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The future of storytelling is collaborative
Thank you, Apple.
Which one is your brand telling?
"From Shakespeare to Spielberg to Soderbergh, there are really only seven different types of stories, an Advertising Week panel hosted by TBWA suggested on Wednesday. The challenge becomes finding which one best suits your brand, and then telling it skillfully, believably and—if you're going to invite consumers to join in the story—extremely carefully."
From storytelling to behaving
So now that the dust has settled and all of us have had the time to view the winning entries at Cannes, what were your learnings?
Let's take the winners of the Cyber Grand Prix, Nike Fuel Band & Curators of Sweden. You couldn't have had diametrically opposite campaigns. One, led by an iconic brand with stellar storytelling credentials, driven by bleeding edge technology. The other, on the surface, a small idea only as deep as 140 character tweets.
But look deeper and both have one big thing in common. In the words of our very own Ian tait ;), head of the Cyber Jury:
"Brands behaving a certain way. They're not about what they say or big noisy messages; they're about what they do -- they enable. That's something we were all excited by."
Its the big shift from brands telling us who they are via interesting storytelling, to actually going a step further and walking the talk. A shift from storytelling, to actually behaving. In other words, quit being cute. Start being you.
Read this Ad Age article to get a greater sense of what the Cyber jury defined as great work in the category, and also what they did not like.
And here's the link to the Curators of Sweden case.
Which other cases did you like from this year's entries?
The future belongs to the curious
A video short on the most underrated virtue of them all, a personal favorite, curiosity.
You just can't have enough of it :)
As the narrator in the video says:
" It all starts with a question. It dosen't matter what you ask, just that you ask."
Best of the web (part 2)
Here's continuing with the 2012 Webby Award winners. This time I'm picking my favorites from the 'Online film & video' section.
The video above is called "Address is Approximate," and won the Webby for best animation film.
Here are the rest:
2. How to get a guy to notice you while having sex (Best writing)
3. Behind the Mask (Best editing)
4. Day One stories (Branded entertainment)
5. The Siri argument (Comedy: individual short or episode)
6. Drunk History Christmas with Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey and Eva Mendes (Comedy: long form or series)
7. Rethink your man reminder (DIY)
8. The future of the book (Experimental or weird)
9. Often awesome (Documentary:series)
10. The most amazing beatbox video ever (Branded entertainment)
11. Quiet signs of love (Drama)
12. 'I will never be cut': Kenyan girls fight back against genital mutilation (Documentary: Individual episode)
13. The creators project (Music)
14. How A Virus Changes The World (Public service & activism)
15. Dear 16-year-old Me (Public service & activism)
16. Dog Park (Reality)
17. Egypt, football and revolution (Sports)
18. Picturing Science: Museum Scientists & Imaging Technologies (Technology)
19. From Perú for Peru (Travel)
20. I Hope This Gets To You (Viral)
Will share my favorites in other categories as I move along. Which ones would you pick?
Copy, transform, combine
Is remix culture all that bad? Or it lies at the center of every piece of creative that we produce?
Kirby Ferguson's must watch docu-feature goes on to prove exactly that. Told in four parts, it is a story worth visiting, and re-visiting, as i did this past weekend.
In essence what Ferguson is saying is that there is no such thing as an original masterpiece. The films demonstrate in exquisite detail how everything from Led Zeppelin to Star Wars and from art to technology, not to mention science is based upon hundreds of uses of other people’s creations.
While telling this story, Ferguson lays down the three laws of creativity: copy, transform & combine. And to me that's the highlight of the series.
In our collective urge to worship originality, we tend to debunk ideas born out of a more obvious culture of remix. We tend to also debunk the maxim that no ideas are really original anymore as lazy thinking.
Perhaps its time for us to revisit this approach and acknowledge the fact that transforming and combining too is an art, and worthy of admiration or emulation.
Here are the links to watch part 2, part 3 and part 4.
To know more about the series, read Neurobonkers' super review and this Kirby Ferguson interview.
Best of the web (part 1)
The Webby Awards for 2012 were just announced (Click here to see all the entries).
And as always its a great place to see some of the best digital work throughout the world. From immersive web experiences to mobile apps to wok for social causes the list can be exhaustive.
But totally worth it.
And yes, truly humbling.
My favorites?
Since I've seen only the website category so far, here they are (in no particular order):
1. The Google Art project (Art)
2. Subaru - First car story (Automotive)
3. Photoseed (Art)
4. Spent (Activism)
5. The YSL experience (Beauty & cosmetics)
6. GE Small changes ((Best home/ welcome page)
7. Visit Norway (Best home/ welcome page)
8. Time- Beyond 9/11 (Best use of photography)
9. Draw a Stickman (Best use of Animation/motion graphics)
10. The 21stCentury Beetle – Rock 'n' Scroll (Best navigation/structure)
11. Hands on experience (Best use of Animation/motion graphics)
12. Asos Urban tour (Best use of video)
13. Philips - Obsessed with sound (Best navigation/structure)
14. I had cancer (Community)
15. Google Music tour (Best visual design aesthetic)
16. HBO connect (Television)
17. Kim Jong ill looking at things (Weird)
18. It gets better (Youth)
19. Beast & the Hare (Restaurant)
20. Cloud 365 project (personal blog/website)
Will share my favorites in other categories as I move along.
Which ones would you pick...a top three from this list?
Guided mastery
So how do you build your creative confidence?
Here's David Kelley answer.
This talk resonated with me for two reasons.
Firstly, it works on the premise that all people can be "creative," and therefore, it isn't really a right of the few. Sure, some of us will always be better at coming up with creative solutions to problems than others, or some of us can articulate ideas better; but there is hope for everyone :)
Secondly, I like the idea of guided mastery, of encouraging & cajoling people to take small baby steps towards finding & nurturing their creative confidence. Its what all creative leaders should aspire to do, everyday.
As a footnote, this segregation of creative versus practical people is perhaps evident most in the profession of advertising where the former is adulated, and elevated to superstar status. As someone who works in advertising, I can confidently say that no other profession has contributed more towards destroying creative confidence.
Just ask the suits.
For the record, this comes from an ex-suit who now is "creative" ;)
Do your timesheets, get free beer
Surely, this one does not need an explanation :)
In case the world ends this year, you'll have a better list to go by before you die than the Brand Equity Agency reckoner published yesterday :)
Fast Co. annual list of the 100 most creative people in business is out, and true to form, it doesn't disappoint. Its a great mix of people who are doing some bleeding edge work in their fields. You may have heard of some names, but many I guess, would be a revelation.
As Fast Company explains, these are the "ones taking risks and discovering new solutions to old problems."
My favorite 10 (not necessarily in the following order)?
1. Adam Brotman (Chief Digital Officer, Starbucks)
2. Rebecca Van Dyck (Head, Consumer Marketing, Facebook)
3. Stefan Olander (VP, Digital Sport, Nike)
4. Wes Anderson (Film director)
5. Bjork (Musician)
6. Abanti Sankaranarayanan (Deputy MD, Diageo India)
7. Andrew Wilson (EVP, EA Sports)
8. Maria Popova (Editor, Brainpickings.org)
9. Thomas Tull (Founder, CEO, Legendary Entertainment)
10.Sally Grimes (Global VP, Sharpie)
Be prepared to be truly humbled :)
PressPausePlay
Here's the link to the entire documentary on Vimeo. Hope you guys enjoyed it :-)
You can learn more about the project here.
Darwin’s Idea Board
As promised last session, here’s introducing the Darwin’s Idea Board :)
So hop over and pin your favorite idea/project.
Spreading Happiness, every single day.
An extension of Goafest Diaries II, here's Coke's content strategy, explained through a video.
Must see! For the next part, click here.
Spreading Happiness, every single day.
Goafest Diaries (Part II) Jonathan Mildenhall, VP, Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence, Coca-Cola
For me the ‘big’ point of this talk was:
Its time to move from creative excellence to content excellence.
Content marketing has arrived.
For more than 100 years, Coca-Cola has been one of the world’s foremost practitioners of what they call “one-way storytelling.” But Coke is looking around and realizing that the 30-second television ad won’t take them where they want to go next. To do that, they’re turning to a tool called content marketing, a more dynamic way of connecting with consumers.
Through an ambitious plan called Content 2020, Coke is rewiring and re-tooling the way it wants to communicate with people. At the core of this content strategy lies the philosophy of liquid & linked content.
So what is liquid & linked content?
A behemoth like Coca-Cola creates many stories every year. These stories are created by multiple agencies and in multiple formats — a mobile app one day, a viral video another, a really good television ad etc.
These stories are like molecules in a glass of Coke. Each molecule is an individual piece of content, but they’re also bound together. There’s unity there, a content strategy that acts like a glass, giving shape to the whole endeavor.
There’s a balance between control where the content is "linked” by a coherent strategy, an amalgam of business, brand and consumer interests; and chaos, creating ideas so contagious that they are “liquid” and wander around the world, being shared and even altered along the way.
Through these contagious ideas, conversations are provoked 365 days a year, ensuring that Coke earns a stake in popular culture. And therefore the move from one-way, campaign led storytelling to dynamic 24/7 content led interaction.
Makes sense? :-)
I remember sitting through the session and thinking that no wonder Coke is so revered, so loved and so admired not just by consumers, but by marketing folks as well. Everything ties up beautifully.
Suddenly the "Open Happiness" communication plank made so much sense. What Coke is really asking itself is:
How can we spread happiness every single day, a bit more than yesterday?
Salute!
Goafest Diaries is a series of posts that focus on key learnings I gleaned from seminars/talks at Goafest 2012, in the hope that you may learn a few interesting things from some of the biggest names in media/advertising. Each talk focuses on one ‘big’ point I picked up, one point that resonated with me.
The more problems we have, the more creative we can be.
Goafest Diaries (Part I), Erik Vervroegen, International creative director, Publicis Worldwide
For me the 'big' point of this talk was:
There will never be a perfect creative/client brief.
You will never get enough time or desired budgets. A key insight, cleverly articulated, will always, almost be missing.
And the daily grind of advertising has taken its toll. You are creatively exhausted.
You've got two options.
Take the road to mediocrity and average work. Tell yourself that the client deserves only this standard of work, and nothing more. Take refuge behind the fact that an imperfect creative culture, breeds mediocre to average work.
Or you could be brave. Dig in. Keep probing. Keep striving. Keep telling yourself that you will not present anything that is bad.
And that is when creative magic will happen.
Creativity works best with constraints. As Erik explains:
"(Creative) magic does not come as accident. It comes as reward of hard work. We need to provoke magic. It will come to you only when you don't give up. Don’t take 'no' as an answer. Never give up. Never lose the beginner’s spirit. If you still have the ability to believe that your dreams will come true.”
This comes from a man who has won 70 Lions, under whose creative leadership an agency was three times 'agency of the year' at Cannes. Let's give him the benefit of doubt, no?
So the next time you get briefed, a new project or job begins, don't get disheartened or discouraged by all that should/could have been. Don't rave. Or rant.
Embrace the constraints.
Dig in. And wait for the creative magic to begin :)
To read more and see the cases Erik presented, hop over to the Campaign India page
Goafest Diaries is a series of posts that focus on key learnings I gleaned from seminars/talks at Goafest 2012, in the hope that you may learn a few interesting things from some of the biggest names in media/advertising. Each talk focuses on one 'big' point I picked up, one point that resonated with me.
Tipsy on the Tipp experience :-)
You guys remember man shoots the bear?
Well here's the sequel. And defying the trend, I think this time the sequel's better than the original.
I spent close to half an hour watching these videos.Twice. If a brand can get someone to do that on YouTube, then you've pretty much got a winner on your hands.
Craftily executed & cleverly linked to the brand proposition, Tipp Experience is probably the best example since Old Spice that leverages the viral video platform.