Stop “Dividing and Conquering” in Advertising
When I started in advertising there was a lot of jargon to pick up on, but there was one phrase in particular that seemed off to me. It was that we should “divide and conquer.” Advertising is a particularly busy and hectic industry so when a team needs to do more than one thing at the same time, we “divide and conquer,” we split the team up with some team members doing one thing and others doing another. There’s only one problem. that’s the opposite of what “divide and conquer” actually means.
The original meaning of “divide and conquer” is to divide your enemy (whether in war or society) into smaller groups that are more easily defeated separately than together. From Wiktionary, it’s “to make a group of people disagree and fight with one another so that they will not join together against [you].” “Divide and conquer” is used elsewhere in the business world as well. In computer science, a “divide and conquer” algorithm is one that breaks down a large, complex problem into multiple smaller, more easily solvable problems. The principle of “divide and conquer” is clear, when we stay together and divide our obstacle into smaller pieces, we can overcome it. And yet when we say “divide and conquer” in advertising, we mean we’re dividing ourselves.
In advertising we take on way too much work. Specifically, we do a ton of work that doesn’t actually help us accomplish our raison d’être — to do great creative work that helps brands succeed in market above-and-beyond the level of success they would have with average creative work. And by taking on so much ancillary work, we hinder our ability to do that great creative work. We should all stop treating creative concepts and big ideas like just another project competing for resources. They are the reason we exist and the reason our clients should choose us over other agencies. They should be all hands on deck and they should be given all the time they need to be done right. So let’s stop dividing — let’s stop dividing our teams, let’s stop dividing our time, let’s stop dividing our resources, and let’s stop dividing our attention — lest we be conquered.