Access not ownership
A revolution is happening in the world of creativity: creatives are forming collectives to find better and more flexible opportunities. They want greater autonomy, and have largely broken away from companies that try to define them and their art.
With fierce competition among agencies, it simply isn’t possible to "own" all the in-house talent and skills you need to solve a client brief. Clients want speed and flexibility and, to provide this, companies need to access – not own – talent.
Without access to a diverse range of specialist (and non-specialist) skills, brands and agencies won’t be able to connect with their diverse audiences. At a time when companies are bringing their marketing departments in-house this is more important than ever; looking at 2017’s calamities – including Pepsi and Dove – brands must avoid becoming insular.
As Easle’s CEO, Nick Gubbins, says: "Clients are wanting more and more specialism from their agencies, yet with the breadth of accounts and types of media - this specialism is becoming almost impossible to achieve in-house."
New technologies such as AR, VR and AI present opportunities to connect in new ways but they also present challenges – finding talent that knows how to create these experiences beyond just gimmicks.
So how can companies adopt new structures, embrace more fluid ways of working and tap into a range of different skills and specialities?
Freelance creative hiring company, Easle, provides a way in. With a high volume of talent – ranging from photographers to animators, illustrators to graphic designers, and filmmakers to product designers – Easle can help companies easily find the right creative.
Attracting people on a project-by-project basis is a forward-thinking approach. With so many styles and new technologies coming into play, getting a bespoke on-demand team for different campaigns and clients means you can efficiently gather the right specialist skills – or people who can bring a new perspective to the project.
So we should source cross-talent teams from any sector, not just agencyland. Getting someone in for their sheer love and immersion in a field could make the difference between a good and great outcome.
Take , whose time as part of collective The Earth Issue promoting environmental activism through art, could add depth and colour to a project working on the issues of climate change.
A team looking to tackle a tricky gender issue could benefit from the experience of award-winning documentary filmmaker , whose politically charged experimental work has used testimonies from men who have paid for sex, and subverts gender notions by asking women to lip-sync to their words.
Photographer and social-rights activist, , who photographed women and teenage refugees of the Syrian conflict in 2017 – or , who designed the ‘Lipstick Tehran’ project to explore the daily lives of young women in the Islamic Republic of Iran, might provide invaluable first-hand knowledge for a sensitive political piece.
For a standout gif, speak to . Need a 3D animator for an AR project? is the one to find. Want to build an Alexa skill? Talk to in
Easle brings together over 400 creatives with different skills, artistic journeys and life experiences – across photography, animation, illustration, graphic design, filmmaking & product design. Gubbins says: "Easle gives you the ability to find the person with not only the level of quality you need, but the added experience to help shape and develop your work further."
This is just a sample of their portfolio.
Eleanor Kahn