76 25th Anniversary | P IS FOR…
shots 154 Marco Cremona, Creative Labs, Google; photograph: Ambrogio Cremona
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juan cabral
shots 135 MJ Delaney, director; photograph: Jonnie Malachi
shots 145 James Hilton, co-founder, AKQA; photograph: Dan Burn-Forti, James Hilton
shots 141 Juan Cabral, director; illustration: Isabel Garcia Calvo
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is for PORTRAITS Over the past quarter of a century, shots has collaborated with some of the most daring and creative photographers and illustrators to portray the top creatives, production supremos and star execs that have graced our pages… shots 136 Emer Stamp, Ben Tollett, Ben Priest, then joint CDs/ECD, adam&eveDDB; illustration: Stanley’s Post
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shots 145 Ben Jones, CTO, AKQA; photograph: Dan Burn-Forti, James Hilton
shots 157 Preethi Mariappan, ECD Razorfish Berlin; photograph: MERK & MARK
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PORTRAITS
shots 156 Martin Stirling, director; photograph: Linda Blacker
shots 142 Bryan Buckley, director; photograph: Justin Warias
shots 141 Romain Demongeot, art/film director; photograph: Sonia Presne
shots 126 Ben Kay, copywriter/author; photograph: Sean de Sparengo
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78 25th Anniversary | P IS FOR…
shots 152 Stephen Butler, CCO, TBWA\Chiat\Day LA; photograph: Jen Rosenstein
shots 151 Pablo Del Campo, global CD, Saatchi; photograph: Machado-Cicala
shots 136 Graham Fink, CCO, Ogilvy China; photograph: Julian Hanford
shots 150 Marisa Clifford & Thomas Benski, co-founders, Pulse London; photograph: Mike Piscitelli
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PORTRAITS
shots 139 Joachim Back, director; photograph: Daniel Montecinos, illustration: Ingo Putze
shots 145 Alex Schill, global CCO, Serviceplan; photograph: Uwe Düttmann, post: Digitales Leben
shots 134 David Wilson, director; photograph: Brendan & Brendan
shots 128 Josh Gordon & Will Speck, directors; photograph: Emily Shur
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02/09/2015 15:35
80 25th Anniversary | Q IS FOR…
The codes that time forgot, the search engine you never remembered to use, the digi-doms you wish you could erase from your memory forever… Joe Lancaster looks back at all those special gadgets and schemes that seemed like a good idea at the time… or did they?
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QR CODES AND OTHER THINGS THAT FAILED
QR codes Art directors the world over breathed a sigh of relief when Quick Response codes began losing their appeal to marketers. When it came to the worst ways clients could ruin the beautiful work they’d pored over for weeks, “make the logo bigger” had been replaced by “make the QR code bigger”. As said codes look like the dead-flysmattered bonnet of a white van after a lap of the M25 on a sunny day, this brought a whole new level of pain. The truth is, despite them being the modern equivalent of the CueCat – an invention so spectacularly moronic it must be Googled to be believed – QR codes are actually quite useful, it’s just that nobody uses them. Perhaps because they always seem more about tracking the effectiveness of ads than making our lives easier. Hilarious QR code fails here: wtfqrcodes.com
Microsoft Bing Ever heard someone say, “I’ll Bing it”? Us neither. Despite the brilliant 2010 integrated ad campaign by Droga5, Bing: Decode Jay Z, which impressed the hell out of award show juries, Microsoft’s search engine just didn’t impress the public. In fairness, when your rival is a brand whose name has become a verb, you’ve got your work cut out from the start. It’s a shame, because healthy competition often leads to improved products and apparently Bing is a decent engine. If you don’t believe us, Ask Jeeves.
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QR CODES
Trying to convince people you don’t work in advertising
“In well over 100 years of trying, no one has ever found a way to make a prolonged success of 3D.”
“Ever heard someone say, “I’ll Bing it”? Us neither.”
“When your rival is a brand whose name has become a verb, you’ve got your work cut out from the start.”
The headline on your ad-packed website reads: “We are not an ad agency.” You tell the press and your friends that you’re not in this game for the money, you’re only interested in doing great work and telling stories that will inspire people to live better lives. Then an FMCG client calls about a pitch and you spend the next six months, not to mention enough money to run a soup kitchen for a year, at their beck and call, hoping to win their business. Face it, you’re not fooling anyone. Money makes the world go round and you’re a slave to the big clients just like everyone else. And really, there’s no shame in that.
The (most recent) revival of 3D film 3D is almost as old as film itself and, in well over 100 years of trying, no one has ever found a way to make a prolonged success of it in mainstream filmmaking. Why? Because it doesn’t contribute to cinema’s raison d’être: storytelling. Yes Gravity was good, but was it a worse film in 2D? Stereoscopy is a gimmicky experience best employed on three-minute theme park rides along with moving seats and smoke machines. The most recent 3D cinema revival seems to have petered out. In the market where 3D may genuinely have had a chance – gaming, where the viewer is part of the story, and hence an immersive experience makes sense – VR is set to revolutionise the market instead. Perhaps this time 3D is gone for good.
The Publicis/Omnicom merger Dark clouds were looming and the ad industry was about to be crushed by an almighty force from the skies, at least according to some commentators during the build-up to the proposed $35bn merger of advertising giants Publicis and Omnicom last year. It didn’t happen, apparently for numerous reasons, but in truth it would have been less The Empire unites with The Klingons and more Facebook meets Twitter, wouldn’t it?
Phone fingers
“Make the logo bigger” was replaced by “Make the QR code bigger.”
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“QR codes are useful, it’s just that nobody uses them.”
“…condoms for your digits that came in three sizes, four colours and cost about $10 for a bag of 25.”
In a world of clouds, apps, software and data, it’s nice to see hardware solutions to the conundrums of living in the digital age. Music piracy, identity theft and cyber bullying all pale in comparison, of course, to the problem of unsightly finger smudges on cellphone touchscreens. In 2007, previously unknown and never-heard-from-since tech genius Philipp Zumtobel answered our prayers. He brought to market Phone Fingers, which were essentially condoms for your dirty digits that came in three sizes, four colours and cost about $10 for a bag of 25. (What do you mean you only want to put them on two fingers? That would look stupid!) Who knows how much money the enterprise cost Zumtobel, who had to publicly insist on the product’s legitimacy to pacify hoax theorists and eventually gave up on the brand whose social media presence had swelled to 19 Facebook likes. A holding page at phonefingers.com promises a new site is coming soon. For his sake, let’s hope not.
02/09/2015 15:50
82 25th Anniversary | Q IS FOR… Twitter Peek
“Gates watched Apple refine the portable MP3 player [then spent] the next five years trying to compete with them.”
“Yep, an entire mobile device for using a single social network.”
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“Microsoft’s Zune… could compete with Apple’s tech, but not its cool.”
“It took pirate masterminds all of five minutes to find a hack.”
Phone Fingers were a terrible idea, but at least they were cheap. Twitter Peek was a mobile device with a full QWERTY keyboard that looked like a BlackBerry but functioned nothing like one. Released in 2009, it was designed and built for one purpose only: Twitter. Yep, an entire mobile device for using a single social network. Wait, it gets worse. It only allowed use with one Twitter profile, links displayed web pages in plain text, and it cost at least $100 plus an $8 monthly service subscription. In 2012 service for all the company’s devices was discontinued and the seven people who owned a Twitter Peek were devastated – presumably venting their frustration via Facebook.
Sony BMG CD copy protection In 2002, a year after the introduction of the iPod, Sony was rightly worried about the impending MP3 revolution. But instead of focusing on anti-file sharing, chumps at the major record label poured money into pricey copy protection measures that made it impossible to rip a disc’s tracks to a computer. It took pirate masterminds all of five minutes to find a hack, achieved by drawing a line around the edge of the disc with a marker pen (no, really). Three years later Sony landed itself in scalding water when 22 million CDs installed antipiracy software on customers’ hard drives, even if permission was denied. Under pressure, Sony provided an ‘uninstaller’ that merely un-hid the program, added further software, created vulnerability issues and collected email addresses and personal data. They backed down in 2007, presumably after realising that CDs had become useful only as coasters.
Microsoft Zune
“Fails have included automatic uploads of a U2 album to 500 million users’ devices without consent.”
“We’re not actually sure what it does, but it doesn’t seem to be much more than an iPhone can do.”
It seems Bill Gates just loves launching inferior products late into markets already sewn up by the opposition (see Bing). For five years Gates watched Apple refine the portable MP3 player and sell millions of the things before spending the next five years trying to compete with them. Microsoft’s Zune was released in 2006 and might have been an attractive alternative to the iPod if it hadn’t looked like a massive rectangular turd. Despite design revamps it eventually went the same way as all the other decent players made by brands like Creative that could compete with Apple’s tech but not its cool; you weren’t anyone in London if you hadn’t been mugged for your iPod.
A Jobs-less Apple This year mankind came dangerously close to a crisis that had never been faced before: we nearly ran out of things to spend money on. Luckily a certain Californian tech company stepped in (again) to save the day with a product that starts at about $500 and goes up to over $20k, thus ensuring even those with the deepest pockets and the shallowest brains can join in the fun of bankrupting themselves for the sake of a watch that does… well we’re not actually sure what it does, but it doesn’t seem to be much more than an iPhone can do. It remains to be seen if Apple will prosper in the long term without Steve Jobs, but most consumers have been underwhelmed by the company’s output since his death. Fails have included automatic uploads of a U2 album to 500 million users’ devices without consent, let alone knowledge, but we have to admit we’re keen to see what comes next. There are rumours of a car and with Jony Ive still in charge of design, that’s an exciting prospect. S
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RESEARCH & DATA
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& DATA
Relying on
It’s time to stop
research is a lazy
being defensive
way out, says Ben
about data, argues
Mooge, creative
Tom Eslinger,
partner at Havas
worldwide digital
Work Club
creative director at
It’s too easy to make an enemy of research. Shooting animatic fish in an Ipsos barrel. Research has long been positioned as the creative department’s enemy – the Becher’s Brook of the creative process. It’ll cruelly wipe out half the ideas at a stroke. You can hone for months, find that insight that feels true to you, write a killer line, have all your references going on, the music you won’t able to afford but that somehow works and then… a carefully chosen panel of Lees or Karls from Bradford or Bromley won’t get it. Or maybe the
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Saatchi & Saatchi I ran into one of my favourite people – not just in advertising, but real-life – at Cannes and I commented that I had just finished an exhausting, eyeopening stint on the Creative Data jury. I got a scrunched-up face in return, followed by an unexpected comment: “I bet the work is awful!” Normally, this would make me feel a little defensive, like when I defend One Direction at dinner parties, challenging people’s assumptions that something
Drowning inspiration in a deluge of information and stifling brilliant ideas at birth, data and research are often cast as the twin bogeymen of the advertising industry. But are they a necessary evil? Two industry insiders discuss…
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86 25th Anniversary | R IS FOR…
“Cadbury’s Gorilla would never have made it through a link test. They had to make it first to prove it! Can you imagine that? Betting on creativity!”
Lees and Karls have a slightly better idea. They should be writing ads. All their mates say so. That’s too easy. And I don’t think it’s necessarily true. I’ve had countless evenings on the weird side of the two-way mirror, eating the samosas of fading strategy, the spring rolls of unrequited scripts, the awkward lights-up with the suddenly underwhelmed clients. And you know what, they’re important. They’re crucial. Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are. Maybe it is only an ad idea, and heaven forbid, maybe Lee and Karl actually consume this shit. Of course I’ve had triumphant nights when Lee and Karl are actually uncannily eloquent suburban savants who’ve earned every penny of that £30 and agree with my genius. Both scenarios can be true. Neither is right. Committees can’t write creative ideas. But audiences have a right to vote. That’s not why I’m slightly allergic to research. I don’t subscribe to the apocryphal research tales – that the Sony Walkman bombed in research or that Cadbury’s Gorilla would never have made it through a link test. They had to make it first to prove it! Can you imagine? Betting on creativity! Nope. I’m slightly afraid of research because I’m afraid it’ll make me lazy. “Leave it to research. Let the people decide.” That’s dangerous. Not having your own point of view is the true enemy. If you rely on lucky dip research you run the risk of not second and third guessing your crowd. The truth is that the very best points of view shouldn’t need research, because they should already know their audience inside out. Know what the audience wants, but more importantly know what their audience don’t yet know they want. The Netflix model is maybe the modern-day Holy Grail. Netflix content needs no research. It’s entirely predicated on pre-existing audience taste and data. Netflix doesn’t do pilot episodes – research by any other name. It already knows that there’s a clear gap for an intelligent political thriller possibly directed by Fincher and members who liked Fincher also enjoyed the work of Spacey. That’s enough to commission seasons at a time… I love that data confidence. Put a bit of Netflix into your work. Trust your instincts, because you should already know your audience. S
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“Best of all, we can let the data provide the backing our clients need to okay our more unusual proposals and the confidence for them to let us do it again and again.”
so calculated and precise on the surface would be devoid of creativity and emotion. But I felt something altogether different: disappointment. My friend assumed that work that had been informed by numbers, statistics and measurements would automatically mean that it lacked the elusive something that makes it Cannes-tastic. This makes me think about the best reactions I’ve had when giving someone a gift: after some digging around to determine someone’s likes and dislikes, I add my creative interpretation to my final selection. Then I share the gift, along with the story of how I selected it, at the best, most precise time and place. That’s exactly what combining data into our creative ideas allows us to do. We can go deep and precise or broad and timely, with combinations of tools, devices and processes. We can create multiple solutions and attack business problems from multiple angles, combining intuition and information. Best of all, we can let the data provide the backing our clients need to okay our more unusual proposals and the confidence for them to let us do it again and again. Data can provide the ideas with the sharpness needed to get those ideas noticed by our customers and to garner cut-through at Cannes. Data can also kill ideas that ignore the abundance of information available about almost anything. When was the last time you bought someone a gift without browsing their social media profiles and posts? Exactly. Ideas woven from the data we can access from millions of sources are as exciting to me as HyperCard, Flash, QuickTime and mobile phones have been at different times in my career. The interaction between people and ideas that these tools and devices made possible are at the core of everything we make and call digital. I get really excited about how data coming out of virtually everything can be used to make completely unexpected ideas. In an open, creative mind, all of this information is a prescription to break from the prescribed. To clumsily paraphrase a beloved boss – data allows us to create unexpected ideas that people never dreamed possible. S
02/09/2015 15:57
88 25th Anniversary | R IS FOR…
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RADIO
Neville Doyle, digital planning director at Colenso BBDO, explains how a medium that started almost 100 years ago has never been more relevant to today’s multi-screen, multitasking audience. So why is it so often overlooked? A copywriter’s dream, radio offers endless creative opportunities, unbound by budget restrictions, or even the laws of physics. What can’t you do when the only limit is your audience’s imaginations?
T
he creative challenges and opportunities of radio advertising are not hugely different to those that agencies faced when the first ads aired in 1928. The brief hasn’t changed: engage the audience, make them laugh, pique their interest, make them care. When you’ve one sense to work with, this can seem a daunting task and yet radio has the power to drive uniquely compelling branded opportunities. One thing has changed since the first days of the medium, however; radio is now an often overlooked and under utilised channel.
The freedom to try something new No matter how fantastic a creative team is at visuals, these skills are always going to pale in
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comparison with the creativity of the audience’s own imaginations. Radio should be seen as a dream channel for all copywriters; there’s no other channel that relies so heavily on the writer’s skill, their ability to craft a story. In many ways, radio ads are to TV ads what a book is to a film, allowing you to tell a story in a way that coaxes the listener to bring it to life in their own mind. Despite the lack of visuals, there is nothing beyond radio’s storytelling reach. The 1987 ad Colour for Kodacolor Gold is a perfect example. It took the tricky brief of selling colour film on the radio and brought it to life through a perfect blend of voice casting (Jimmy Nail), witty writing and accompanying music. Having Stephen Fry reading out your brand
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RADIO 1/2 Pedigree, K9FM
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1
3 Toyota, SIRIous Safety Message
2
3
“With the onset of digital radio you have the ability to be incredibly targeted to specific niche interests or audiences, to create something that can live in the digital as well as the broadcast space.” signoff never hurts either. Would anyone try to sell such a visual product on radio these days? Maybe not, but this ad proved just how effective it can be. At Colenso BBDO I work with Nick Worthington, one of those creative heavyweights you might only be fortunate enough to work with once in your career. Nick won the first of his many Yellow Pencils for a radio ad for Cadbury’s Boost (1994’s Any Length). When I asked him what radio advertising meant to him, his response was simple: “Creative freedom”. The chance to try things without the pressures that go hand in hand with bigger budget platforms. With the affordability that radio provides – both in terms of creating the end product and also buying media – there’s scope for far greater levels of creative experimentation. Rather than putting multiple scripts and storyboards into round after round of testing, you can simply create and record a suite of options and test them out in the wild. Radio is also free of a lot of the usual constraints of visual content. You can’t be asked to keep the product shot longer on screen, to devote more precious seconds to an end frame and, best of all, with radio no one can ask you to make the logo louder.
An old medium for a modern world Multiscreen media consumption is now the norm rather than the exception. For many media channels there are legitimate questions to be raised about the effectiveness of advertising when consumers can so quickly turn to a second (or
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third) screen. Unlike channels that attempt to command most, if not all, of your attention, radio works far better as a supplemental activity to whatever else you may be doing. In a world where having consumers’ undivided attention is now as likely as riding a unicorn to the office, this is a hugely undervalued strength. Consider that most of us can easily manage to drive a car and still take in every word on the radio, and you realise that this is a medium that we have all grown up learning to absorb while our primary attention is elsewhere. It may seem counterintuitive, but one of the most ‘traditional’ channels has the potential to be a serious player in one of the most modern media consumption trends.
The opportunity for innovation There is an increasing habit in the advertising world to try and find short-term, headlinegrabbing uses for the latest digital platform, service or app. This never-ending rush to be first means that there are meaningful innovation opportunities being missed on platforms that offer far more scale and substance. Radio is a perfect example of this. Last year, working with Pedigree in New Zealand, we created K9FM – the first radio station created specifically for dogs, with hours of unique content all aimed at man’s best friend. All of this was created with the intention of targeting dog owners through their dogs. It went on to become the first radio campaign in 32 years to be honoured by D&AD with a Black Pencil and, like so much of the best
work, it tapped into a very simple but powerful behavioural insight. This truth was hiding in plain sight, in front of everyone that has ever grown up in a household with dogs and whose parents would leave on the radio when the dogs were home alone to keep them company. As with all great radio, however, what truly elevated the campaign was the quality of the writing – I defy anyone to listen to segments such as Talkies and Where is the ball? and not laugh out loud. Elsewhere, Saatchi & Saatchi Stockholm’s SIRIous Safety Message for Toyota is another great example of creative thinking putting radio to good use. To help raise awareness of the dangers of using your phone while driving, these radio ads spoke directly to Siri, getting her to switch your phone to flight mode before reminding you it’s never safe to text/browse/call when behind the wheel. Radio is often passed over in the creative pecking order, but the reality today is that it offers more power and flexibility than ever. With the onset of digital radio you have the ability to be incredibly targeted to specific niche interests or audiences, to create something that can live in the digital as well as the broadcast space. If anyone ever tells you that a certain traditional media channel is past it or holds no real creative opportunities anymore, hopefully projects such as K9FM – which proves there is still creative magic to be found in the radio platform – will convince you to take a second look and make sure that something powerful isn’t hiding in plain sight (or sound), waiting to be found. S
03/09/2015 19:16