we talk and what we say can be key to winning pitches and projects.
If you can’t speak clearly and coherently, it raises important questions for me, such as ‘can you explain a complex idea or concept in very simple terms anyone can understand?
I also think if someone is articulate there is a decent chance they possess other valuable qualities such as appreciating the value and meaning of words. If that’s the case, they could become very good at writing creative briefs for example.
Empathic — Understanding people, what’s going on with them, and the best way to reach them is a crucial part of this job. I wouldn’t know how to do that without being able to appreciate and recognize emotions experienced by other people, and trying to put myself in the shoes of someone else.
I’m not an expert, there are a few different theories about it in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience fields that are worth checking out.
I think when we’re trying to assess whether an insight and/or a creative idea is right or not has a lot do with empathy, if we can imagine as well as feel that it there is a emotional connection then we also know we might be on the right track
Q: If you were to test a candidate’s skills by giving them a small project, what would you ask them to do ?
Willem van der Horst: I would probably ask them to write a creative brief based on a client brief I’d provide; then ask them present it. Or ask them to write a strategy presentation, again based on a specific request.
Whatever the task, I’d look at both the quality of the presentation or of the written document itself. I would also ask a lot of questions to understand the thinking process that led them to those answers.
I like to find out how a candidate would deal with the real work there is to do and that often tends to be thinking about a brief, researching it, writing about it — with the end result of a conversation, a written document, and/or presentation slides.
Q: What should students and graduates, looking to up their chances of breaking into the industry, focus on, in terms of skills and knowledge topics?
Willem van der Horst: There are probably a few clues dotted in previous answers that might be useful.
To be more specific they should probably look at:
- philosophy,
- sociology,
- sales,
- marketing principles,
- digital technologies,
- social media,
- how any new medium integrate within the overall marketing picture,
- last but definitely not least measurement and analytics.
Skills-wise first it’s your basic office suite: writing, figuring out numbers on a spreadsheet, and preparing presentation slides.
Then there is a lot more that can be useful, as you could read from my career path all roads lead to Rome, as it were. Learn and practice as much as you can, whatever you are interested in.
Another thing I’ve read before and absolutely agree with: everybody is making it up as they go, nobody has all the answers.
I took theater and improvisation classes when I was a teenager and learned that to improvise you need experience, practice, and knowledge.
I’d say planning is similar too: the more knowledge and experiences you have to draw on, the more able you are to make up things on the fly.
Q: In his essay on how to build brands in the digital age, Martin Weigel writes: “There is as much to unlearn as there is to relearn”. What are you unlearning and relearning?
“Unlearning
· Approaching everything like I already know the answer
· Complaining too much
· Getting too attached to the right answer
Relearning
· Choosing my battles
· Appreciating the job for what it is
· The elegance of simple solutions”
Willem van der Horst
Q: With the way that tech, design, comms and product development are merging, what would you advise 20 year old Willem, if he asked you where to work?
Willem van der Horst: I’d recommend considering a job producing or transforming something real, something useful like food, drinks, or crafts, probably in the countryside, somewhere nice with an open horizon.
My little sister started her own wine domain in the south of France last year. I’m extremely proud of her; she’s working hard to make something beautiful and delicious out of the ground.
Last week I had a conversation with a friend about how there aren’t enough butchers or bakers in France any more. It’s hard work, but these careers are well paid and I don’t think they get the consideration they deserve.
Sure, I am fascinated by the questions’ topic but who really cares how much tech, marketing, and product development merge?
On one hand I think the best businesses around have understood the need for merging silos for a while, so it doesn’t matter what kind of industry you work for as long as the company understands that, choose whatever inspires you most.
On another hand, most future previsions about the world are pretty bleak: global warming, oceans devoid of fish, not enough water, no more fossil fuels, etc. Can you eat your perfectly merged piece of tech the day the zombie apocalypse hits?
Zombie silliness aside, if you’re not going to make something useful like food for a career, then maybe look at how you can make a difference with the tough challenges societies around the world are and will be facing in the future.
Thank you Mr Van der Horst.
“Where the puck is going” is an interview series by GapJumpers. We ask people we like and find super interesting to share some thoughts. Whenever we find someone willing to answer our questions, we’ll feature them. If you’d like to stay updated on more stories, please follow the collection.
