Past a certain size, most businesses do not lack vendors. There is a designer, someone who shoots video, maybe an agency, maybe a family member handling social. What is missing is anyone senior deciding what all of it is supposed to add up to — and willing to tell a vendor the work is not good enough.
So the owner ends up doing that job, in the margins, without the time to do it properly. The result is work that is individually acceptable and collectively incoherent, and vendor relationships that run on politeness instead of standards.
The job is judgment, not project management
Creative direction means writing the brief before the work is commissioned, holding the standard while it is produced, and making the call on whether it ships. That requires someone who can say no to a vendor with a reason attached. It also requires recognizing when the vendor is good and the brief was bad, which is more often the case than owners expect.
What the work covers
- Creative briefs written before work is commissioned, not corrections after
- Brand and quality standards vendors are actually held to
- Review and approval of creative against the strategy rather than against taste
- Vendor selection, scoping, and honest evaluation of what you are getting
- Coordination across vendors so the output adds up to one coherent thing
- Deciding what belongs in-house and what is better bought
Auspicious directs your vendors rather than replacing them. Delivered inside a fractional marketing engagement, where creative usually needs an owner rather than another producer.
If you are the person reviewing creative and you should not be, that is the problem to solve. Get in touch →