Opinion Why is ‘vacation’ a dirty word in advertising?

By Chris Staples

If you’re like a lot of ad folks, getting away on a real holiday is a rare thing indeed.

Sure, we take the odd long weekend here and there, but how many of us take a truly unplugged vacation at least once a year?

Blame it on the Internet. The days of saying “Sorry, I’ll be out of cell range for two weeks” are virtually over.

This means that even on the most isolated atoll you can be reached by a panicked creative director or client.

But even if people weren’t bothering you, I wonder how many of us would want to truly unplug— even if we could?

Most of us are hopeless i-junkies by this point. That’s more than a shame—it’s affecting our work. We need to take more vacations. And we need to truly unplug when we’re on them.

Long hours don’t mean better work.

I’m continually surprised by the masochistic attitude of many creative people when it comes to work/life balance (much of this is fostered in the programs we take at school, which turn workaholism into a fetish).

There’s an unspoken rule that to succeed you need to put in the hours. Long hours. Ridiculous hours. Year after year.

I call bullshit. I think creative people are good for roughly one brilliant idea a day (that’s about 200 a year, which is pretty amazing if you think about it).

The problem is that we creatives have turned procrastination into a fine art. We roll in at 10:00, spend hours cruising the net (supposedly checking out new work and new trends), and take long lunches and multiple coffee breaks. In between all of that, we answer emails, take meetings and go to production sessions. Then, when everyone else goes home, we get down to the work of actually creating ads.

Going on holidays is seen as some kind of thing for wusses. If you want to get ahead, you work weekends and skip breaks, whether you want to or not.

Doing nothing makes your ads better.

I believe that regular, uninterrupted holidays are an absolute necessity for creative people

The pace is just too intense not to fully recharge every few months. Travel, especially to a foreign place, is like exercise for your brain. Instead of wasting hours seeing what’s been already done on Ads of the World, you’re actually in the world, creating a million new combinations in your subconscious. You’re also getting drunk, sleeping late and forgetting all the petty politics that consume so much of our energy.

This is one of the many things we sought to “rethink” when we had the chance to set up our own agency 12 years ago.  We vowed that every Rethinker would get three weeks holiday in their first year—and they’d actually be able to take those holidays all in a row, and never be bothered by the office.

In our very first year, it was far from clear whether we’d make it as an agency. Our offices were in a condemned building, and we had just a handful of clients. Even then, we all took three weeks off. And have ever since.

Even more important, we created a cultural norm where it was the ultimate sin to contact someone when they’re on holidays. No texts, no voicemails and no emails. Ever.  Even if the building burnt down, or someone died (why ruin a good holiday?).

We promised that if we ever made it to 10 years, we’d offer everyone a 10-week sabbatical. I’m proud to say that on mine I didn’t check in once.

Away is one thing.  Unplugged is another.

This column is the last thing I’m doing before heading off for 10 days by the beach. I know I won’t be bothered by the office—but I’m worried about my own resolve to stay unplugged.

I-hardware makes it very tempting to check in of Facebook, or Twitter, or even email.  Every vacation, it gets harder and harder to stay truly, completely unplugged.

Thank god for piña coladas. See you on the other side.

 

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Chris Staples, a founding partner and creative director at Rethink, with offices in Toronto and Vancouver. He will respond to any comments when he gets back.

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