Keith Cartwright is the President and Chief Creative Officer of CARTWRIGHT, a new WPP backed creative agency located in Los Angeles. The agency is working to form a new paradigm for how creativity is injected into the corporate body.
In this Campaign Chemistry podcast from Campaign US, Cartwright explains. He says it’s always a small group of people who get the work done, and that it’s best to keep senior talent close to the client.
“Advertising hasn’t lost its way or become irrelevant. In fact, our business is now more important and necessary than ever before. We take in more information in a day than our parents did in a lifetime. People aren’t sitting around waiting on your ad to come out. This requires a different type of creativity,” Cartwright says. “Creativity has to be bold and audacious in order for you to pay attention, inspire you to share, and entice you to want more.”
During the podcast, Cartwright explains his agency’s point of view on creative audacity. It’s a spoken version of what it says on the agency’s website:
In the attention economy this is the only way creative can stand out. It forces you to pay attention, entices you to react and provokes you to share. Creative Audacity is our secret sauce. An ideal that requires brave partners committed to making brave work. The result are brands that are impossible to ignore.
To me, it sounds like new wrapping on the age-old mantra, “The work, The work, The work.” This is not a criticism. It’s an observation that returning to the industry’s roots is returning to its strengths.
Keith Cartwright is also Co-Founder of SATURDAY MORNING, an organization built on using creativity to shift negative perceptions in the African American community.
Keith previously held the position as Executive Creative Director at 72 and Sunny.
