A round table on creativity in advertising organized by MMkreativa, a special publication of the Slovenian Marketing magazine, was held on Thursday in Ljubljana.
The discussion focused on the position and role of creatives in marketing, in advertising agencies, in the promotional process, and their relationship with clients, i.e., advertisers. It was noted that creative directors are essentially coaches; they do not necessarily have to be the most creative members of the team, but they need to know how to motivate others and bring out the best in them, while perhaps one of the most important traits of a creative director is to have sensitivity towards the client and their problems. The discussion primarily revolved around the quality level of creative campaigns, with Vital Verlič stating that the quality of campaigns is regularly inversely proportional to the amount of audience they address. The most radical views were expressed by Mirko Ilić, who claimed that unfortunately, creatives engage at the moment when a bad product needs to be sold, and that today, how much is talked about good or bad creativity has become more important than the creativity itself. Among the guests at the round table was Mirko Ilić, a legend of graphic design who lives and works in New York. From the Croatian representatives, Davor Bruketa from the advertising agency Bruketa&ŽinićOM spoke, while from Slovenia, there were Aljoša Bagola, creative director at Pristop, Vital Verlič, executive creative director at Futuri DDB, Petja Montanez, art director at Publicis, and Tom Mezga, former creative director from Luna TBWA, who recently founded his own agency Atomik studio.
