Articles from: Advertising

Here at LBi we’ve just launched the campaign to promote D&AD New Blood’s 10th Anniversary exhibition, at the end of June. Its been a labour of love, something that I’m really proud of for the best (in my opinion) and most important part of the charity.

This campaign is about getting industry down to New Blood to support graduating students. First off don’t let’s forget the message here - we’re trying to build our collective future. New Blood has been suffering from growing apathy amongst us agency-types for a while now. In the last downturn, internships and placements just evaporated for graduates. For a few years students stepped out into an industry that just wasn’t paying attention. These graduates went elsewhere, and as anyone trying to find mid/senior talent, particularly in digital, can attest to - the whole industry lost out, and work has suffered for it. Its our collective responsibility to grow one of the most dynamic and amazing industries out there.

Call me naive (and I’m sure you will) but we wanted to try to get us all off our arses (or out of them) and take a minute to think about what New Blood is all about, where we might have been 10 years ago, and to make a personal pledge to give these new talents the support that they deserve: there’s no denying its going to be really tough for them out there.

The hero photos represent only a small part of this campaign, but a lead that we hoped would put New Blood on the industry radar again, and cause some intense discussion about why its so important (job done there, I guess ).The images are tongue-in-cheek but the message they contain is seriously important. The point is that these people aren’t the seven most important people at the event, its the students, and its also each person that stops navel-gazing and actually contributes to its success.

These industry ‘icons’ were selected because they are actively helping New Blood already, offering their scant time (extra big thanks to Nadav) and profile to help get the conversation going, and who have committed to the New Blood event - they are the first step towards creating some solidarity with our brightest young stars by challenging you to do more yourself. And it’s working.

For those that haven’t seen the whole campaign, please check it out. For those lucky enough to be judging D&AD professional and student awards this year, there was a booth set up (using the 2 of 2006’s Best New Blood Winners - David Horwich & Paul Mansley) where everyone could pledge their support… and  of course the hub of activity is that everyone is encouraged to upload their own photos or video committing to being at the event. “I’ll be there”.

We’ll also be asking agencies to use their prime window real estate to create their own statements of support - a lot of us have the best street-level ad space in our areas.

On top of that we’re providing free space for all students to have a web presence within the same matrix, and a great digital system for tagging your favourite work at the event, so that all that fiddling about with trying to contact your favourite future teams afterwards is as painless as possible.

So please, continue with the discussion as much as you like, but know it came from the right place. Most importantly take a moment to think about what it was like when you were entering an industry with your vivid optimism and desire to do what we all do every day intact - and pledge your support.

After all, the more voices we get online, the more those you don’t agree with will be drowned out by the noise of the industry pulling together.

I’m moved to Blog about Rory Sutherland’s inaugural speech as IPA President. It’s a fine piece of oratory as you’d expect from a fellow cravat wearer (though I’ve always thought mine to be more the mod-style silk scarf).

What’s interesting in his speech is the way Rory articulates the importance of “Social Value” created by brands in the coming age of scarcity. A lot of what he says chimes closely with our own ideas about Building Believable Brands. It’s clear from his speech that the “traditional” world is waking up to the notion that ideas without media spend behind them, creativity with media thinking inherently linked, and ideas of value exchange are going to be the salvation of the communications business.

It’s also clear that Rory understands advertising to be a small component of the picture. So we can look forward to a President keen to engage with digital businesses.

The other thing I got from the speech was this brilliant articulation of what agencies are here to do:

“We create ideas that turn human understanding into business value for our clients”

This is true whether you work in digital, direct, advertising, media or in any of the other unhelpful discipline distinctions we burden ourselves with.

Creativity is often misunderstood by those who are suspicious of it’s aims, as something antithetical to business, making money, selling stuff. This is absolutely not the case and any creative who thinks it is, should go and live in a garret making art.  Creatives in commercial businesses are concerned with understanding why somebody should care about a product or service and then amplifying that feeling, if possible making them love it, and at the very least, buy it.

Or as they say outside of the Roman Empire, Deeds not Words. Its a saying thats been around a while. And an ethos that is to be commended, celebrated and encouraged. So, when I sat down with a copy of the Guardian on Saturday I was faced with an existential crisis of massive proportions.

Honda had “taken all the advertising space in the first 11 pages in Saturday’s Guardian (and an entire ad break on Channel 4) as part of its campaign to get more members of the public to be “do gooders” regarding the environment” (see the full article here).

Brilliant sentiment, gorgeously illustrated. Made me want to watch the ad (which is sweet and cute and well, lovely)… until… it went on… and on… and on… page after page after page.

By page 11, I was steaming mad. Mad that Honda had just highlighted to me how much paper is wasted in those pages every Saturday with ads. Mad that what was a sweet story of discovery and action had turned into a rambling Oliver Stone epic; and most of all mad because if Honda REALLY wanted to do something for the environment then why not make a statement, buy the ad space and not print anything at all.

Imagine an ad-free paper, with a nice “Brought to you by Honda”. Save the 5 pages per Guardian you used with your pretty pictures.The PR you would get!  The readers would have thanked you. The trees would have thanked you (5 pages x 1.24 million - the average daily readership). And you would have been making a difference, instead of just making a noise.

Don’t get me wrong, as I said, beautifully executed work and the sentiment couldn’t have been more right, but its saying green rather than doing green, and both client and agency should have spotted that. In comparison to the Fiat Eco Drive, which is actually helping their drivers use less CO2, its just a load of hot (achingly beautiful) air.

Whilst creative judges and juries fail to admonish the jolly corruption of children in the selling chocolate to lonely women (and instead get down to late 80s freestyle electro), there are important things at hand ineligible for easy cool. 

<insert chocolate-vomit.jpg here>

Now that the Evil Eye of Mordor has temporarily passed from the energy companies to the Bankers… (and having recently worked on briefs for both) it strikes me there are some major insights relating to all forms of ‘corporate evil’: 

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We, the consumptive populous require proof positive of corporate change in order to believe again. We want clear and easy influence… To be certain that the corporate villains are listening and repenting… And that this ‘change of spots’ is having a measurable, positive effect on our lives. 

We are conflicted, we want our guilt expunged without having to sacrifice warmth or mobility (or a million other convenient dreams)… we want CorpsUnited to change on our behalf, that’s what we’re paying for damn it!

It is said that capitalism is built upon scarcity and debt, and yet the human spirit craves the opposite… some say we are living through a 12 month window of opportunity disguised as a recession. ‘What Ever. My head hurts. I feel powerless. This is confusing. I don’t think I can make it without my two weeks in the sun’.

<insert therapist.ai here>

Here in the home of building believable brands, Marketing demands aimed at stereotyped targets seem redundant, self-indulgent and transitory. We are not immune from the dark side but we are relentless in our desire to make stuff that works and that is built on the solid foundations of listening to real people. To be part of their lives in any moment, mode or medium they feel or request. To be meaningful and sustainable. We are at Base Camp. There is a climb is ahead.

<insert corporate-optimism.mov here>

In the mean time I’d like to alert you to the genesis of a new cult: Cabralla. Sounds a bit like Kahbalah doesn’t it, well it’s pretty popular these days and not just with the creative elite. Supposedly the only effective protection is the gospel of the First Things First Manifesto, (old testament 1964, new testament 2000). As the followers of Fallon deride the disciples of IDEO (who pity them in return), some of us remember a simpler time pre-dotbomb, and imagine a future where ideas are the integrated currency - where everything else; every channel, format, media, platform and process… is open, available and perpetually intermixing. 

Some of us are nearly there now… we’re waiting for you…

<administer cold compress> 
</end waking dream>

(Playlist disguised as Post)

There’s no escaping it, times are rough and tough.  We’ve been bracing ourselves and tightening our belts to the point where we’re running out of notches. Green shoots of recovery? Yeah, right.

Clients are shaking their heads as they ponder budgets for 2009. The IPA and other industry gurus will no doubt be knocking on their doors with some solid scientific evidence that cutting ad spend has a long-term detrimental effect. Will it be convincing enough? Partly. But accountability will be more important than ever.

We creatives can expect a rather large magnifying glass to hover above our heads, scrutinizing our work and looking to extract every last drop of value from it. Clients will be looking us straight in the eye and demanding, “hey smart Alec, stimulate me some green shoots,” as though it’s all our fault.

You can imagine agency presentations across town this year. They’ll be rather like the old Fairy Liquid TV ads. “Your previous strategy only washed this many dishes. Our fresh, new, lemon scented strategy will stretch your budget to this many dishes.”

We’re already seeing conventional reactions to the crunch; big football sponsorship deals being pulled, four figure global lay-offs, corporate art projects canned.

Spectacular big budget broadcast will be seen as spectacular, big budget wastage. “Open on a tropical beach? You’re having a laugh, mate. What’s wrong with Skegness?!” And that’s just in the tissue meeting. Increasingly throughout 2009 you will hear themes of empowerment, sustainability, innovation and inclusion surfacing in articles.

Industry old boys will continue distancing themselves from broadcast, “Did we say tropical beach? Noooo! Of course we meant Skeggie.” New kids will be hyping the relevance of ’social’ and ’service’ design. Digital agencies can go even further: “We open on user generated shots of Skeggie.”

Yet do we need to get all doomy and gloomy about this? Well, it’s not ideal. I’ve seen tropical beaches and I’ve seen Skegness and, with all respect to the Lincolnshire Tourist Board, I know which I prefer. Yet, the new economic climate does open up a very real creative opportunity.

The good news is that clients are on our side. They know that, as the crunch bites down hard, creativity needs to flourish.  Not just in the way it connects them with their consumers, but the way it helps run their business.  Working smarter, innovatively distributing content and creating cost-effective dialogues is now higher up the agenda than ever. CMO’s will be empowered to make the big balls decisions using “the current climate” to reinvent their approach to their budgets.

So let’s not disappoint them. We too need the balls to grasp the challenge.  Let’s reinvent the industry; move from Broadcast to Narrowcast. Embrace Branded Generosity. Be being bold enough to zig while everyone else zags. Connect with consumers by building believable brands; ones that stand up to the scrutiny of the empowered consumer.

There’s something really appealing about the mash-up of broadcast and outdoor media for artistic/social commentary purposes - it often brings out some painful truths. From old-school audio-pirates like Douglas Kahn (who I was lucky enough to have as a lecturer at uni for a semester) and Negativeland to current street art, I love the way it plays with the true value of advertising and the media. And they’re always hidden - are these artists who create something beautiful/funny/poignant/political, using what our industry creates as raw materials, operating in secret because of the threat of big business and the brands ‘we’ represent? Surely if we’re helping brands become more real, believable, genuinely useful and honest then this kind of expression is quite beautiful, and not at all scary? (Or maybe that’s just my art-school roots talking, but Iove the idea of someone mashing up our work).

I haven’t seen anything from my beloved Shoreditch Decapitator for a while now, but Posterboy is just brilliant - and with maybe a slightly broader repertoire.

You can check out his Flickr page here.Or watch his video: Posterboy on the NYC subway.

LBiQ4 - Death of the big idea?

In our jaunt through LBiQ 4 and it’s exploration of ideas; big and small, traditional and new, it’s clear completely new ideas are increasingly hard to find – if they ever existed in the first place. “There’s nothing new under the sun”, after all, as some crusty old fool once said. (I think we can be fairly sure he didn’t work in advertising.) As the web grows up, and is no longer the brave new world of unchartered possibilities it used to be 10 years back, we need to look back and recognise the patterns that were formed during that period of innovation, to identify the successes, and the failures, and to work with and from these in order to keep advancing.

In the thrust for The New it is important not to lose sight of a few simple facts. Check this year’s hot work: quizzes, games, viral films, soap operas, blogs and scrolling banners. Nothing new there, per se – these formats are now established, in some cases almost traditional - but all are succeeding today in 2008 by combining creative thinking with brand messages in novel and interesting ways that match and resonate with the passage of time and the changes that are happening in the world at large. 

Just as David Gunn says there are only 12 types of advertisement, a creative writing teacher might inform us of only 14 ways to start a novel, or seven types of plot; and a musician teaches us that there are only a set number of chords; we can surmise there are a limited number of interaction models in digital, a set number of viral types, and a comparable set of methods for online advertising.

So let’s stop sticking our noses up at ‘just another’ video site, or in-search-of viral film, or interactive scrolling banner, and look a bit deeper. There are ideas a plenty in the digital world - ideas that creatively stretch the main brand promise, trigger the all-important emotional hook, and ensure they are bloody well executed. Inventing new forms of communication is hard, and it’s not necessarily the job of a commercial creative. Don’t be afraid to use what you know already. It’s easier, simpler, and usually much more effective, to focus on mixing and matching known quantities in order to find creative digital ideas that work. 

Want some inspiration on finding big brand ideas? Take a read of Brand Marketing Manifesto, in which a feisty future-looking John Grant sets out a thesis for ideas and creates a framework based on eight cultural streams: innate emotional hooks that exist deep within our psyche and can be found in centuries of literature, film and music.

Me? I’m off to write a book on the 10 different types of viral. Stay tuned.

Words and the internet. They’ve had a chequered history together, what with most agencies seeing “copy” as an asset to be uploaded as an afterthought and many a user claiming they don’t read it. Poppycock I say. There’s lots of great writing on the web, not least this from Nick Asbury. Corpoetics is an inspired and subversive exploration of corporate mission statements using poetry. Let this be a challenge to all brands, mean what you say when you say it. And even better, be believable. So do what you say too.

If you’re looking for inspiration of the word kind, the web contains all the greatest poetry ever written. We should look to poetry more than we do. What other art form is so instantly easily communicable? To appreciate a great painting you have to stand in front of it, novels take days to read, films and plays have to be viewed in the right circumstances. Poetry delivers a lot in a small space without costly embellishments. Is it the ultimate recessionary art form? Try Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.