Ego, that Two-Edged Sword, in Creative Advertising Thinking

Ego has its good side. If it weren’t for ego, we wouldn’t push ourselves to do great work, whether it’s a powerful ad, a skyscraper, or something more intangible, like inspirational teaching. Ego has other merits too. But it has a dark side too, particularly when it comes to creative thinking in advertising, particularly when it comes to group dynamics.

In a competitive advertising environment, people, good people, want to get ahead; they want their work to stand out, to shine. One way to do that is to not celebrate the creative ideas of others, particularly in the fledgling stages of ideas when it’s easy to squash them. Competitive people do this instinctually, almost subconsciously. These are often kind people, whose biological drive for survival is steering their actions just a little at a time. “That’s a great idea. It’s just too…” Serious. Whimsical. Intense. Subdued. Difficult-to-grasp. Simplistic. Just fill-in-the-blank. One casual little word to send that idea in a slight veer off to the graveyard of unrealized ads.

Ego can also push us in our attempt to create an aura of perfection. It’s a shaky economy, folks, and jobs are precarious. You must look flawless, right? You don’t make mistakes, right? And so, when our ego sees an issue coming up that might make us look like we made a mistake, we start deflecting and rationalizing, anything to create a stage where we did in fact make no mistake.

To the first point, the idea of squashing new ideas, much has been written on the dangers of that. Ideas often need room to breathe, to grow a little, before we know what they’re capable of.

As to the second point, much also has been written on the importance of being able to make mistakes and not feel immediately censured. One environment grows big ideas. One grows stale ones lacking innovation.

As a freelance writer and an outsider, it’s often easier to perceive how the dynamics of ego are preventing great ideas in a creative advertising group than those that are in the thick of it, as it were. It would be worthwhile, I would say, to take a step back as a team and look at your group dynamics and see if you’re operating in a way that brings out the best ideas you possibly can. And when you do it, be honest.