"Compromise sometimes is what unleashes creativity," says Rob Reilly, global creative chairman of McCann Worldgroup. He argues that without compromise, the world might not have known the nearly universally acclaimed 'Fearless Girl'. Instead, we might have had a laugh at a 'Fearless Cow' — which was the agency's "purest idea" originally, Reilly says in this video filmed at Spikes Asia 2018.
In the same way that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no original creative idea survives contact with the client. And many times, that's a good thing.
For more on the long, strange journey of 'Fearless Girl' (including the Fortune 100 company that passed on it) read our in-depth interview with Reilly: "How Fearless Girl was nearly Fearless Cow".