Today we had an hour and half sit down with Tony Davidson, we talked about work, W+K and random things that popped into our heads. Boy does that guy knows his stuff, we walked away from it with our heads spinning.
Full of insight, he talked about where things are going, how he thinks brands should be engaging with people, stuff he likes to do, where he goes looking for ideas and how he wants his agency to evolve. The guy is a motivated genius and wanted to genuinely give us his time and help us. If we’re honest, we probably learnt more over that short casual chat than we have done over our entire month here.
It wasn’t like most reviews where we talked about the ads and strategies. Today we sat there and talked about issues, people, problems, emotions and solutions; very few of them being ads. It was eye opening and inspiring. Cheers Tony.
Some good news, we’ve been extended a week to finish up some work we’re having produced.
thats great guys and well done for getting some work out but a month/five weeks is no time at all on placement, to me it seems a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteWhy did you not get another month, either W&K are not interested in juniors or you did not impress enough to warrant another month.
in all honesty which do you think it was?
Its beyond me how you two even got a placement there.
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ReplyDeleteAn extra week is great to allow you to see through your idea to production, but where do you go from here?
ReplyDeleteAs the first post asks, why wasn't it extended further? why no job offer? What could you have done, or what more did you need to do to get the result from this you wanted?
All in all, it won't have helped you progress too much from having just 4/5 weeks. Yes it's a great agency to have worked at, but now what?
I hope something works out for you both soon, you certainly work hard and would prove determination and enthusiasm pay off in the end :)
Good luck, and enjoy the extra week!
hey Jai and Wal, well done for completeting your month at wk, VERY JEALOUS. Where are you off next??
ReplyDeleteGood luck
The Idea Bakery
Good news guys. Sounds like you've found it beneficial, at the very least. We've been working on Nintendo again (for US office) so I'm happy! Drop by sometime...
ReplyDeleteNice one lads - Great to hear everything has been going well - we've kinda had the same at our place - got a week or two extra, adding it up to see some work through the production stage.
ReplyDeleteAny plans for after wieden's?
You have to wonder what is it that you're doing or maybe not doing.
ReplyDeleteI'd have asked Tony that, instead of just 'chatting' about emotions and solving the world's problems on a napkin. I know the man and he can be a rambler. It was up to you to pick his brains and get some useful, practical information out off him. You didn't talk about ads? For fuck's sakes, what did you talk about then? Gardening? Of course Tony can afford talking gardening, but you can't. You're looking for a job in ADVERTISING.
You shouldn't be 'happy' about Tony's blue sky ramblings, that's what a student would do 'Oh I got to know Tony Davidson, wicked!' Fuck that, you're unemployed and no matter what kind of speech he pulled out, it was just a way to say, look guys I'm not interested. You should be fucking pissed off, demanding to know what you did wrong or could do better.
With this kind of attitude you're just showing you're ok with being discarded.
W+K is an opportunity no team can afford to let go even more as a junior.
My partner and I would have give anything to be in your position. And we already have jobs.
Daryl, Dude, why are you acting like you know and giving us this stuff?
ReplyDeleteAll we talked about was related to advertising. Tony told us about all the ideas he gets excited about, why they work and why that kind of stuff should be in our book if we want to be rockin' it. Our stuff he took apart and told us how to get it right, some of it he liked, some of it he found pointless, and some of it he was impressed about. It was an ace bookcrit and all the ramblings inbetween, every single one of them was about how to be a better creative. Useful. 10 levels up.
So you sir should get up your ass and do something about it if you want that kind of opportunity. It's not like we won the lottery to get in there. We're not going places to get their name on our cv, headhunters are the only ones caring about cvs. We are going places to get a job in advertising, damn it didn't work out before – but be assured that we are giving the best we can and more, we grow every day.
We want a job, and we'll get it, it's just a question of right time right place.
5 weeks of labour to get a crit with Tony Davidson? Does anyone knows the going rate for Richard Flintham?
ReplyDeleteRight time right place is often true but you make your own luck when it comes to getting a job.
ReplyDeleteMan, you come across like you've been out of college for a few weeks and everything is one big adventure.
Great if you can afford to act like that but after a few years taking your book around town and a fair few placements you should be in a position of giving agencies no choice but to hire you.
It took me and my partner a few years to get a job but most of that was spent on long placements with a couple of agencies, getting our heads down and trying to make it impossible for them not to let us leave. We didn't expose ourselves to loads of places, rather choosing to try and get in places we'd like to work.
To only get 5 weeks at W&K must mean you have not got what they are looking for. To be honest you need to have the best book in town and have something different to offer them to have a chance of getting a job.
I'd suggest having a think about where you have the best chance of getting hired and stop wasting you time punching above your weight unless you think your book is one of the best in town and that you are confident of converting any placement into a job.
Congrats on getting work out fellas, drink soon yes?
ReplyDeleteIf he would have been impressed, he would have hired you. He didn't, he was just being polite.
ReplyDeleteSorry to be harsh, but you need to open your eyes if you're going to make it.
People, are you out of your mind? Getting a job in advertising - or a 2 or 5 week placement for that matter - is hard enough as it is without having to put up with these negative comments.
ReplyDeleteIf you weren't brave, persistent or capable enough to get into the agency of your dreams don't slag off those who are still trying.
everyone here is forgetting how hard it is to land a job anywhere. let alone at wk. and that it doesn't depend on the team alone. it depends on a series of factors (agency needing people, nice birefs around, clients producing work, etc, etc). so come on people! give the guys a break!
ReplyDeletefür mich, waldemar und jai seit ihr fucking rockstars!und wenn du morgen acdc/angus young like mit dem einbeinigen gitarrentanz und jai slash mässig dort ankommt ,packt ihr die füße auf tisch, sagt tony das er euch ein kaffee bringen soll und genießt dann eure woche!
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ReplyDeleteGood luck guys and keep at it, you're better than just your book. Advertising is about arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. Your blog engages people and is testimony to the potential of such. Advertising is a poetry of Capitalism, or there abouts. Keep up the commentary and don't get dishearten by others negativity.
ReplyDeleteW+K don't hire from the placement scheme that often. I think the last one was hired 3-4 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThe calibre of what you are up against is that the last junior team I know to be hired there is Sarah and Mandy. They'd developed their own product line with TEMPlate which won them several awards, were subject of a More4 documentary working with Paul Arden, CR and Design week ran articles on them.
Tony said that he was impressed with their book because each project was based on a solid truth, they'd pushed every idea as far as they could and it showed they were enthusiastic people who liked creating ideas as well as thinking of them. All their work was actually art directed, patented, filmed or made. (fromhttp://www.creativereview.co.uk/crblog/one-to-watch-sarah-ginn-mandy-smith/)
Getting access to Tony D and a book crit from him is worth it. Now you're on his radar make sure you keep improving and send him stuff.
W+K feels like a place you have to keep going back to and build up a relationship with in order to get hired if you're not outrageously brilliant.
I'm sure you already know to be stealing another brief. Turn your extra week into another one. If you can't get another brief, pick a client and do something any way. Put what Tony said instantly into action.
Well done guys for getting something good made. That's an awesome achievement in itself.
You want to hear the funniest thing.
ReplyDeleteThose girls got fired recently.
Oh dear.
Maybe because they couldn't write ads....
ReplyDeletethat's quite funny!
ReplyDeletecool places like w+k started rejecting advertising creatives and hiring creative cool people from different backgrounds (wkside, girls with TEMplate) only to realize they are just advertising agencies in the end, and that they need to do some ads to get money...
Fired! really? That's a shame.
ReplyDeleteWould that be fired from W&K or somewhere else?
Best of luck to you both Jai and Wal at what could be your last week at placement there...
It'd be good to hear Jai's thoughts every now and then. It wouldn't be the Wal show quite so much then - show you're a team!
re anon 11.41
ReplyDeleteOi you parrot! that was supposed to a secret, last time i tell you anything! x
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLahYcb7Ppg
ReplyDeleteHere's another example.
It's completely do-able, the technology does exist.
Keep it in mind cause this stuff wins awards!
Sorry lorry
ReplyDeletecome on wal, tell us the truth. did the TEMplate girls really get fired?
ReplyDeleteI noticed you've stopped calling him Tony D, please tell me you called him that and then he slapped you.
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ReplyDeleteOuch, where are they now???
ReplyDeleteIf that Tesco thing is true, that's a joke.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me there's loads of twatty junior teams going around with these wishy washy 'wouldn't it be great' ideas that are shit! And would be impossible to do.
Baked Bean campaign
ReplyDeleteThe brief was set by a team at Red Brick Road. They have Tesco as a client and wanted to see what we could do for a humble can of value baked beans. We saw this as a re-branding project and found out that quite a percentage of people were partial to eating beans cold and do it fairly regularly. As beans are fairly nutritious we thought it would be funny to remarket the product and give it more of a brand voice that people could relate to in a warm way. All the images are how we’d suggest they would be packaged and positioned. We wanted to make the idea of eating cold beans socially expectable so we changed the packaging to have a ring pull and come with a spork to aid ease of use.
(Off Creative Review)
You still have to give Mandy some credit. I mean she's very, huh, very er... like...
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ReplyDeleteno chance that we keep that kinds of comments up. it's an interesting topic too discuss as long as you keep it clean.
ReplyDeleteC'mon Waldo, no one even mentioned the b word.
ReplyDeleteForgot to say, now that you're at Wiedens you might want to get an autograph off this fella. He's getting really famous.
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/5ua8j2
Yes you're very right to delete those comments, it's not very gentlemanly to kick a girl when shes down, come on guys anyone of of us could get fired why stick the boot in?
ReplyDeletedid read some of the earlier comments and think its ridiculous in the extreme that just because they're a female team that the only way they must of gotten a job is through sexual favours, you should all be ashamed of yourselves, i can't believe this rampant sexism still continues...for shame.
ReplyDeletere borat
ReplyDeletetoo true, pretty nasty comments about them girls, guessing mainly from jealous young teams who have no chance of getting a job at w&k.
maybe the CR thing was a jinx, have to admit not being impressed by their work, the baked bean thing was poor.
understand that W&K want to be different and most young teams have rubbish books nowadays (due to too much time blogging?) but to do well in advertising you have to understand advertising and strategy.
jeez...anyone know what they're up to now or why they went?
ReplyDeleteAnd does this now mean that all you unemployed placement jobbers are looking to take their place?
I'm a firm believer that you could learn from your mistakes but more importantly, you could learn from other people's mistakes.
ReplyDeleteIn that spirit, it'd be just useful to see why were they fired when apparently had impressed Tony & Kim so much! All of us could learn from that.
I doubt it's true.
ReplyDeleteYou never heard of
people getting fired
from Wiedens. Ever.
No matter how rubbish
they are.
they're winding you up, mate.
ReplyDeleteno such thing.
Sarah and Mandy weren't fired.
ReplyDeleteThey were offered a better position at a better place. Simple as that.
That's good to hear John... i don't know either of them, but wish them well. They've obviously got something to impress such people, and clearly work hard and are motivated. I don't like to hear of anyone being fired either, I imagine that to be horrid.
ReplyDeleteWe shouldn't be talking about people being fired at WK, specially when Wal's effort is coming to an end.
ReplyDeleteUnless of course it means there's a job opening for keen old Wally.
ReplyDeleteWal, mate. Care to share some of those Tony Davidson thoughts here? It'd be much appreciated, thank you.
ReplyDeleteTony shared lots of ideas, and told us he'd kill us if they get out, he repeated this, like, three times :D
ReplyDeleteSarah&Mandy are indeed not at W+K anymore, they left a couple of weeks ago, why they are gone and where they are off to, we don't know. We heard different things really.
Hey Wal, cheers for the comment! We think that ad is pretty good too, love the way the fly crashes out of the house :D I think we've actually met, by the way, last year in Leicester Square when you were looking for a partner? Anyway, we're well envious of you two being at W+K, what a thing to have on your CV! Where you off to next?
ReplyDeleteGuy.
(from http://guyandsarah.blogspot.com/)
*I wrote "fly" instead of "car"...all that Yorkshire Tea's gone to me noggin!
ReplyDeleteGuy.
Oh C'mon Wally, give us a general notion.
ReplyDeletewhat is wrong with you people, he was told not to say anything.
ReplyDeletego get a placement at W&K and ask the man himself.
Bit defensive aren't we?
ReplyDeleteWal wouldn't have to be specific as to what was said, but hey I know Wal & Jai earned that feedback and advice, and if they don't want to share those wise words that's their prerogative.
Dunno who is forcing them to share it.
ReplyDeleteYou're being redundant.
We could speculate and Wal could say warmer or colder.
ReplyDeleteI'll kick off things:
ReplyDeleteMandy was caught stealing clips and rubbers.
What are we guessing?
ReplyDeleteThis could take a while!
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ReplyDeleteDid you guys do any of those 'Cheese Factory' like stunts?
ReplyDeleteThat was mega, and you two are amazing!
No Cheese here :)
ReplyDeleteWal...i think i love you.
ReplyDeleteGet your hands off! I saw him and his little beard first
ReplyDeleteWell Hello there anonymous! ( you know who you are)
ReplyDeleteAll i can say is quite frankly, why kick a man down when he is low? We design for Humans, so lets treat creatives with a little humanity.
We all know the industry is a tough and arse licking, snarl bearing world out there.. but what oozes from Jai and Wal's direction kicks the arse out of most junior teams. Enthausim, personal motivation, and inspiring other placement teams is what makes these two well worth employing.
Honesty is greatly respected, but its all very well saying such extreme things when your nicely employed, and your life is panned out beneath your eyes.
Times are hard for Junior teams in 2008, with the Credit crunch biting its way through fresh creative potential and recession luming on the horizon.
After Placement after placement working 12 hours a day.... junior teams stun companies with their eternal positivity and motivation. Are sadly, almost always given a bottle of champayne and a cheery farewell.
Why? Cheap Labour and actually dare I say it Exploitation!
So what now for Jai and Wal?
We can combat the eternal circle of placement after placment to establish are own, unique fresh faced industry armed with junior creatives,
This will turn advertising on its head.
Well Hello there anonymous! ( you know who you are)
ReplyDeleteAll i can say is quite frankly, why kick a man down when he is low? We design for Humans, so lets treat other creatives with a little humanity.
We all know the industry is a tough and arse licking, snarl bearing world out there.. but what oozes from Jai and Wal's direction kicks the arse out of most junior teams. Enthausim, personal motivation, and inspiring other placement teams is what makes these two worth employing.
Honesty is greatly respected, but its all very well saying such extreme things when your nicely employed, and your life is panned out beneath your eyes.
Times are hard for Junior teams in 2008, with the Credit crunch biting its way through fresh creative potential and recession luming on the horizon.
After Placement after placement working 13/14 hours a day.... junior teams stun companies with their eternal positivity and motivation. Yet are sadly, almost always given a bottle of champayne and a cheery farewell.
Why? Cheap Labour and dare I say it Exploitation!
So what now for Jai and Wal?
We can combat the eternal circle of placement after placment to establish are own, unique fresh faced company armed with junior creatives.
This will turn the advertising industry on its head.
All of the deleted posts have devalued the value (sic!) of this blog. Oh, they were harsh on you? Someone should have been. Perhaps you didn't want to listen.
ReplyDeleteOkay...people can be harsh--and really funny. But people only want good stuff in the end. From you, for you. From the universe. If you are not used to harsh stuff...no wonder shit never really happened for you. You should have acted on all that harsh shit.
Are you gonna delete this post???