To a certain extent we are born with the skills to make decisions in an instant without even thinking about it (or without knowing we have thought about it). But Gladwell says we can train our brain to control these 'blinks', making our initial judgment more accurate, or being able to assess whether our initial judgment is an accurate one.
The best way to get better at this is to be experienced and knowledgeable in the subject of the decision. So for advertising that would be something we do every day. We come up with an idea, we hear our partners idea, and we can usually tell instantly if that idea is good, bad or great. It's often said that the hardest part of being a creative is the ability to know when you have a truly great idea. As a junior I find this difficult. My creative director doesn't. And I'm sure the senior teams are good at it too.
Blink doesn't just stop with your own work. When you see an ad that makes you stop and fills you with envy – that's when your mind instantly knows the ad is brilliant. For me, that recently happened when I saw this:
And also, many years ago, the Volkswagen psychiatrist ad with the mechanic under the chaise longue (couldn't find an image). A classic that I can only dream of matching.
I also think this pre-programmed knowledge and experience comes into use when judging awards. That's why they choose creative directors to be judges and not young hot shots. They have the ability to look at an ad and 'blink' – they know if it's worthy of an award. They see thousands of entries each day, so this instant decision making is very handy.
This skill can again be used for book crits. Most people don't have time to sit with teams for hours, so to a certain degree they have to use the part of the brain that makes instant decisions. When you flip through a portfolio, as soon as the page turns you know whether the ad is great or not. And it can save the critics a lot of time.
Maybe this answers why some creatives are better than others. Or why some creative directors are more successful than others. Or maybe, just maybe, I've managed to make advertising a whole lot more serious and boring! But what we can take away from Blink, in terms of advertising, is that the more you know about the subject the better you will be at judging work in a very short space of time, whether that's yours or someone elses.
