More D&AD Reflection

I should start this post with an apology, because lately I've been relentlessly spamming the social networks with news of mine and Olly's D&AD Student Award nomination for our Peace One Day project. I think one has to be a fairly shameless self-promoter when getting into this industry, but the downside is that those who know you well can get a bit sick of it all. So to those people, sorry.

I also feel sorry for a team from Sunderland, who had almost exactly the same idea as us - you can view it here - but didn't win a nomination (though they're going to the BBH Barn shortly, so their story has a happy ending).

I wanted to work out why our version of the idea won out - not to gloat, but to understand, so the success can be repeated. I think the answer is simply that we worked harder at ours. We tested our thinking and our strategy at every stage, and we pushed our ideas as far as they could go, asking advice at every turn.

As a result, you find the little differences. Our method for getting people to play football is probably more technically realistic, as we found out that simply switching to a sports simulation engine within Battlefield 3 would have been extraordinarily difficult to code. The person who told me this also suggested using Electronic Arts, as they produced major videogames in both war and football - a fact which led us to the "pEAce day" logo, a useful stroke of luck.

Our research also led us to develop a realistic user journey, that took into account likely scepticism on the part of gamers, and therefore harnessed in-game advertising opportunities and created incentives for them to participate. Throughout, we were determined that the idea would fit into peoples' lives and habits, rather than expect them to take a leap into the unknown.

And that's it, really. It turns out that hard work counts as much as a good idea. And on that bombshell, I'm going to bed.

Black Swans and Black Hats

I'm back. What a nice relaxing Easter break it's been - I've celebrated several birthdays and tried to think about anything other than advertising for a week.

However, with term starting tomorrow, it's back in the saddle time. For my birthday, I received "The Black Swan" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I don't intend to critique it, or at least not yet, because I'm only a third of the way through, and I'm not 100% convinced that I fully understand everything I've read.

But roughly speaking, the book is about how our minds lead us to seek out patterns, and twist facts to fit our theories, when in actual fact these patterns and theories are constantly broken by unexpected events - the Black Swans of the title. But when these Black Swans occur, we act afterwards as if we should have expected them all along, and formulate a new theory to explain them.

One symptom of this mindset is the prevalence of "confirmation bias" - the tendency to seek out information to fits rather than challenges our views. It's part of the reason the opposing sides both inside and outside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are so entrenched in their positions, wilfully ignoring the flaws and demons in their own team.

So let's apply this to an idea evaluation technique we're taught at the school - Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats.

When you're analysing an idea, the hardest hat to put on is the black one - the one that searches for flaws. The other hats you may barely need to don - you're so caught up in the brilliance of your idea, the immediate response is to look for reasons that it works.

We spend all our time trying to prove ourselves right, when such a thing is nearly impossible. Proving something wrong is much easier. For example, to prove I am the perfect lover, I would have to give a faultless sexual performance at every single opportunity for the rest of my life. But I know that I'm not - and all it takes to prove it is just one ropey night in the sack*.

So the main message I'm taking from Taleb is simply, for the moment - don't ignore the Black Hat. But at the same time, I won't be forgetting the Black Swan either. Just because an idea doesn't fit established rules doesn't mean it will definitely fail.

School starts tomorrow, let's throw a few curveballs this term.

*and there have been more than one of these.

Our day at IPA Campaign Planning 2012

Sometimes, life at the School of Communication Arts can settle into a bit of a routine. That doesn't mean it's dull, just that it follows certain patterns.

So yesterday, despite the early start, was a welcome change. 14 of us dropped in on IPA Training's campaign planning conference, to act as creative guinea-pigs for the participants. They'd been working for two days on a brief to extend Tetley's brand appeal to middle and lower-middle class women in the south, who currently saw Tetley's as northern, irrelevant, out-of-touch, and outdated.

They'd split up into 7 strategy teams, so each one was assigned a team of 2 creatives. The brief Olly and I were given was to reposition Tetley "as a reassuring partner to support the ups and downs in everyday life" and make it a brand that "lets you embrace the unknown inherent to everyday life". The Tetley Tea Folk were to be killed and unceremoniously disposed of.

We developed 3 creative strategies for them in the morning session - a fairly weak one that met the brief, a strong one that met the brief but also took it into new pastures, and a third one that ignored the brief and found a way to keep the Tetley Tea Folk whilst appealing to a new set of customers. After much discussion, they plumped for number 2 - which had taken their strategy but substituted the word "extraordinary" for "unknown".

So the plan was to show that everyday life had changed since the timewarp-stuck cliches of the Tea Folk, and that behind the simple details of our life lie great talents, strange hobbies, unexpected friendships, and genuine suffering. And Tetley would position itself as a modern brand, providing a constant in these strange, disjointed lives we lead.

In the afternoon and after dinner, we got our ideas down on paper, and made revisions after discussion with the team. In the end we managed to churn out 4 characters, 4 TV ad synopses (including a twist that could extend the concept into a second campaign), 2 single page press ads, 2 double page press ads, a rough packaging design, and an online / experiential idea. Not bad for an afternoon's work (there's a photo at the bottom) - and it could even be something that makes its way into our portfolio.

The planning team pitched today in our absence to Tetley's marketing people - we're waiting to find out if we / they won. But even if not, the day was immensely valuable...

I learned that the brief you get from the planner can be very tight, and very focused. But I also learned that this could be inspiring.
This may not go for all planners, but I learned that challenging a brief, or at least pushing the boundaries, is always worth a try.
I learned that the more options you offer, the better the chance of getting one through.
I learned that if you knuckle down, you can produce a lot in an afternoon.
I learned that being able to articulate your creative strategy is as important as being able to produce it.
And finally, I learned that planners and account managers are absolutely lovely people, hard-working, enthusiastic, and as passionate as any of us about seeing great creative work hit the public. Or at least, the young ones are.

What Dee and Ady taught me

First off, an apology. This blog was required of me by my school, so I apologise if it comes across like one of those awful student blogs that is clearly a mandatory requirement of passing the course, complete with a clunking "what I learned" section at the end.

Last week was the deadline for the D&AD student awards. I managed to get an entry away before the deadline - with my partner Olly we've entered the "Peace One Day" brief, which asked us to find ways to raise awareness of International Peace Day, which is on September 21st. Look, I'm raising awareness even now.

The first thing that I learned is that D&AD operate with a level of control and paranoia I haven't experienced since I had a call from the Disney trademark infringement department a few years back. To be fair, their staff are lovely, but their rules and regulations are remarkably stringent. For example, you can't use any copyrighted images without permission except those of the sponsor - and as ours involved suggesting a corporate tie-in, this meant half our time was spent on the phone begging them to let us use their logo.

My belief in the strength of creative partnerships was reinforced considerably. More than any other project we've worked on, where very often the idea has been mostly down to one of us, this was one that we could never have produced without each other. The strategy - finding ways in which the themes of peace and conflict can be found in our everyday life - was mine. This then inspired Olly to have an idea - which I then researched and suggested an improvement to, including the name. And then we pushed the idea forward together.

You have to learn to be careful when asking for advice, because you can easily lose sight of the objective - winning the award. We spoke to a very helpful industry insider and used many of his technical hints, whereas the creative advice suggested was more appropriate for a business pitch rather than an awards entry.

And lastly, I learned that Olly Wood is the most talented, dedicated, and reliable Art Director in the known universe.

Thanks. I'll be gushing or sarcastic about another advert tomorrow.

Against The Grain - another look at THAT Guardian ad

Yesterday I wrote about BBH and my somewhat tepid reaction to their new Guardian ad. It was written in a hurry, and though I stand by my general opinion, I perhaps should have concentrated more on the faults of the advert and less on the part only relevant to the industry. Also, the criticism of them for using Ringan Ledwidge was on reflection unfair - and I hard to find fault with someone who names their production company Rattling Stick.

Anyway. What want to talk about today is conformity and peer pressure, because it seems that some of the theories explained in "Nudge" by Thaler and Sunstein might easily apply to the discussion of the advert yesterday at the School of Communication Arts. A couple of quotations...

"People become more likely to conform when they know that other people will see what they have to say".


"Because people do think that everyone has their eyes fixed on them, they conform to what they think people expect".


"If the confederate [someone infiltrating a group discussion in an experiment] spoke confidently and firmly, his judgement had a strong influence on the group's assessment".

All of this was relevant yesterday, when we were presented the advert in School at the morning Town Hall. By the time we saw it, there was a weight of opinion that it was good. And the initial overall reaction of the assembled students was "it's great".

Did every single student really like it? Or was it because we've been conditioned to automatically think of BBH's work as good, because of their previous excellent work, not to mention Sir John Hegarty's generous support for the School? I think it's certainly telling that when I rather short-sightedly praised their "Aviators" advert, it was just after being shown it while visiting the agency, one day before it was released publicly, by a very proud employee.

And did it make a difference that Marc, the Dean of the School, who showed us the work, is undeniably a confident, firm, and convincing speaker - and had already tweeted his approval of the ad the night before? And once some students had expressed approval, this combined pressure on anyone with a contrary opinion to keep it to themselves was enormous.

And what's equally interesting is that it was only after one person (who happened to be me, another confident speaker) spoke out against the ad, and a mentor from a well-known agency who I won't name expressed some agreement with my views, that the balance started to shift, and at least two other people were emboldened enough to voice mixed feelings about it.

This isn't about who was right or wrong. For me, it was simply a neat demonstration of how a group consensus can be created or changed not just by persuasion and evaluation, but by what was - even if not intentionally - a psychological power struggle between two individuals.

And if this makes morning Town Hall at the School of Communication Arts sound like a particularly tense scene from 12 Angry Men, then all the better, I say.

Things Clicking Into Place

It's amazing how long you can go learning something without actually getting it.

I learned and played guitar for years and years, but when I gave it up recently (or at least gave up being in a band), I felt I was only just getting what it was all about - playing the right part at the right time. That's all.

It's not something you can really teach. I'm sure I could teach a kid to play guitar OK, but who really wants to hear "this is how you keep time with the drummer" when you can learn cool solos to impress your friends?

Well it's the same in advertising. We're well into Term 2 and I'm only just getting what it's all about. It's not about great lines (though they help) and it's not about sudden flashes of inspiration (again, not to be sniffed at, but not always necessary).

It's about finding a Creative Strategy. Once you've done that, you'll produce work that will look to outsiders like a flash of inspiration without breaking a sweat. It's this illusion that adverts are created in a sudden lateral brainwave that is the equivalent of kids wanting to learn guitar solos before they can play rhythm.

As King Charles I once said, "don't rush to execution".

Blog for the School of Communication Arts

I wrote an entry defending the use of earphones, which seem to have been much-maligned implements in the creative world. Read it here.

A Rough Guide To SCA Mentoring

For those of you unfamiliar with it, the School of Communication Arts has a teaching model that relies on professionals in the creative and communications industries to visit the school (some regularly, others just once a year) and go round the students, offering feedback and advice on ongoing projects. It goes something like this:

Mentor 1
He's won 2 golden pencils, a Cannes Lion, and he's a published novelist and successful poker player.

"Hmm, ok, ok, advert A is ok, not so keen on B C and D. I'm not sure what your strategy is, it looks like you've rushed into execution too soon. Right, so you're positioning your product as an exciting new way to remove body hair. I'm going to need to see evidence for that, this could be an advert for any body waxing brand. Good luck guys."

Mentor 2
She's won 3 Cannes Lions, uses golden pencils as actual stationery, and beat every single male Creative Director in a charity boxing match.

"Right, A, B, C, and D, well, it's a start. Maybe B would do, I can't imagine a client would ever accept A. Where's the rest? No, you need to be sketching more, get more ideas on paper. Don't worry too much about the strategy, coming up with creative executions is a good way to test whether it's right or not. Ideas ideas ideas. You're doing well. Right, I'm off for a fag."

Mentor 3
He's wrestled lions for a living, he invented the word "advertising" and once on a safari to Prague told David Ogilvy to stick a Hathaway shirt up his arse.

"OK, never mind A B C or D, where's the engagement? If your idea has legs it will run into all media like piss in an alley. Fine, but why would anyone want to do that? Why should I send photos of my newly-waxed anus for anyone to look at on Facebook? Oh, there's a prize? How original. How about digital? How about DM? More more more. If you get stuck, just get on a plane, see a new city, get inspired, maybe live somewhere different for a week, like a church or an aircraft carrier. Become more rounded and so will your work."

Mentor 4
He designed the Nike swoosh, made a series of classic public information films during the Black Death, and wrote the Sermon on the Mount.

"Ooh I like A, and B. C could work, I suppose. Oh I really like D. And this is for Special K, is it? Oh, body wax. Right. Yes, you'd better start again."

And 2 aspiring creatives gather their pads and pens and head to the pub to rebuild their fragile egos.

A New Term at SCA

"Where have I been?" you may be wondering. It's unlikely, but I'll tell you anyway.

I haven't updated this blog since December 15. I thought I would allow myself time off, as over the course of my first term at the School of Communication Arts, I produced over 60 blog posts. I think that's a pretty good standard. If I can keep to the same standard this term, I'll have a similar break over Easter.

OK so - what's been happening? The main news is that I've teamed up with an Art Director called Olly Wood to form Molly (Martin + Olly, geddit). We're going to work together this term, and hopefully beyond, in order to get placements and a job somewhere exciting. His twitter is @olllywood and together we've set up @wearemolly where we'll be posting all our work as it comes in.

Together we worked on a couple of assignments over the Christmas break - one on Third World Debt, the other on renaming a new charity. Neither ready to show yet, but we've had good feedback on the Debt project, and with a couple of tweaks it should be in shape. We've just been given two new portfolio briefs, one selling bread and the other promoting London tap water, with a live brief or two tomorrow. So there'll be plenty to keep me and you occupied.

See you tomorrow. If I behave.

A hurried video on Third World Debt

Marc at SCA gave us one day to research and produce a presentation on Third World Debt.

This is what Olly and I came up with - it's a bit rough and ready in both writing and art direction, but it's a fair representation of our research.

Bad Taste

Today's Town Hall was an especially inspirational one, offering us a live brief to really get our teeth into - naming a charity.

It feels good because the man setting the brief gave a distinct impression (Sandhurst, army, previous charitable experience) of being someone who Got Things Done. A man of integrity and honesty.

It stands in refreshing contrast to certain other briefs. That's all I'll say.

Except to mention that he told a story about saying an unfortunate idiom to an ex-serviceman with an arm and a leg missing. I just wonder what he would make of this?

Facilitation for the nation

Exciting times at the School of Communication Arts, as a halfcoachload of students were packed off to Newbury yesterday for the racing.

Oh, ok, it was for a Vodafone conference on privacy, where we had been assigned to lead Vodafone suits in sessions of creative brainstorming. We came out of it unscathed, but we learned a number of important lessons - the main one for me being that teaching is bloody hard. And teaching is what it was - leading a session and paying constant attention, processing everything given to you and never switching off, keeping your energy levels up and focusing your efforts on controlling the room.

I think I was lucky with my participants; although some were more vocal than others, no-one tried too hard to control the room or dominate the conversation - and conversely, no-one questioned my qualifications or the validity of the exercise. I understand that other groups weren't so lucky, and that Marc's techniques didn't always work as smoothly as we'd hoped.

Still, at least next time we have a better idea of what to expect - and will be a bit more prepared the first time the suits from Proctor & Gamble come to visit...

Collective inspiration with Steve Henry

Another week over, and I need to get my Friday blog out of the way. As is my wont, I have a couple of blog posts lined up, but I wanted to talk about the energy I felt this afternoon.

No point boring anyone with the exact details, but essentially, it was Steve Henry (creator of the Tango ads and the finest Pot Noodle ad ever), Marc the SCA 2.0 Dean, and a collection of advertising students talking about photography, washing powder, and banking. And the rate at which valuable ideas and thoughts were spilling from everyone's lips was like no conversation I'd been in before.

I came out of it thinking we could have seriously revolutionised banking. Maybe we haven't. Or maybe what we thought up could work, but no-one will be brave enough to hear us out and give it a go. But that isn't necessarily the point.

The point is that we were using our brains. We were feeding off each other - each idea was never one we'd stored in our heads and waiting to say, it was an expansion of the previous idea, or a lateral thought that took it somewhere new.

Because for all the talk of how creativity can be nurtured, and situations deliberately created to make it happen, I've remained just a little sceptical - especially as my best ideas have tended to be moments of solo inspiration. But today, for the first time, I really saw how it can work.

SCA 2.0 half term assignment pt.2

Today, I developed a terrible, terrible cold. I also watched a film that I would never normally watch, a chick flick / romcom called Baby Mama, starrring Tina Fey.

It was actually quite enjoyable. I'd write a fuller review but I feel like crap. Luckily, the book I've chosen for part 3 of the assignment should help me out. It's called "Quest: Journey to the centre of your soul", by Denise and Meadow Linn. Sample sentence: "One of the fastest ways to tap into your Spirit Power is to drum". Can't wait!

Half Term at SCA (and earphone scamps)

Or "no rest for the wicked", as it should be subtitled. We've still got a lot to do, and I've got a bit extra as I'm doing some freelance work producing web copy for one of our mentors. But there should still be time for a little rest, with a bit of luck.

In the latter part of the first half term we finally started producing ads. The first brief was a bit of an odd one, and a difficult one for me - we had to produce a government campaign to get people to turn down or take off their earphones, with posters on the tube and on buses. Difficult for me because I depend on them while travelling for my sanity, and because I know that they're well insulated and the sound doesn't leak to the outside world.

Anyway, working with the splendid Katie Harland, we came to the conclusion that lecturing people about health risks or antisocial behaviour would largely be ignored. Therefore we needed to engage and amuse, and get the message across to people with a little subtlety. We did this by suggesting weird and wonderful conversation snippets that you might overhear if you took your headphones out.

First example, which also gives an idea of the typography:

Next example as a scamp, with added pay-off line and the tagline ("Unplug Your Lugs") buried in the web address.

Final example, with some extra words to make it clearer that it's referring to what you might hear in the carriage. I think another team, who had basically the same idea as us, had a better solution, which was to give each quote a date, time, and tube line where it was supposedly (or actually) heard. I think ours was a little clumsy by comparison, though naturally I preferred our quotes...

I had a lovely idea for a hard-hitting poster based on the insight another team had about tinnitus sufferers being likely to commit suicide. It would feature earphones in the shape of a noose, and the words "Tinnitus leads many sufferers to suicide. So it's not just the other passengers you're driving mad. Turn it down". Unfortunately, the suicide thing is a complete myth, but it would have been nice.

Schemas

Things are getting busy at the School of Communication Arts 2.0 - in fact I've only got round to doing this blog after a busy day at school and an evening spent writing and recording a voiceover on the history of telecommunications advertising (a very potted one, mind you).

The morning session from Chris Hill was fascinating throughout, but one part stuck out, which chimed in with the book we're currently reading: Made To Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. They've been talking about "schemas" - which are (and let's head over to Wikipedia now) "structures that organize our knowledge and assumptions about something and are used for interpreting and processing information".

In other words, when I say "X Factor", you might think "a singing competition on the television that loads of people watch and while entertaining is not perhaps the purest example of musical and artistic expression". You probably think a lot more. Just 2 words instantly bring up a whole range of facts, ideas, names, images, songs and more in your mind - and that makes them an incredibly powerful tool for expressing a complex idea in an easily digestible and easily remembered way.

So today, we had the old AA slogan, "to our members we're the 4th emergency service". And that's all you need - with that you know that you phone them to get help, they come to you, probably in a van, as fast as they can, and they'll fix whatever it is that's wrong. All that is expressed in 2 words - "emergency service".

Words, eh? Bloody hell.

Bitchin' Pitches

Today at SCA2 we had an all-day session on presentation techniques and public speaking. I've always regarded myself as fairly confident and a good speaker, but with a less-than-engaging voice - it's distressing how often I answer the phone in a perfect state of health to someone who immediately says "oh my, that's a shocking cold you've got".

In fact, it turned out to be the other way round. My voice was praised (apparently I use my "resonators", which although I've sung in the odd choir I've certainly never been trained to do), but I was picked up on for moving around, not gesturing enough, not making eye contact enough, saying "erm", looking at the floor, etc.

So I now have to just remember to GESTURE, to speak LOUDER, to speak SLOWER, to EMPHASISE each word, and remember to PAUSE.

Apologies for capitals, but I think they're semi-appropriate there. Anyway, I made a whole lot of progress today, and with the help of a Don Draper clip and a viewing orgy of Obama speeches under my belt this evening, I think I'm just about ready to pitch our agency name to Steve Henry tomorrow.

Idea vs Execution

We had an intensely thought-provoking masterclass at SCA on creative briefs from Patrick Collister of Creative Matters. Too much to distill and discus here, but one message that stuck out was that there was a clear difference between "idea" (or "meaning") and "execution".

The example he gave was the Carlton Draught's "It's A Big Ad" TV slot. The idea is to take the piss out of advertising. The execution is to parody the "big event" adverts with giant overhead shots of huge crowds.

But it's not a simple concept, so I felt the need to apply it to other adverts to see if I can make it work myself. Here goes...

Match.com shop duet
Meaning: Find instant chemistry
Execution: 2 strangers improvising a duet

Carlsberg bikers in cinema
Meaning: Carlsberg is a reward
Execution: Film people being given Carlsberg for a brave or difficult task

T-Mobile flash mob
Meaning: Show people sharing fun together
Execution: Take a spontaneous YouTube phenomenon and recreate it with paid extras
(you may be getting the idea that I'm not overly keen on current T-mobile ads, if you've been paying attention to this blog)

Weetabix dancing teddies
Meaning: Weetabix gives you amazing energy
Execution: Show girl eating it and dancing in groovy/odd way with groovy/odd teddies

Yeo Valley rapping farmers
This HAS to be the odd one out. I'm sorry, but even if the Creative Director was in front of me now denying it, I would not deviate from my belief that the very first thing they thought of was the "Yeo Valley" / "Yo Valley" pun, and the idea grew from there. I refuse to believe the first insight was "wouldn't rapping farmers be amusing?". Note that the tagline is so utterly unmemorable (not sure? it's "live in harmony") because it doesn't have to be - the execution does all the work.

I hope I'm right, anyway.

A thought from bedtime

I met a student from last year's intake at SCA briefly today. He had an American-ish accent and I asked where he was from. He said "Bermuda" and for some reason that threw me a little, and the conversation came to a fairly abrupt halt. I felt slightly uncomfortable about it afterwards.

Then as I was brushing my teeth, paying attention to the gums, it suddenly occurred to me what had been so disconcerting. It was that I automatically think of Bermuda as a place that people go to. It's never, never, ever a place that people come from.

Additional thought on storytelling

Yesterday I talked about a scene from Queer As Folk, and how by allowing the audience to work out the characters for themselves, they make the whole story more compelling.

It turns out there was another possible reason I found the scene so affecting, which came up during an improv workshop with Stella Duffy. The group had to stand in the circle, say their name, and a fact about themselves (and later, a lie). The point that came out of it was that the facts we remembered were the ones that had "specificity", i.e. the ones that provided an interesting nugget of information to hold on to.

So everyone remembered that Jaane had eaten hamburgers all week, or that Olesia like white clothes with red detail, or that the man I saw earlier that morning was Peruvian. So perhaps that's why I still remember the chunky kit kat line from Queer As Folk, even now.