Celebrities to Creative Directors - A Marketing Gamble?

Let’s jot down what does it take to be a creative director of a company, or to make precise sense, a technology company. A creative director of a technology company must have an acute understanding of technology, not just the one which the company deals with, but what is around it.

A creative director has conceiving creative solutions, programs and applications, planning project scheduling and execution, recruiting the right team to do the job, managing and/or overseeing the project execution and bringing the project to completion as some of the most important items on his/her job description.

Alicia Keys - Creative Director, Blackberry

 It makes the point clear that a creative director just not have to be “creative” to be adding value to his/her job and organization. A creative director must also be an excellent team leader having a keen sense of technology, be amazing at communication and have managerial skills to build a real house instead of imagining castles.

Do the recently anointed creative directors like Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, will.i.am, Justin Timberlake etc have it in them? No doubt they have been achievers in their fields of entertainment. No doubt that they have the passion of doing things what they like doing and doing it with the flair so as to be successful. But does being creative in their field make these ladies and gentlemen the right choice for a serious post like creative director for serious technology firms like Blackberry, Polaroid and Intel? We will have to wait for the answer.

It does make sense to mention here that inspite of all the efforts by these tech giants and their new directors to paint these affairs to be serious milestones, not many are taking them seriously. A majority of people take this pay-rolling of celebrities lightly calling it nothing but a marketing gimmick.Though this trend is not finding many serious takers in the technology industry, the sheer number of celebrities being welcomed into the executive list is alarming and hence cannot be ignored. However, if it is a serious business tactic or a tactless marketing maneuver, that remains to be established.

will.i.am - Director of creative innovation, Intel

So why did it happen and continues to happen?

The problem surface from the use of the word ‘creativity’ (as in Creative Director or Director of creative innovation) which along with ‘innovation’ and ‘strategy’ is probably the most abused word in today’s world. It has always been a misconception that anything to do with art (singing, dancing, craft, painting etc) is a lifetime membership to the “i-am-creative” club.

  

When this misconception is taken very seriously, the positions which were historically secured by professionals with exemplary qualification and experience starts getting adorned by celebrities who, in many cases, have a shallow or no understanding of the product, company or industry as such. Their creative credentials are deemed enough for them to sport a lanyard.

Victoria Beckham’s appointment as a Creative Director of Range Rover also baffles me in-spite of her claims of making serious contributions to the design ideas. Similar claims were also made by Lady Gaga while launching Polaroid products earlier. Will.i.am went on to say that he actually sits with coders and analysts and visits the Intel office every month for a meeting with his peers.

However, the question remains, does it really help the companies? The answer is yes and no.

I am sure you would be able to figure that out as well, We will take this in our next post anyways.

cheers,