Is It Time To Take A Stand Or Stand Down?

In the age of Trump, creatives are still cautious, but a renaissance may be coming

- Doug Zanger

As the 2016 presidential campaign churned forward, there was a distinct sense of bemusement about Republican nominee Donald Trump in the traditionally liberal-leaning advertising industry. Surely he wouldn’t ascend to the Oval Office, right?

Just to be sure, creative teams spent countless hours of unpaid time creating work that mocked, riffed on or raised cautionary flags about his campaign.

Canadian agency Critical Mass created a step-by-step guide to help Americans move north of the border. Barrett SF created miniature Trump campaign signs solely to be placed in dog poop. Wieden + Kennedy Portland’s food cart served “Donald Trump’s BS” (baloney sandwiches). Such snarky projects were a weekly sight in the months leading up to the election.

Then Trump won the presidency, and the creatives who’d been nettling him stopped laughing. 

In the year and a half since Trump took office, brand marketers and agency creatives have largely gone quiet. Those who have continued to make provocative, challenging work have reaped both awards and boycott threats, but overwhelmingly, some industry observers say, today’s political polarization has had a numbing effect on creativity.

“[Creativity now] is more nervous, more apologetic,” said Laura Fegley, executive creative director at Colle+McVoy. “The tribes we’ve formed in America would make you think that we would move toward highly polarized work. But instead, the work can become mild salsa—falling into the worst  trap of trying to say things that offend no one and aren’t really exciting anyone.”

But much like how the political unrest of the late 1960s sparked a creative renaissance in music, art, literature and even advertising, some feel America is on the eve of a creative awakening as cultural battle lines are drawn and brands are brought to the front lines.