Of the gold content of a problem

The process that awakened the "agency of my life" (as I call the home of the legendary Leo Burnett, because that's where I celebrated my greatest international successes and - more importantly! - found my creative home) awakened worldwide, began with a question: "How do you measure, assess, purposefully discuss the quality of creative work - from Adelaide to Lima, from Toronto to Oslo?" I first asked myself this question in April 1986, when, freshly arrived in Chicago from Frankfurt, I took over the creative leadership of Leo Burnett, first the international part, later the entire agency. Part of my job was that, as Chief Creative Officer, I had the final decision on what to recommend to our clients. So it happened that before a client presentation of a new campaign, I asked a creative director responsible for an account what he thought of the work so overall - how he judged it. He said, "Great!" I replied, "What's great?" To which he replied, "I mean: It's very good, Michael!" "From my understanding," I noted, "great and very good are two different qualities." The debate went back and forth a bit more, and because I really, really liked the work, felt it was independent and bold, I ended the discussion with, "I think it's brilliant!"

Although I had been shown a brilliant campaign that day, I went home in the evening with a headache. We couldn't discuss the quality of our work like that! We needed a clear consensus for our company about the quality of our work, clearly articulated goals, what was good - and what was not. We needed to learn to be purposeful in our analysis - and "bold." And so we set out to articulate qualities, to define a standard that worked for us with a global perspective and neutrality in terms of culture, industry and execution. That in itself was a bold undertaking, because the fact that such qualities had not existed before suggested how difficult they would be to define. As you know, what comes easily has usually already been done by someone.

"Best in the world, bar none"

At the top of our scale, we placed a maxim that agency founder Leo Burnett had left behind: "World leader, without exception." In keeping with the company logo (a hand reaching for the stars), that was "10," the "top shot," yes: perfection. We then agreed on nine other parameters, dedicated in sections to what was desirable, what was to be avoided, and the execution of each. A brand achieves long-term ownership when it defines a new standard in a category with its product or service: That is, when it totally fills a niche or implements market leader ambitions (the "most masculine" cigarette for Marlboro or the "greatest" self-confidence for Always). On our scale, this strategic criterion became the "8".

We certainly haven't forgotten the "9", but I had to anticipate the "8" - because the "9" represents its implementation. Here, too, setting a new standard in communications that gives a product or service a distinctive long-term language, tone, culture and leadership, creating a leading brand (maybe even an icon?!). Think "Marlboro Country" or "#Like A Girl" for Always.

What do we want - and what not?

Just as important as defining what we wanted to achieve, became what we wanted to avoid (and which is still the scourge of advertising today): Clichés, the norm of things, the tyranny of mediocrity. Whether advertising cars, cosmetics, cleaning products: differences are usually very marginal. Why is that? What is known tests well - what is unknown polarizes (also negatively). That's how you eliminate risks. But we preferred to eliminate mediocrity. So we made clichés our "4".

Even worse: uncompetitive advertising (our "3"), which competitors can buy our guts for; unclear content, unclear design, time-stealing annoyance, which drags the product and brand into the abyss (our "2"), and finally: frightening, repulsive advertising. Cases for the advertising council, inhumane. One of our network agencies actually published something like this once, the "New York Times" publicly put us in our place for it (and rightly so!), and we had the bar for our "1".

Push the "up", avoid the "down"

Now we have defined which qualities we want to strive for and which we want to avoid. What do we have to do to push the "up" and not give the "down" a chance? First, we need to develop strategies that are capable of setting new standards. In other words, they must be innovative, i.e., they must bring about a conversion from previous behavior to new behavior: a "5" on the scale. Second, ideas that implement innovative strategies must have freshness: on the scale the "6". Third, the fresh ideas must be produced so excellently that the idea becomes visible, moves, provokes thought. This is an area where good ideas are very often lost due to weak production. After this realization, we wrote ourselves a sentence about creation: "Once an idea is sold, the work begins" - on the scale the "7". The discussion about the quality of our work could begin, adding one more crucial point to Leo's "Best in the world, bar none": Inspiration. Because if our work doesn't inspire people, it's worthless.

Intermediate space and "7+" line

After a few years, I had the impression that there was still too little movement. In our network of about ninety agencies, four or five were creatively strong, the rest fell short. We acted "bold" again and made a thick line between the "7" and the "8": The respective agency bonus was linked in part to how many "7+" projects a site implemented per fiscal year. For the vote, we put the national work up for discussion internationally on a quarterly basis. The effect: There was much more exchange, business was buzzing, customer satisfaction increased, good minds flocked to us, and 27 of our agencies were named "Agency of the Year" (in some cases several times) over the next five years. The U.S. "Advertising Age" gave us "Global Agency of the Year" and the "Gunn Report" listed us as the most awarded agency in the world. "7+" is still practiced today, by the way, in a wide variety of adapted forms, by agencies or clients like Heineken.

* Michael Conrad was born in Leipzig in 1944; fled to the West with his mother in 1952. After an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk and various jobs, the autodidact joined Young & Rubicam, later Ogilvy Mather, in 1968. In 1972, he was involved in the founding of TBWA in Frankfurt; this was followed in 1975 by the founding of Lürzer, Conrad. In 1980, he merged with Leo Burnett, where he rose to the position of global Chief Creative Officer. Michael Conrad is married, has three children and has lived in Zurich since 2000. He is co-founder of an Executive MBA for creative leaders at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.