“We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.”
— Pink Floyd, Another Brick in the Wall
Pink Floyd wasn’t just mad at school. They were mad at any system that takes something alive and makes it obedient. Sound familiar?
Signs You’ve Seen This Before
Check if these apply to you:
- You walked into a meeting with an idea that genuinely excited you.
- Someone senior said “interesting, but…” and the but swallowed everything before it.
- You revised it. Then revised the revision. Then presented something you no longer recognized.
- The final approved version won nothing, sold nothing, and is currently living in a shared drive nobody opens.
Don’t lie. You’ve been there. We’ve all been there.
The Collaboration Myth
Here’s the joke we play on ourselves: we call this process “collaboration.” It is not collaboration. It is erosion with a meeting invite.
The problem isn’t the meeting. The problem is that we’ve confused consensus with quality. A room full of people agreeing on an idea doesn’t mean the idea is good. It usually means the idea has been sanded down until nobody finds it offensive, which is exactly the same thing as nobody finding it interesting.
Why Great Ideas Make People Uncomfortable
The best ideas are slightly uncomfortable when they first arrive. They should be. If everyone in the room immediately loves it, it’s probably not new enough.
Consensus is the enemy of distinctiveness and distinctiveness is literally the only thing advertising is supposed to do.
Care about your idea enough to defend it once. After that, let it evolve. But know the difference between an idea evolving and an idea dying slowly while everyone nods politely.
The Ringelmann Effect and Creative Work
In psychology this is called the Ringelmann Effect. The more people involved in a task, the less individual effort and accountability each person feels.
Applied to creative work: the bigger the approval chain, the smaller the idea gets. Not because anyone is malicious. Because everyone is just a little less responsible than the person before them.
Applied to creative work: the bigger the approval chain, the smaller the idea gets. Not because anyone is malicious. Because everyone is just a little less responsible than the person before them.
GIASH SHAHEEN IS A REBELLIOUS ADVERTISING PROFESSIONAL