Control the ad with gestures or voice command. Advertisers get real-time feedback from consumers via the console. Can’t wait to see this roll out, this will open up a whole new avenue for creative advertising.
via: Holley Sydney Labs/Gual Barwell
More at Microsoft.
The Best Job In The World - P&G London 2012 Olympic Games Film
Fantastic ad, very touching!
Project Re:Brief by Google. This is my favourite of a series of videos that look back at a handful of the world’s best ads from early days of advertising and the legendary creatives behind them. A fantastic piece of storytelling used to highlight the importance of creative thinking in a technical world. Would love to meet this man - what an absolute legend.
M. x
- surround yourself with creative goodness
- no trashy TV and magazines
- do different things and get inspired
Account directors should have a reel of portfolios!
Using research to create strategy. Research = starting point for all strategy
The brief contains all the info needed to solve the marketing problem used as a reference to judge the final concepts.
Debate all views up front before starting on creative. This strengthens brief and streamlines the creative process.
Single mindedness = one message. Single minded brief leads to a single minded ad. More than one idea being communicated? create a campaign.
The proposition - unique, believable and substantial. A good proposition can only belong to one brand. A proposition has to come from a truth about the product or brand. You can’t lie, but you can exaggerate the truth.
Excite your creative team by getting excited!
ROIC - Relevance, Originality, Impact, Creativity
No clichés!!!
Proposition + support = ad. Tell me something I don’t know. Cut the words in half. A short brief is a good brief. Only include what you need. Don’t add what’s not necessary! will dull the idea and confuse and clutter. Play on the point of difference. Only the mandatories are mandatories. Don’t talk down to the reader. Talk to them as if you’re having a conversation.
B2B is still C2C (or person to person) st george home loans - niggling doubt played by martin (great insight)
Proposition: you’ll feel safe about our home loans. think about how you think!
Branding into the ad - logos clearly displayed - unless the brand is clear, the idea is wasted - musn’t be able to replace the logo with another logo.
Consistency builds confidence and trust.
Here are some notes from a workshop I took last year, basically all the tools and techniques you can use when facilitating a brainstorm. Some useful stuff in there, hopefully it makes sense. If not, feel free to ask and I can clarify.
M. x
—
The tools/exercises:
- H2 - how to (if this tool doesn’t work, it might be because the problem statement is too broad)
- Re-expression
- Rules of divergent thinking
- Interesting/wacky ideas
- Stimulus, use to help sell other products
- Brands we envy
- Chain letter
- Connected worlds - jump river
- You’re fired (my favourite)
- Break the rules - much easier to tame a wild idea that make a boring idea great
- Role play “can’t you handle a whisky drinking woman?”
- Naive experts - clients love this one
- Step into their shoes
- ER (work) to play group (tell a story and throw random words in and run with it)
Define: Creativity
Simply, the ability to solve problems by connecting random concepts and ideas to form new ideas
Pre-brainstorm
- Pre-brainstorm - in an agency - let everyone know anyone can contribute and give ideas, and that all ideas are valued. Gives a chance for juniors to step up and tone down the egos.
- Send an email in advance, give everyone a chance to think about it.
- WIP and ideas together won’t work, very unproductive, left/right brain, waste of time and money
- Always invite someone from outside of the team, they can give a fresh perspective
- Discuss with the client/boss prior to brainstorm in order to clarify the problem/challenge
- Devise affirmative/positive problem statement
Problem statement - ONE sentence that sums up the challenge. Use a positive statement.
- Questioning tool - turn everything into a positive = better brainstorm
- Use thesaurus.com - different ways of expressing one word
- If you take what’s obvious in one category/brand/industry into another category/brand/industry, you will get fresh ideas! E.g. What would coke do? What would Nike do?
Tips for being creative:
- Always record ideas in a notepad / iPhone
- Brainstorm once a week, don’t wait for a brief - come up with 100 ideas -> will lead to 1 perfect one
- Get an enemy/competitor, get passionate about game changing ideas
- Set aside time for creative thinking with no distractions
- Have stimulus on hand
- Go on an artists date (get out and see things), get inspired and expand your mind (great book - the artists way by Julia Cameron)
- Create in times of turmoil, when you need it most.
- Don’t brake and accelerate at the same time! Divergant vs. convergant
- Tell yourself and team that you/them are all creative - we are all born creative, socially conditioned into thinking we aren’t - didn’t draw within the lines in year 5, so we aren’t good artists and aren’t creative. Creativity starts with the challenge.
THE BRAINSTORM
How to method (H2) - objective: make sure that you are getting to the challenge. You can do this on your own or with a client if needed.
1. Write your problem statement in the middle of a blank page. First, ladder up, then ladder down. 4-5 times each way. (Arrow up- why is that important? Arrow down- what’s stopping you?)
2. “H2” all your statements, making them affirmative
3. Read all problem statements and choose one that feels right. It will be the right one that gets to the heart of the challenge
4. Keep other problem statements on hand. You can pull out another one in a brainstorm to change direction if needed
Re-expression - objective: avoid using words that can send our thinking down a familiar path
1. How many different ways can you re-express the problem statement?
2. Which words can be swapped?
A thesaurus can be helpful.
Divergent thinking - is coming up with lots of different solutions to a problem. It allows us to be highly creative and expand our options.
The 4 rules are:
1. Suspend - no buts
2. Quantity is quality
3. Seek wild and crazy ideas
4. Must have fun
Crazy ideas lead to brilliant ideas. Get old and stuffy ideas out of the way.
Divergent thinking - creativity warm up
Objective - warm up the creative muscle
- Help participants to shift from work mode to brainstorm mode
- Have fun and get participants out of their shell
- Sets up the room energy for your brainstorm
1st column - Heard it before
2nd column - Interesting
3rd column - Crazy & Whacky
(Keep prompting until you get at least 10 ideas in the 3rd column.)
Divergant thinking - stimulus ”the secret ingredient”
Objective: generate great ideas quickly and easily, show participants how easy it is to make random connections.
Problem statement: xxxxxxxxxxx.
Now, choose your object or thing, celebrity, city, cartoon character. Any object or thing can help us ‘river jump’, stretch our brains and make connections we wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
(e.g. teabag - water brings out flavour, in a mesh bag.. toothbrush in a mesh bag - dehydrated and disposable)
Try to get at least 20 ideas.
Divergant thinking - brands we envy
We all have brands we love and envy. When we step into the brands shoes, we can borrow their ideas and their thinking. “How would they solve my challenge?”
Problem statement: xxxxxxxxxxx.
Now write down what you envy about your chosen brand.
e.g. “I envy Apple because:
- their first impression is always delightful
- constantly fresh and innovative
- a badge people are proud to show off (apple stickers on cars, too!)
- they know how to create loyalists
Try to get 20 ideas. (Emirates - middle seat sell & body shop)
*turn (so called) negatives into positives e.g. Heinz - takes ages to get out of the bottle.. solution - “worth the wait” keep it thick.
Pink Batts home insulation - gold
Well this is something that has been on my to-blog list for a while, but haven’t had time to get around to it! So here it is.. My highlights from Cannes 2011!
Design
- Almost extinct - The Chase Creative Consultancy, Manchester
A neatly designed calendar, with endangered animals on each day of the year.. 
Playing the Underground - Jung von Matt, Hamburg (Underground is our background - illegal outdoor campaign)
- Spit - Ogilvy Shanghai
Promotion & Activation
- ROM Chocolates - McCann Erickson, Bucharest
- Dated Pillows - Happy Soldiers, Australia
This has been kicking ass in Australia! Sales have gone up ridiculously since the launch of the campaign. (something like 400% by now) Happy Soldiers also killed it with a Gold at the Effies with this one.
- A New Warrior - DDB Paris - Interactive website, invest in a part of the boat to help get it made and out to sea!
- Hunter Shoots a Bear - Buzzman Paris - I love this, so engaging and fun. This one scored 18 million views!
Outdoor
- Tesco virtual store - Cheil Worldwide, Korea (blogged this previously)
- Human Rights Watch Burma - JWT New York
- Seafood Aquarium - Y&R Thailand - I love this!! So original and quirky!!
Cyber
- Pay with a tweet - R/GAA New York
- Chrome Fastball, Google - BBH New York
- Renault Espace - Public Conseil, Paris France
Creative Effectiveness
- Walkers Sandwich - AMV BBDO
- Monopoly City Streets, Hasbro - DDB, UK
Press
- Cough Medicine, Bayer Tabcin - Y&R Buenos Aires
- Responsible Driving, Volkswagen - DDB, Argentina
Media
- Heartbreaker, Kaiser’s Orchestra - Starcom, Norway - Loving the crowd sourcing ideas.
- The Commbank property guide app - Ikon - This is awesome!!
Film
- Heineken - Wieden & Kennedy, Amsterdam - classic.
- Born of Fire, Chrysler - Wieden & Kennedy, Portland
- Gigantic Nose, BGH - Saatchi & Saatchi, Buenos Aires - This is hilarious! Talk about turning a perceived negative into a positive :)
- Balloons, MTV - Loducca Sao Paulo, Brazil
Titanium & Integrated
- JayZ, Bing - Droga5, New York
- Megane Experiment - Publicis London, UK - hilarious!!
Just scored my very own copy of Art & Copy!! Can’t wait to watch it!
29 ways to stay creative
Def: cre·a·tiv·i·ty/ˌkrēāˈtivitē/
“The ability to solve problems by connecting random concepts and ideas to form new ideas.”
Great is the human who has not lost his childlike heart. - Mencuis
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. - George Bernard Shaw
Somewhere there’s a junior creative crying in a beer.
Bars do it. Diners do it. Dry Cleaners do it.
Hang the first ads you were paid to write, design, direct, produce and sell to the client right here on our wall.
As Letterman would say, “This is an exhibition, not a competition. Please, no wagering.”
http://www.freshmenads.com/
Classic!!
“The year was 1987 (there, you made me say it) and the place was The Richards Group in Dallas. This was one of those junior team hand-me-down projects that was due almost overnight.
Luckily for me I was paired with a talented female writer who had a much deeper appreciation for mammographies than myself. You can tell I was heavily influenced by everything coming out of Minneapolis at the time. This actually made it into The One Show that year.
My, how times and tastes have changed. – Scott Ballew”
KFC anthem!
Nicked from this weeks BestAds! Great series of print ads done by Bloom in Dublin. “Pat the Baker, Ireland’s favourite bread, has launched via bloom, Dublin a new loaf especially made for toasting. Our target audience was Dublin commuters. The solution was to create portraits of famous Irish people using toast, for example the writers, Samuel Beckett, William Butler Yeats and Oscar Wilde.”
view hi res \ more toast art!
Freaking awesome :D www.stealourideas.tumblr.com
“This ambient idea for Altoids will challenge people to investigate their innate inquisitive nature at the risk of being crushed to death by a 2000 pound cliche. Those who muster up enough curiosity to push the giant red button will be handsomely rewarded with a sample package of Altoids Curiously Strong Mints.” hahahahahahahah
“The fashion world takes itself way too seriously, but Diesel is an exception. They have done a remarkable job mixing humor and sexiness. ”You’ll never be this awesome.” is a confident and self-deprecative strategy that speaks to the unattainable beauty of the fashion industry.”
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