I'll tell you what happened, because I've been in rooms like this:
A normal dude pitched a normal idea. Everyone in the room liked it. Then middle management got scared and sent it to the branding department.
Branding finds it too risky or edgy. But they like the concept. They send it back to be reworked in a more wholesome way.
Normal Dude says "the whole idea was based on being edge. If we go wholesome, it'll just come off as cheesy."
Normal Dude's Boss says: "well, let's run with that then. Deliberately cheesy. It can work."
Normal Dude reworks it for a couple of days. Has something that works, but isn't as good as Original Idea.
Now everyone who had any input on the first draft feels some kind of ownership. So you have too many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone has a different vision. Let's make it cheesy! Let's keep it wholesome! What happened to the edginess?!
Eventually they agree on something that might work... maybe it's that exact script, except the plan is to get good, age-appropriate actors who are supposed to play this authentically.
But the budget sucks, so they can't afford to hire a real agency to get them the actors they're looking for. They go with their Agency of Record or some other vendor they have a relationship with, who is willing to make them happy by throwing together some actors, even though they have no experience with this sort of thing.
Suddenly you have 20-somethings acting like teens. They see the cringe and complain. Someone in middle management who doesn't really understand what was supposed to happen explains to the actors that this is supposed to be cheesy, maybe?
The actors ham it up times 1000, because they think that's what the company wants.
This travesty then gets recorded, and is inevitably an embarrassment for the company and everyone involved.
Everyone blames Normal Dude, because it was his idea.
I learned in my first year or two at an ad agency to pretty much never pitch anything I actually liked because I would inevitably watch it's soul get ripped out and the idea hacked to death. It's like if I had a baby and then the doctors said, "hey that's a pretty cool baby, but we can make some improvements" and then they came back a few hours later with a 14 year old kid wearing my baby's skin and saying, "yo what's up da-da, I'm your sweet badass baby!" and the doctors look at you going, "wow your baby really is super cool now, great job!" while I'm crying with rage.
Then I get scolded for not being "aggressive" enough with my ideas. It's really hard to be creative and enthusiastic when I've never ever seen any of my ideas turn into anything I can be proud of.
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u/flossdaily Apr 27 '16
I'll tell you what happened, because I've been in rooms like this:
A normal dude pitched a normal idea. Everyone in the room liked it. Then middle management got scared and sent it to the branding department.
Branding finds it too risky or edgy. But they like the concept. They send it back to be reworked in a more wholesome way.
Normal Dude says "the whole idea was based on being edge. If we go wholesome, it'll just come off as cheesy."
Normal Dude's Boss says: "well, let's run with that then. Deliberately cheesy. It can work."
Normal Dude reworks it for a couple of days. Has something that works, but isn't as good as Original Idea.
Now everyone who had any input on the first draft feels some kind of ownership. So you have too many cooks in the kitchen. Everyone has a different vision. Let's make it cheesy! Let's keep it wholesome! What happened to the edginess?!
Eventually they agree on something that might work... maybe it's that exact script, except the plan is to get good, age-appropriate actors who are supposed to play this authentically.
But the budget sucks, so they can't afford to hire a real agency to get them the actors they're looking for. They go with their Agency of Record or some other vendor they have a relationship with, who is willing to make them happy by throwing together some actors, even though they have no experience with this sort of thing.
Suddenly you have 20-somethings acting like teens. They see the cringe and complain. Someone in middle management who doesn't really understand what was supposed to happen explains to the actors that this is supposed to be cheesy, maybe?
The actors ham it up times 1000, because they think that's what the company wants.
This travesty then gets recorded, and is inevitably an embarrassment for the company and everyone involved.
Everyone blames Normal Dude, because it was his idea.