Serious Creative
What we said at parties
"I work in advertising." "I'm in film production." Anything but the truth.
What we actually did
Guided CEO transitions. Navigated IPOs. Shaped how the world's biggest companies spoke to the people who mattered most.
The Problem
Corporate comms had no identity.
Which meant the people doing the most important creative work in business had nothing to call themselves. That had to change.
2018
I stepped off the partner track.
I was leading the film team for one of the world's biggest corporate advisory firms from a Park Avenue skyscraper. We'd just had our first child. I wanted to be a full-time dad.
MLK weekend. Takeout from Quality Meats. My wife and I were agreed. The next morning, I was quitting.
Then the UK CEO beat me to it and quit first. At the end of a chaotic reveal meeting, my boss looked at me, a little frazzled. I said: "Your day's not going to get any better." And resigned.
The Conversation
It went roughly like this. I'm in italics, because I'm fancy.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm not. I just want time with my family."
"What will you do after?"
"Figure it out."
"How long?"
"A year."
He quickly did the math. Hiring. Onboarding. Risk. Money. "I can give you 9 months," he said. "Just come back." We shook on it.
I returned that November like nothing happened. But something had.
The Insight
Creative in corporate comms was broken.
And it needed a new identity. Not a rebrand. Not a manifesto. An honest name for the work that people in the industry were actually doing — and hiding.
The Things We Think And Do Not Say
We hid the foundational work.
Corporate production has always been the red-headed stepchild of creative agencies. We loved showing off the one-time projects — the big, shiny "remember when?" stuff.
But we hid the repeatable work. The stuff that keeps big companies running. PowerPoints. CEO scripts. Investor communications. The work that actually mattered.
Why? Because we were scared you'd think it was all we did. It wasn't. But it was a lot of what we did. And it was worth doing brilliantly.
Creativity Is...
Not what you think it is.
01
Understanding your audience
When weed became legal in California, a Girl Scout set up outside a dispensary. She sold 117 boxes of cookies in under two hours. No strategy team. Just a perfect read on her audience.
02
Reduction
The McDonald's brothers realised 87% of revenue came from three menu items and doubled down. Simpler menu, faster service, better product. That's the Pareto principle in action.
03
How you frame it
James Watt didn't invent the steam engine — Newcomen did. Watt made it efficient and marketable. His genius was one word: horsepower. Suddenly everyone understood.
The Distinction That Matters
What most people confuse
Branding. Advertising. Corporate Communications. Three different disciplines. Constantly conflated. Used interchangeably. Each one damaged by the confusion.
What they actually are
Branding = Differentiation. Who you are.
Advertising = Promotion. What you do.
Corporate Comms = Messaging. What it means.
Corporate communications isn't about selling. It's about navigating a story. Managing relationships. Defining reputation. That's where mature creativity lives.
Texas, 2019
I said the things we think but do not say.
All the offices, flown to Texas. Me and some friends, standing in front of a ballroom full of brilliant advisory minds. We broke it down: what creative responsibility could mean in business.
No one had done it before. Not publicly. Not honestly.
Out of that came a movement. A sleeper cell. We called it Serious Creative. Process plus imagination. The thing that had been there all along, waiting for a name.
The Question
What are you hiding?
Every creative professional has work they don't talk about at parties. Work they think is beneath the brand they're trying to build.
Write down the work you do that you never talk about publicly. Ask yourself: is this work less valuable, or have I just decided it is?
The answer is usually the second one.
The foundational work is where trust compounds. The repeatable work is what clients keep coming back for. The invisible work is often the most important work.
MrMcK · Serious Creative
Corporate comms had no identity. We gave it one.
Serious Creative is what happens when process meets imagination at the highest level of business.
Creativity is not mystery. It's audience, reduction, and framing.
The basics are simpler than we pretend. We do no favours by gatekeeping them.
As making things gets easier, knowing what to make gets harder.
That's the only creative edge that matters now. And it always was.
mrmck.com