20x20 visions. (Andy Cheetman)
Difficult briefs. They’re difficult for a reason. We must all learn to take these difficult briefs and bend them to our wills. The rewards for tackling something with high stakes will be much higher than gluing your art to the side of a lampost and hoping for the best. Since most of us aren’t Banksy we’ll have to toughen up our hides and start entering major competitions.
Treat all customers individually and be uplifting. Recycle ideas and pay attention to detail.
We are global learners. Learning globally. Together.
Making advertising that works as people can switch off and walk away due to the technology available to them. A good example of this is the television. A good number of people watch their televisions with a laptop, phone or MP3 player within close reach. Adverts are little more than a break in which to check emails, send a text message or listen to the same song over and over again until the boring thing goes away. (Some people keep sketchbooks, novels or kettles close by, though they’re rather more prone to walking away or hitting mute on the controller.) The trick then has to be to make yourself more interesting than an email, text message or illegally downloaded pop song.
Sop interrupting what people are interested in. BE what they’re interested in. Otherwise they’ll ignore you. Which is bad. Unless what you were advertising was something like ‘cultural distancing of the customer from the advertiser’ which is a silly idea.
The trick to being interesting enough to drag peoples attentions away from their cups of tea, games of minesweeper and reblogged pictures of cats on Tumblr is actually very simple. You meverly need to know what’s out there. How to manipulate it to your advantage and how to present it in just the right way. That’s difficult though. Which is why most adverts merely choose to try and shout at us. Which is a major, killing flaw.
Self filter - know flaws before the customer has a chance to see them, so you can explain yourself.
“Why is that fellow merely shouting about insurance in the advert?” the big business tycoon asks as he leans over his frappichino, staring at the unkempt art director before him.
The art director merely smiles and waves his hand nonchalantly through the air. He wishes he had a frappichino too, but alas he is too poor. “That’s very simple sir,” he remarks, suddenly aware that the business tycoon is perched upon a chair made from panda fur. “We did some research. People shouting is what the teen demographic are into.”
“Really?” The tycoon cocks his well plucked brow and looking rather cynical about this whole ridiculous lapse into narrative. “Are you sure?”
The art director nods. “Shouting and cat videos make up over ten percent of the internet.”
This doesn’t please the tycoon at all, and he leers at his subordinate. Chair creaking as he leans forward. “Is that all?”
“Well, the rest of it is made of porn and we’re not allowed to show that during the Top of the Pops.”
The big business tycoon considers this before nodding. “Alright then,” he takes a long drink from his mug. “Make the advert about a shouting cat instead.”
EDIT EDIT EDIT. Which the plucky art director did in order to keep his job (And I may have to do to this entry…). Editing will save your skin and help trim unrequited edges away.
To have a good reputation, don’t steal or plagiarise, common sense, and have strong ideas that relate back to your core theme - Use colours to enhance emotions, repeat patterns and pronounce important details. The key to a good theme is simplicity, hidden behind a veil of cleverness.
Which is perhaps something I should invest in more.
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