The Creative Agency Process Sh*tstorm

At an ad agency, everyone has their own creative process, but for most, it starts with the purge—that cyclical relinquishing of ideas that pour out of you effortlessly but clearly aren’t any good, let alone smart or strategic. Some reveal themselves quite quickly (see: puns), while others are so endearing (see: schmaltz) that discarding them feels funereal. But at the end of the day, you know it’s just a bad idea.

Revealing these garbage ideas and doing so quickly is crucial to the creative agency process. We need to expose the worst of the worst because somewhere deep within the darkness of a terrible idea can exist the shimmering light of a good one. I can’t tell you how many times the joke of a dumb idea inspired the surprising potential of an excellent one.

Too often, we start the creative process in a vacuum, usually in private. Other times, we get through it with our creative partners and teams. But even that process is limited—too much pressure on those one or two individuals. So, we recently tried a new method of purge. Something more inclusive and united in its quest for mediocrity.

I call it a shitstorm.

A shitstorm essentially uses the same methodologies of a traditional brainstorm, but without the objective of generating anything remotely resembling a good, tangible, coherent thought. No, no, no. This hour should be a blitz of capital B-A-D BAD ideas.

You know those rules of “no bad ideas” or “no judgement” that typically exist in a creative brainstorm? A shitstorm is the opposite. All judgement. All ridicule. All bad. But we’re doing it together. It’s a mutual understanding, which turns out is so liberating from the usual creative agency process. Bring on the garbage puns. Bring on the trite, the cliché. If an idea has even the slightest bit of merit, it’s dismissed immediately. Save that for your smaller team efforts and Gold Lion pitches. This meeting is for trash and trash only.

So how does a shitstorm come together? What are the patterns and processes? Let me offer up a few suggestions.

Start the creative agency process the same way you usually do—with a creative brief. 

Ground everyone in the assignment, objectives, insights, barriers and reasons to believe. The point of this creative exercise is NOT to ignore the task at hand. We must eventually deliver a sound solution. This is merely the first stage of the creative process, which gives everyone the opportunity to expose and extinguish bad ideas. But as I pointed out earlier, even the worst ideas can have a silver lining. Just because it stinks now doesn’t mean you can’t freshen it up later.

Invite anyone to attend—account, planning, media, finance... 

Make it a united effort. Shitstorms are defeatist, not elitist. And don’t they always say that good ideas can come from anywhere? Well, bad ideas can come from anywhere too. Everywhere, really.

Bring a little structure to the chaos. 

Have a pun parade for the first 15 minutes so everyone can unleash their most shameful wordplay. Maybe spend another 15 minutes developing jingle lyrics and marketing ideas that never in a million years would make any sense. Have a Blanket Statement Corner, where everyone shouts out their own personal anecdotes that have no bearing on a more targeted scale. And while absurd and altogether inappropriate ideas are welcome, try not to make them the norm. This is a safe space for any and all forms of badness, even the ideas that actually sound pretty good in your head but flat-out suck once they make it out into the open.

Embrace the purge. But embrace it together. Bad will never feel so good. In fact, it’s a blast. And when the dust settles, you’re that much closer to the right answer. Because even in a shitstorm, lightning can strike.