By her own employer’s admission, Susan Credle is a real-life “Peggy Olson”. By all accounts, the global chief creative officer of FCB’s career bears more than a passing resemblance to that of the fictional Mad Men character, once rising from the bottom of BBDO to become its creative chief.
“They said ‘we’ll pay you $11,500 to fill in for the receptionists when they need to go to the bathroom’ – that was my job,” she previously told Chicago Tribune.
Now at the FCB agency where she brought M&Ms to life, Credle is watching an industry where technology is supporting longer content but shortening attention spans.
“It’s not that scary,” she tells Beet.TV. “The unlimited use of time scares me more than the challenge of it. (In TV), the discipline of telling a story in 15, 30 or 60 (seconds) actually made us better creatives, because every shot had to be of importance, it had to move the story along.
“So my fear is that not having time limits will make us more flaccid storytellers, that we might not be as disciplined in our choices. We should never, ever apologise for being able to do it very quickly.”
That’s a skill that may come in handy, as micro-short videos in platforms like Vine, Instagram and, Facebook, which is advising agencies on how to engage newsfeed users quickly with messages.
In 2009, Credle moved from BBDO to Leo Burnett USA, where she was credited with the shop’s creative resurgence, and joined FCB this year as part of a renewed creative talent drive. She has a long list of advertising judging roles.
Despite all the industrial changes raging on, Credle thinks the core tenets of making great film, even for new media, are the same as they ever were. But one new trick gets her excited.
“The thing I’m most excited about is the ability to give the story over to people and let them be advocates for your story, give them a way to participate,” she adds. “That is the biggest difference. You can’t just talk to a consumer anymore.”
This video is part of a Beet.TV series titled “Unlocking the Creative and Connect Potential of Video” which is sponsored by Facebook. For more videos from the series, visit this page. You can also find the series on Facebook’s media page.
