Treat them well and let them lead the way. Yesterday I judged the Cream event for young creatives and went along to the Young Creatives Network at the RCA. So...are English students leading the way or walking in the shadows?
At the Cream event (hosted by The Talent Business) I think I saw about 7 books whilst at the YCN event there were lots more individual campaigns. I have to say the best single book was not English and from my top 4 pieces of work at the YCN only two were from English students. Considering both events will have been heavily promoted in London and the UK this is on the surface quite worrying. Well it would be if we were stuck in the past, wanting the same old stuff the hallowed creative departments of the big agencies were used to producing in the 80's but thankfully most people are starting to move on.
We've seen at Cannes that the UK scene is no longer all conquering. As I've said elsewhere why should it be? Other countries have caught us up and many overtaken us. Without the burden of the classic period of TV advertising the students from these countires look well placed to continue the gap.
What to do? If the colleges are not going to teach more diverse forms of creativity then I guess it's up to us Creative Directors. The Creative Department of Dare is like a UN meeting we have creatives from Chile, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Spain, Austria, and growing. Of course, over time economic Darwinism will have its way but it would be nice to think that the colleges will start to help the UK students prepare for the new creative departments so that in time we can claw our way back up the awards leagues.
We are trying to do our bit, albeit small. We launched dare school last year to some acclaim and will be looking for more applications for the 2008 year soon. Watch this space.
One other thing I noticed. I've talked before about the importance of interactivity in work rather than just 'digital' work per se. This is a trend that will also grow exponentially. This current generation is used to contributing, it's second nature. All over the walls at the RCA were blank peices of paper, post-it note collages, and colouring in boards for people to express themselves on. You can see films here and here. This seemed to be the most popular activity by far - surpassing even the free wine. Times really have changed.
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A couple of sites I have been sent recently really show the way the whole online film thing is exploding. Both have films that would certainly make it as TV ads.
Take a look at Camp Okutta a nice idea that takes the piss out of American Summer Camps to highlight a charity. It's a wee bit close to the film mother (and Poke?) made for amnesty a while back but heck nothing is original any more and they are on the other side of the world so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
The other site is relearn to drive for BMW which features a series of films of shady characters teaching you to drive. This idea is quite close to something we are doing for Vodafone - but like I say, nothing is original, get over it - and I quite like it but it's not right for BMW. See what you think.
The point is both sites feature what would make a series of 30 second ads. They wouldn't win a pencil but they would be better than most TV ads - they have an idea and no 'science'. Both are done by US agencies that tend to do this whole integration thing much better than UK agencies who are hindered by the burden of a wonderful tradition of great TV ads.
The question is are web agencies going to become TV agencies and get bigger budgets or are TV agencies going to give up all that lovely production and commission lolly and become web agencies? I know what's happening elsewhere.....
As I’m sure all of you aware on Friday night there was a battle to the death to see who would come out on top in the old digital versus TV battle. It was a hard fought battle but the results from the Dare vs BBH football match are in.
And I have to say Scamp got it spot on when all he said to me in a mail, “You’re boys are going to take one hell of a beating”. Despite the fact that I had wished his boys good luck he was nonetheless spot on. We lost 4-0.
To be blunt I came back on Monday morning to a fairly deflated team. ‘It could have been worse, much worse’, was one of the more upbeat responses to the mauling.
I need to be stoical about these matters. I like to think it was like the Arsenal kids against Chelsea’s millionaire thugs in the Carling Cup Final, all about the future.
There were the odd claim that some the BBH players didn’t know each others names. Evidence of ringerdom or just a much larger agency? (I merely plant the seed). Also as many of the Dare FC starlets never having worked in an ad agency they didn’t understand the tradition of the post room of every large agency containing at least one player who had trials with West Ham.
But no, credit where credit is due, the general consensus was that BBH were a fine team and we were far used to playing 5-a-side than with the big boys.
There is probably some kind of link to digital agencies and traditional agencies there somewhere if you dig really hard.
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One of the first things we ever did for Vodafone was the corporate id for the Vodafone Live Music Awards. We did it pretty quickly in a pitch and it has been the logo for the last two years now. Last year we went to the awards and there it was, as big as house. It was great to see it plastered everywhere. Last week I went along to the launch of this years' awards which was combined with a secret Kanye West gig and album launch. Our logo was still looking pretty good I reckon but elswhere there was trouble at mill.
Now, I’m not much of a Kanye aficionado but even I know he has a reputation as a bit of a perfectionist. Whether he was even going to do the gig was in question right up until the last few minutes. When he did arrive he then kept everyone waiting for more than an hour – apparently he went back to the hotel for something. Possibly he was a bit chilly so needed a string vest.
First things first. This wasn’t a ‘gig’ gig, it was an album launch and recording of a TV show. No one paid for tickets – I for one was just happy to be there. The location was great – a library in Westminster. Not exactly gangsta but I think that was the point. Mr West had a large ensemble, with huge orchestra, one of our (female) clients exclaimed how big his organ was. He then just sort of did his thing. That included doing the same song three times, talking to the audience a lot and singing over a bare piano – rather than doing all the hits. A lot of people left and some of the dare posse were not too impressed. But the point for me was that he was tweaking stuff. Ok, in this instance he was tweaking in public – but sometimes you have to do the ugly stuff to get to something beautiful. I am sure the next album will be amazing and the real live performances equally awesome.
The other thing I noticed was that probably more than half the audience spent the entire gig with their phones in the air taking pictures and video.
Obviously this is a good thing for the client but it did make me think that one could very easily miss the entire gig trying to take the perfect picture. Flickr and YouTube are great repositories for memories (you can see mine here) but I do feel one should actually enjoy the experience first and then perhaps record it for what must be an inferior experience later.
I've previously posted that the whole TV vs Digital thing is boring me to tears. And that would still be the case if we hadn't devised a cunning way to know once and for all what is better / cooler.
Yes you've guessed it we are going to have a fight - disguised as a football match. Tomorrow evening after school Dare FC take on BBH FC at the Paddinton Recreation Ground in Maida Vale. Kick off is at 6pm.
I myself shant be playing as despite, obviously, being brilliant at everything including football, I have a spazzed out cruciate ligament. (Snapped whilst playing for Ogilvy at Stamford Bridge). BBH's blogger extroadinaire Scamp will also not be taking part because as he admits to me even though he loves football he is 'crap at it'.
I have had a few kickabouts with Dare FC and they are pretty tidy. They won a cup a few weeks back. So who knows what might happen.
I'm thinking it might be a little like Tarsem's wonderful Nike ad . Memorable for Cantona's collar, Ian Wright's feistiness and Paolo Maldini's lame attempt at acting when he delivers the ultimate line, 'Maybe they are friendly?'
Watch this space, nothing short of the future of the industry hinges on this.
The worst kept secret in digital - that Martin was leaving Republic to help set up Work Club finally got aired last week. And in today's Campaign there is a nice picture of all three of them. I liked Paddy in his tie and cardy better though. The article is interesting in many ways becuase it hits upon the very nature of what's happening in our tiny little - and let's face it - insignificant industry.
The outsource model works in the US because the agencies that are doing the outsourcing are big ad agencies that can afford to do that because they are still creaming money off clients by making TV ads that don't work - giving 100k to a few kids in Brooklyn or even Sweden, doesn't dent their bottom line - and there are loads of cool hotshops perfectly placed to take that work and profit from it. But will that work in this country?
Work Club want to get a fee for ideas and then a separate fee for production - which presumably they will have to be 100% transparent about. Traditionally it's the production that agencies have made money out off because most (and this is the key) clients don't want to pay for planning and ideas becuase they think their ATL agencies do that.
Clearly the tide is changing. Most of our clients are shrewd enough to see the value in paying for digital planning and specialist ideas but that's been a fairly recent change and there aren't that many clients like that - yet.
On the other stuff - 10am start 4pm departure - sounds great to me. The cynical part of the industry will say 'yeah, wait till the work comes in' but it's sunny today, Arsenal won last night, so why not be optimistic? It could work. Imagine if it did? You have to go for these things. It's called progress.
I have already blogged about whether Work Club will pick up business (sadly I can't link to anything older than 3 months - ed..?!) Of cousre they will. Andy, Paddy and Martin are some of the smartest cookies around, and nice people. Couple that with the fact that there is more digital business around than ever before and they are cooking on gas. Good luck to 'em. They won't need it.
One thing in the article made me laugh. I love the way they give us feint praise saying their ambitions are not to be the next Dare: 'If clients see us as the new Dare, glue or Agency Republic, we're doing something wrong.'
Yeah, cos we are the establishment now and just a bunch of has beens. :)
There was a time, in fact I think it might have been just last week actually, when all digital agencies would moan about budgets and not getting access to film shoots and all that kinda stuff - wishing to be part of the ATL process. A word to the wise, be careful what you wish for.
It's part of this whole 'digital agencies growing up' thing that we get busier and busier and have more responsibility. That's all fine, everyone should be liking that. But precious few people are prepared for the pure joy that is working with someone more famous (a lot more famous) than you are.
In the past week we have had someone cancel a film shoot and then end up in The Sun the next day. Ooh, who could that be? Now we are flying someone in from LA for a one day Vodafone shoot on Friday and then going over to Paris to shoot a real, genuine, pukka (as in hero of mine) star for a Sony piece of work.
Will celebrities have to get used to being filmed for websites rather than Hollywood Movies? Probably, but I'm hoping they'll be a few funny tantrums between now and then.
Those of you well connected to the blogosphere - did I just use that word? - will know that the next Sony Bravia ad is being filmed in NY at the moment.I'm just back and I have to say so far, so good. It's going to be something special. We have done a little site to keep things ticking over while the ad is finished off. We will be launching a much more fancy site a little later on.
Yeah right. I don't know about you but when I worked in an ad agency summer was a total and utter doss. Clients were away, account directors were away. Nothing got done apart from lunchtime pints. It was quaint in a way.
I think this week and next week will officially be the craziest two weeks of work I have ever had. No pitches, nothing like that, just an intense amount of work. This is not a moan, far from it, we have some great stuff in production that I can't wait to see. I was just wondering if it's the same for the TV agencies?
Does the summer still mean lazy days at The White Horse?
In other news, whilst we are mentally busy there's always time for cake. Today saw the second Dare 'bake off' with some quite spectacular entries. It's well worth clicking here for some evidence.
Results will be in soon. I'm sure you are dieing to know who wins the cake awards rather than say, the FT or John Lewis pitch or the Campaing Digital Awards etc etc
As promised last week a film of me making a fool of myself at a Marketing Week conference a few months back.
As with the other films it is part of the She Says campaign to help women get into more senior roles in digital. So far they have loads of enthusiastic members on their mailing list and even had to turn some people away from the last meeting. A sure sign that they've hit upon something good.
James Cooper
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