Yoshimitsu Sawamoto × Yasuharu Sasaki: "Forget 'correct'—go for unpredictable ideas!"

The scope of advertising creative work has expanded from advertising expression to digital, PR, and even business development. How are clients' expectations of advertising creators changing now? How should creators meet these expectations? We asked two individuals at Dentsu Inc. who continue to lead the creative frontlines.

The "role" of creators has changed

──This year, Mr. Sasaki gave a talk at Cannes Lions themed "Seed Creativity." It's about next-generation creativity—what was the content?

Sasaki: It's not such a new concept. The idea is that if creators can participate from the stage when clients are conceptualizing products or services, not only the product itself but also the final creative output becomes more interesting.

For example, imagine launching an electric vehicle now. What's needed isn't just ads highlighting its benefits, but thinking about how to position it so society truly needs it, or creating systems where people can help each other when charging stations are scarce. That's why it's better to consult us from the early development stages. Manufacturers focus on technical ideas, we focus on user perspectives—combining these creates great services.

When we say participating upstream in the business, it doesn't mean we suddenly start manipulating numbers and pretending to be consultants. It means leveraging our deep understanding of user sensibilities to contribute more meaningfully.

Sawamoto: That conversation captures the essence of what's been happening around us these past few years. As Kashiwa Sato has long practiced, when management and creative teams sit side by side (in close proximity) and complement each other, the output becomes significantly better. Essentially, it's about persistently saying, "The product you (the executive) envision would feel even better to users if we did it this way." When you start from the very foundation of the product, the final advertising expression inevitably changes too. I worry if "feel better" sounds too vague when put into words (laughs), but I'm confident it conveys the right meaning.

This year, Hiroichiro Toda, an art director from Dentsu Inc., went independent. He's one who recognized the demand for this. Thinking about the stage before the actual expression will become one of the creator's roles.

If we keep doing the same things as before, we'll fall out of step with the times.

──What's needed for copywriters and designers to advance to that stage?

Sasaki: First and foremost, it boils down to having curiosity about what interests people living ordinary lives today, what makes them cry or laugh, and understanding how society is changing.

This has always been a quality demanded of advertising creators, but people are changing faster than we realize. High school girls are now editing and sharing videos on their smartphones in the blink of an eye. The way information is received and shared is changing. If you start writing copy or storyboards for traditional expression methods without considering this, you risk becoming out of step with the world. Also, we should be better at utilizing market data.

What Mr. Sawamoto mentioned earlier—that "good feeling" or gut instinct from our seniors—actually contained a wealth of market insights gained through extensive experience. While it's difficult for the average person to reach that level, today we can generate ideas from data and use it as persuasive material. By making data our ally, we can more easily enter the realm of those great predecessors.

Sawamoto: Compared to when we thought only expression could move things, the concept embodied by the word "creator" has broadened, hasn't it? Now, anyone who uses ideas to move things in any field is a creator.

The expansion of Cannes is a prime example. However, within that, people specializing in expression—like copywriters and CM planners—are still called "creators" as before. This often leads to confusing discussions where broad and narrow definitions of "creator" get mixed up, which I find tricky. What I always say is: the broad meaning of creative (using ideas to drive things) is obviously important. But without a person's area of expertise, it's hard to assign work to them, and you can't expect great output or results.

Sasaki: Specialization is absolutely essential. That specialization itself has also broadened beyond what it was before, encompassing digital, PR, and more. Having something deeply rooted is what enables lateral expansion – something I've personally experienced as someone who started as a copywriter.

I was a pretty mediocre copywriter, but it was precisely because I had that perspective that, when I moved into the digital realm, ideas started flowing—like, "Hey, I can do this and that too!" That's why I keep telling young people, "Why not try deeply experiencing two different fields?"

What's required of creators is ideas that "transform."

Sawamoto: I believe strategists and consultants can provide correct direction by following established theories. But what truly defines "creative" is how much you can inject elements that are "incorrect but new" beyond that.

Campaigns that are entirely correct and well-behaved may deliver results, but they won't become something that transforms. I believe it's the professional's job to deliberately make part of it different and transform it. It's something only humans, not machines, can do.

I think clients essentially ask us to "work magic." Magic stems from a certain personal ability, and that ability only emerges when you specialize in something. That brings us back to what we discussed earlier: it's crucial to be a pro at something, like copywriting.

Sasaki: It's about how to create elements that can't be quantified or calculated. Nowadays, with digital tools making immediate numbers visible, it's easy to get caught up in maximizing efficiency within calculable parameters.

There's also this anxiety among creators that they have to run PDCA cycles and boost the numbers. Within that, convincing people of an idea that "can't be quantified but will be interesting!" is tough. But digital is absolutely not a tool that makes expression dull. I believe it infinitely expands the possibilities of expression.

Sawamoto: We're seeing more campaigns where everything is measurable, where the whole thing becomes a formula.

What's interesting, though, is that we get requests from these startup folks who've mastered that formulaic world saying, "We just need creative ideas." They can come up with all the "correct" ideas themselves, so they want something they couldn't have thought of. Isn't that where the real "answer" lies?

I want young people to be aggressive rather than vague.

—Many young creators struggle with how to break through and which direction to pursue. Do you two have any advice?

Sawamoto: To reiterate, young people should first have a clear sense of where they want to specialize. Are they copywriters? Video creators? PR specialists?

It's a gamble, but that's always been true. Rather than spreading yourself thin across everything, bet on one thing and develop it. Become someone who is clearly stronger than others in that area. People who can do everything moderately well might end up without standing out. But I think they're still valued, so if that feeling of being valued is your goal, that's fine.

Personally, I want to establish myself by excelling in one area, and I think it's great to become someone who can lead an entire campaign because of that. If you decide, "I'm going to do video!" and shout it out loud, and there's some truth to it, then people around you will think, "Well, let's give the video work to that guy." I feel it all comes down to what you're better at than others.

Sasaki: When you're hesitating, we end up seeing everyone as the same. If you're feeling foggy and unsure, just go for it aggressively. One way to be aggressive is to keep digging in one hole, even if you think it's no good.

Another is finding under-served areas and challenging them. To make yourself more discoverable, I think you should raise your hand higher and signal your intent.

Sawamoto: I think it's like athletic ability. If you compare advertising to sports, in a class of 50 people, about 10 will have good athletic ability. Those people would be good at soccer even if you made them play it instead of baseball. There's this overall athletic ability separate from specific sports. People in advertising agencies should be a group with a certain level of advertising "athletic ability," so I think it's more about how you communicate it.

You might think I'm talking like someone who doesn't know the field, but I often feel this during meetings too. Some young people today bring in a cat photo they found online with a couple lines of explanation beside it and say, "This is an idea." They claim it can work for web content and TV commercials alike, but then who's going to turn that into an actual commercial? As a standalone commercial, it completely fails to connect to the product. It probably comes down to a difference in original motivation: either they want to handle everything themselves—writing the script, directing—and create the exact visuals they envisioned, or they're satisfied with just the initial concept and assume someone else will handle the rest.

Being able to handle everything yourself in your field is what defines a pro, and we need those people. But I think they're becoming fewer. What's important, I believe, is being a pro in your field while also being able to think about the whole picture. It's totally fine if someone comes to a meeting saying, "This time, I came up with the entire commercial concept myself!" and just brings storyboards. But a commercial proposal that's fully fleshed out with product integration should ultimately lead to more ideas expanding into other media. People who deeply focus on a specific aspect tend to transform both their ideas and themselves.

Sasaki: We end up with a bunch of shallow things labeled "core ideas," right? (laughs) Even in digital, there's a huge difference in growth potential between coming up with a broad, shallow idea that might go viral and developing a deep proposal that lays out all the necessary UI and features for an app people will use daily.

Sawamoto: That ties right back to what we said earlier about "we should present transformative ideas to clients." For young creatives, we're their presentation partners. Both clients and us are happiest when presented with unpredictable ideas that wouldn't have come from us.

You can read the full interview here on AdTie!