When we started the Leo Lab we were told it's was going to be a period of live briefs to gather experience. In the beginning it was pretty much what they promised. Now things have changed. All three Leo Lab teams were gathered on Tuesday for a meeting. The creative leadership wants to change the direction of the Leo Lab - instead of putting us on daily work briefs that need solving and have lots of limitations we are asked to do stuff that's 'really great'. Literally Leo Burnett's client list is our brief, pick a brand, do something great for it. Sounds good to us. It lowers the chances of getting work out, but if something does get through, it'll be pretty damn good. We think it's a great way of using placement teams, agencies have enough teams who can crack briefs and please clients. Seems like they want a team who will challenge the norm. Exciting times for us.
What would you prefer? Getting the real briefs? Or working on whatever you like, trying to turn it into something amazing? The Leo Lab experiment commences.
20 comments:
sounds like a fantastic opportunity.
do the best you can. the rest will follow.
Great stuff guys. Good news for you... then kick some booty! Ray
You should be doing that stuff anyway. In between briefs. So i'd prefer the real stuff.
Great opportunity, and every brief should be considered 'live'
If there's no brief and you have a cracker of an idea and if the agency is worth their salt,it will get sold.
Tip: Topical ads will get you your first job :)
Pro active work will always allow you to create work that is fresh...No guidelines equal no boundaries.
Really dig your blog, I check it out everyday when the boss isn't looking!
It's all well and good coming up with great campaigns for clients, that's the easy bit - it's when the client wants to portray x y and z and that you can really show your talents.
Work on these sort of briefs continuously but crack the live briefs too.
Well done lads. Sounds like it's all going off. What happend to W&K placement? Thought you were following your dream?
W&K has pushed our dream back. But not for long. No one can. We're scheduled to go in there in June. Yeehaa.
That's great you'll get to go into W&K, but can I guess what you're looking to find from Leo's then?
what's the purpose of this placement? Surely you should be going on placement at agencies you'd like a job at, and work your arse off whilst you've got the opportunity to work with them, to turn it into a job.
If you don't want a job at Leo's, why take the placement? I mean, would you take a job a Leo's if offered?
Sounds like it's going well anyways.
We are loving it here at Leo's, the people are great, the briefs we've had have been big and now we are being pushed to do some great work. It's not an opportunity we are going to waste. We want to make the most of it and are working crazy hard to make sure that we do. However we have had W+K for a few months and if there isn't something for us here, it's a great place to go to after.
i understand the no boundaries thing and i enjoy it fully but when does the point come when you have to drop all the exciting no boudaries stuff and start having to think about the boundaries and restrictions? when you get the job you'll get the job cos your different but when youve got the job youve got to conform or you get nothing done! see what i mean?
I think you could approach this strategically and break it down to two objectives.
1. A big idea for a client to wow your bosses. This doesn't have to be achievable. It just has to be great. Forget budgets etc. This should show them how their advertising could be. This shows how creative you are.
2. An idea that can be used for a client. Do your research. Pick a client. Speak to the planners on that account. Find out what the problems are that the client is facing. Solve it in an achievable way. ie: on a tiny budget. This proves your maturity and professionalism by getting something made.
I know this sounds obvious but when you have no brief it's easy to drift and not actually do much.
By knowing what you're trying to achieve with each campaign it'll help you focus.
Writing your own brief by identifying problems will help when you present the work. Rather than a throw away "Hey we had this cool idea..." you can go in and say "We looked at Client X, we thought the problem was Y, so we did Z"
Make sure you identify the right problems. Look at the category not just the brand.
I'm sure you know this already.
The pressure is on. It's a brilliant opportunity. You lucky people.
I would look at a way how a brand could take advantage of the fact that England aren't going to be at the Euro's this summer. Be it an alternative event or a way of encouraging England fans to watch it still.
Good luck.
someone needs to get a blog...
or get out more, at least.
thanks jp, great idea/problem with the euros. we stole a pitch brief and doing our ebst to do some stuff for it and doing proactive work on mcdonalds and drink driving, as well as thinking about william hill.
McDonalds - live for today!
I would prefer getting real briefs, old ones doesn't matter. First of all then you can compare with work they have done and show them how good you are and they will probably have deep enough insights in the brand to give you thorough critique and advice.
McDonalds and Drink Driving? why not mix the two and get some really wacky ideas! (sorry im having a really random day!)
I'd really concentrate on the media you use for drink driving/department for transport.
There's been some good work done for this.
Maybe your target audience could change, work in supermarkets aiming at kids - get them in the mindset early on that drinking & driving is bad!?
Good luck with it anyway.
McDonalds is a much more straightforward option, but that's in it's nature - selling a product rather than DofT is informative.
Like Anon 6.09pm thought.
You have to beat this.
Cannes Lions 2007-"Phone Legends"
You get a phone call from a surgeon who describes what he has to do to your face after a car crash...
http://www.canneslionslive.com/direct/win_2_1_00150.htm
make no legged briefs walk.
make walking briefs into giant running spider monsters.
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