Technical jargon: What does "constraint" actually mean?
In his column "Technical jargon", Benno Maggi explains terms from the marketing and communications sector. This time he explains the term "constraint".
As if there wasn't already enough pressure on the advertising industry, a principle is now being circulated among creatives that seems new to many and is causing fear here and there: These are so-called constraints. Translated, this means having the ability to deliver a top solution within bottlenecks and constraints.
The Israeli physicist Eliyahu M. Goldratt has long since racked his brains for us on how to achieve this. In addition to many theories, non-fiction books and business novels, he caused a sensation in his career in the 1970s, particularly with his company Creative Output Inc. With this company, he developed software to optimize production processes, which is still considered the source of the Theory of Constraints today. The recipe? Take a pinch of scarcity of time, add resources whose performance determines the process speed, define fixed search fields, condense the problem and boil it down to the highest profitability standards. All with the aim of achieving better solutions faster and therefore more cost-effectively. The fact that creative professionals are now also turning to this fast food should be worrying in two respects.
Creative services become commodities
Firstly, because today's creative directors scare their crews by telling them that they have to perform under pressure. This may sound cool in the phrase "with constraints", but in reality it tastes a little stale. After all, even in the 1970s, the mother of all Swiss advertising agencies, GGK, was rumored to be using methods that instilled fear and sweat in creative people at the time, according to rumors about its congenial head - Paul Gredinger. So nothing new.
And secondly, because no one would ever have thought that creative output could become a standardized commodity. Because that is what the Theory of Constraints seeks in its perfection: increasing capacity and changing the process flow to increase efficiency. So no more dawdling.
In general, the creative industry should perhaps take a closer look at how it will deal with the situation in the future if it is not itself but digitalization that accelerates creative output and turns its results into commodities. That would definitely mean the end of fun.
* Benno Maggi is co-founder and CEO of Partner & Partner. He has been eavesdropping on the industry for over 30 years, discovering words and terms for us that can either be used for small talk, pomposity, excitement, playing Scrabble, or just because.
