an agency visit, a workshop and a book walk into a blog

last week started really well with a trip to adam & eve to meet james read, one of their young planners. i was particularly interested in finding out about how to create a strategy for a brand; how you come up with an end line from a vague brief. james talked to us about the hunches that lead to his propositions and how it’s important that he backs up his research with social knowledge. he explained about establishing a brand model, summing up exactly what the brand is about, researching the brand’s competitors and about tapping into a cultural movement, as ben & jerry did with their back to the roots culture. james linked us up with this simon selik ted talk and advised us to check out the royal mail media centre to access the mintel reports. i really enjoyed meeting james and i'm very keen to get a placement at adam &eve.

later in the week rick keisewetter ran a two day comedy workshop for us where we made with the funnies. rick, who’s a copywriter and comedian, explained to us that it’s hard being chinese, because he’s japanese... we learnt about joke structure; the set up and punch of a story but the main thing that we learnt, which applies to both comedy and advertising is the importance of editing. less is more. through doing a lot of writing and reading aloud we discovered how you can make a phrase much punchier and funnier by cutting it, often almost in half, to fantastic effect.

a little snippet from my set:

“This was followed by Dad giving me ‘the talk’ over dinner, using Monopoly he explained about passing go and not picking up my £200 as Mum cringed into her Shepherd’s Pie.”

rick was really engaging and patient. it was a helpful way of learning the importance of concise communication as well as having a laugh and getting to know my classmates better.

i also finished reading dave trott’s ‘creative mischief’ last week. i really enjoyed it, it was accessible, informative and i recommend it to anyone and everyone (for what my review’s worth). some of the main points that i’ve taken from it are:

•  purchase decisions are made on desire and permission.

•  don’t be right, be interesting.

•  people buy a product for what it does but they buy a brand for what it says.

•  the difference between scepticism and cynicism (and all this time i thought i was a cynic).

•  “like” is a feeling, not a thought.

•  there is a need for emotion and reason within advertising; no grit, no pearl!

•  the brief should be the floor, not the ceiling.

read it.

carpe that goddam diem!

one month of the course already gone. it's a reminder of how quickly the year is going to piss off into the past.

we recently had an induction to use letterpress where rupert regaled us with stories about scalping, nose-breaking and historical reenactments. i hadn't done much letterpress since my last induction in camberwell as it allows me to get tangled up in perfectionism and ends up being a time suck. not so my friend rosie, who is the don of typeset, the master of bookbinding and who has recently gone to norway to do an artist's residency. clever sausage. you can see her blog here and her norway flickr here.

we are not all so gifted so i got on with picking "an advertising related word" and setting it.

on a serious note

last week we went to anomaly in london where we were lucky enough to have a talk by the herdmeister himself mark earls who talked to us about the difference between independent and social trends. mark's philosophy is that we, as humans, are herd animals who act as a result of other people's behaviour, gaining useful knowledge by being social and relying on other people. never before has this behaviour been more easy to prove than with google analytics where the short and long tail distributions of topics can clearly be seen. the importance of long tail distribution within a brand, especially of the bell curve that comes after the initial peak is the most desirable objective when advertising as it spreads to a much wider audience in the long run and builds through word of mouth.

mark's presentation was really clear and visually explained the crux of what the social element brings to the communication industries. you can see mark giving a similar talk at the RSA here.

after mark's talk, geoff gray, one of the partners at anomaly, gave a presentation about anomaly's principles and the current state of advertising. he highlighted the fact that we must think of media as part of the ideas and not simply as an afterthought. this showed in the campaigns they've run for brands such as diesel, converse and umbro.

it was really impressive to see how, often with very low budgets, how being culturally connected and strategically creative can create hugely successful campaigns, simply by leaning into things that people already care about. this interest and understanding of people is what has drawn me to planning in the first place and it's led me to believe that the main job of a planner is making sure that it's going to work.

i'd like to alain his de botton...

alain de botton is my favourite philosopher, he is not from ancient greece, has no defining facial hair, nor is he a smug arse. ever since i read the consolations of philosophy i have loved him. "his stepmother janet is a competition bridge player." what a beautiful fact. he is of course married but let's not hold that against him, there have got to be plenty more interesting, passionate, articulate men out there right? RIGHT?!...