Each with notable campaigns, these eight creative directors share what makes compelling creative. Some share their definition of creativity, others tell how challenges made them more creative, still others give strategy behind how to create share-worthy content.

1. {
Inspiring advice from
8 Creative Directors

2. Melissa Rosenthal
director creative services,
Buzzfeed
Understand the brand’s goals,
aspirations and initiatives

3. “The [Buzzfeed] creative department is responsible for coming up
with the innovative, inspiring content for advertisers.
“My team’s role is to understand the brand’s goals, aspirations
and initiatives and come up with content that is authentic to them.
“And content with
this in mind earns
the right to go viral,
and earns the right
to be shared.”

4. Humberto Leon
co-creative director, Kenzo
Tell stories.

5. “We’re such nerdy, obsessed people about storytelling . . . and
we’re trying to tell the story of this brand through our
collections.”

6. John Mescall
executive creative director, McCann
Australia
Use a content model. Shape it around
an experience and a message.

7. “It’s interesting, [in Dumb Ways to Die] we never actually say don’t
do it. Never. We allow people to know that’s a dumb thing to do,
and no one wants to be dumb. If we told people don’t do it… that’s
a control model. Advertising is control. Do this, buy this, don’t do
that, own this, do this now, call us now.
Whereas, the content model is all around an experience and the
message, but not telling you. It’s involving you and showing you
and making you feel something.”

8. Jill Applebaum
creative director, JWT New York
Realize not everyone will like your work.

9. “[Creativity is] about how resiliently you can dust yourself off
and get back in the game after a round of soul-sucking
criticism.”

10. Carol Lim
co-creative director, Kenzo
Pick up where someone else left off.

11. “Founder Kenzo Takada, who moved from
Japan to Paris in the mid-’60s, also had a
hand in retail. . . . In his prime, Takada
pioneered a fusion of Japanese street
style, Parisian chic, and global ethnic
influences, creating voluminous, colorblocked clothes.”
“Takada was really about designing from a
personal perspective. He didn’t follow
trends, and we’re trying to use the cues of
that personality to make what we think is
modern.”

12. Anselmo Ramos
chief creative officer, Ogilvy Brazil
Create something new
and difficult to pull off.

13. Ramos’ two criteria for eliciting creative work:
1. “Show me something I haven’t seen before (and I see a
lot).”
2. “It should be really hard to make happen.”

14. Ryan O’Rourke
global creative director, Wieden +
Kennedy
Allow restrictions
to become an advantage.

15. Because Nike wasn’t an official Olympic sponsor, its ads didn’t
use professional athletes or references to the 2012 games. “In a
way, the restrictions became our advantage—we had to do
something different.”

16. Mike Weston
creative director, Jackson Marketing Group
"Creative" is never easy
or for the faint of heart.

17. “I’ll tell you what it's not:
Creative is never easy or for the faint of heart.
It is never safe or expected.
And it is not a big fan of the status quo.”
2014 OBIE award finalist

18. www.jacksonmg.com