Lewis Lazare: You live and learn. Or, in the case of ace advertising creative Jon Wyville, you work and learn.
Some 17 months ago, Wyville pulled up stakes at Young & Rubicam/Chicago, where he had been happily working for four years with partner Dave Loew on big accounts like Miller Brewing and took a job as group creative director at Fallon/Minneapolis, a shop with a strong creative reputation.
At the time Wyville believed it was a good move professionally.
But this week a happier — and wiser — Wyville returns to work at Y & R and to his old partnership with Loew. Wyville said the Fallon job never seemed like the right fit.
Wyville is a hands-on kind of ad man, but his managerial position at Fallon forced him to sit through meeting after meeting and oversee a large number of creative teams. He had no time to make ads, and he increasingly missed that.
The curse of our business. Very, very, very few of us ever dream of being a creative director. We get in the business to be art directors or copywriters. Then what is thumbprinted as a promotion is really a career change. You become less involved with making the work. You become alienated. You become a meeting hound. You’re dealing with people instead of ads.
I’m all for fresh, young talent bringing energy and ambition. But the lack of more and more seasoned pros losing that spark to the lure of longer job titles, ego boosting is making the biz less credible. Agencies just aren’t what they used to be, and until they find a solution to make creative directors keep their fingers on the mouse and keyboard, the business is in deep doo-doo.