How to Work as a Creative Director for an Ad Agency

The successes and failures of a creative director can dictate the direction of an ad agency. Creative directors mix upper-management skills with an eye for detail to motivate staff members to produce their highest level of work. You need to educate yourself on the latest trends to succeed in your work as a creative director for an ad agency.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Build a Career as an Advertising Creative Director

1. Pursue a Master's degree in communication arts to increase your value to an advertising agency. Your pursuit of an advanced degree will give you sophisticated knowledge of the creative process in advertising on a theoretical level. Your employer may provide limited reimbursement, meant to increase the skill level of employees.
2. Develop an archiving system for advertisements, storyboards and background paperwork that is intuitive for the entire department. You should train designers and production artists to sign each draft of an ad, save a digital copy into the agency's network and go back through to finish archiving for easy retrieval in the future.
3. Review the budget with agency accountants for each project to make tough cuts before production begins. Your role as a creative director is to balance financial and artistic endeavors by the agency. Third-party vendors and freelance workers can help ease budgetary constraints.
4. Hold morning and afternoon meetings with project managers to stay ahead of potential problems. You should spend at least a half hour going over each artist's performance and plan any adjustments needed to finish a campaign on time.
5. Involve yourself in the production process to stay grounded as a creative director. You can spend 15 to 30 minutes during each project to oversee the physical crafting of advertisements.
6. Draw inspiration from your creative staff by presenting ad campaigns from competing agencies. You can avoid embarrassing duplications of advertising styles and create cutting-edge campaigns by compiling a presentation of TV, web and print ads.
7. Allow designers, artists and young ad professionals to present campaign ideas to potential clients. You can increase confidence and expose up-and-coming agency stars by giving them each a role in final presentations.

Tips & Warnings

• Maintain discipline in your creative staff using an online messaging service in the office. There are a number of messaging services that allow you to meet with multiple staff members at the same time while staying at your desk. You should also submit schedule changes, meeting requests and files through instant messages.