In March of 2020, when the world shut down, the events industry—with its coal mine canaries already dead—had a two-month lead on most other sectors that were still in denial. I worked for a company called “Wolf & White” at the time, a UK-based Events agency. I was its man in New York—the client-facing writer and producer for its biggest client, L’Oréal, based in NYC. We’d had a 5000-person event planned for Milan in January of 2020, but very early that year, we all knew there was no way that was going to happen.
By the middle of January, all of our agency’s events for the year were cancelled.
And the Events industry at large—as anyone knew it—was gone in a week, and by the end of February, 90% of staff were let go or furloughed.
But Wolf & White’s Creative Director and I came up plan: Start a creative agency dedicated to the events industry. We offered deeply experienced, award-winning creative direction and a studio without the overheads, available to the skeleton agencies that had, up until a month before, been our competition. We knew virtual and eventually, hybrid events would still have to happen, and we positioned ourselves as the full-service hired gun.
Yet we readied for launch, we encountered a problem we hadn’t predicted: Beyond a few informed clients, most potential new leads didn’t really understand what we offered. Client questions and verbalised reluctance included: “What is Creative?” “What is the deliverable? “Anyone can write a speech.” “Anyone can imagine an event.” “Why do I need you guys to book a venue?”
In response, for Rorschach’s formal launch, we created a video to explain exactly what “creative” means.
“200 words” was the script I wrote for the video. I cast the VO talent, and Marc made the video.
It worked. We got busy—really busy—and sold the company for a profit 18 months after launching it.
Below is the script. It still stands, for me, as a good expression of what “creative” brings to the world.
This is a poem:
Two hundred words in black and white.
But it’s not the ink that makes the poem; it’s the poet.
This is a poem about creativity.
Twenty brush strokes.
But it’s not the brush that makes it creative.
It’s not the ink that makes the painting; it’s the painter.
So, what is creativity?
It’s fighting with the ink… until everything clicks.
Creativity is not the words we use; it’s the stories they tell.
It’s not the Monet; it’s how his blues make us feel.
It’s not BB King; it’s how the blues make us feel.
It turns 2-D ideas into real-world experiences.
It turns motion into e-motion.
It turns noise into sound, sound into music, music into tears.
It’s the power and the glory of the perfect story,
The perfect picture,
The picture-perfect.
Two hundred words…
Coloured with creativity.
