Monday, April 14, 2008

Mirror Mirror on the wall…

…who's the most creative of them all?

On Friday, Leo Burnett was great and gave us the day off so we could attend the wanted ads awards here in London, held by the Newspaper Society. The purpose; to gather talented young creatives from all over Britain, put them in a sexy building and let them compete against each other for one day. Delightfully this day started off great and was pleasantly sunny as we arrived at the London Art House in Islington, a great location we must say.

We were virgins to this event but some teams had been coming for the past couple of years. A few minutes after 9:30 the arena was filled with 24 creative teams, the highest number of participants ever in it's six year life. The conditions to participate were, you need to be a creative team and work in the advertising industry for no more than three years. Most of the teams were in their first jobs, with only a handful still on placement, like us.

We bumped into lots of familiar faces and even more new ones. We were quite glad to see so many people from our course, the new bucks university.

Tanked on Coffee we gathered in the main room to get briefed.

Al Young, the Creative Director of St.Luke's took the creative lead and introduced us to the tricky part of the brief: local media. The brief was set by Vodafone, we had to come up with an idea translating their existing strategy 'Make the most of now' into local media to communicate closer to the target audience. We were the keenest kids in town, right on the front row. During Al's brief speech he told us that we were here to win, like gladiators, to defeat and to kill (well not quite), but you get it. The eager competitiveness of this event was the best thing about it.

Armed with pens, pads and the brief under one arm the creative teams then spread through the building, every team was assigned a place.

Our spot was 'the Art Studio', we were sharing it with Imogen & Lianne from McCann-Erickson, Manchester.

It was a race against time, with ideas and moments flying by, we jotted down our initial thoughts and then worked on further. Although the seating was comfy, Wal strangely dropped on the floor to search for inspiration on the ceiling. The minutes pretty much ticked on in the same fashion. We had five hours to come up with a campaign idea to fit the local challenge and like most teams we used and needed every last second.

At 4pm the work was stopped and the teams rushed down for their well earned break before presenting their ideas to the groups of judges. Everyone was stressed out as the pressure was high – everyone wanted to succeed.

After presenting we spent the time waiting for the results with calming beer and nervous chatter.

The break gave us a second to catch up with a few mates and take some snaps. Here's James & James & Jai & Wal. They're great guys and are currently on placement at Lowe, they work in our former cheese factory office.

Next the announcement of the winners. Short, sharp and straight to the point. Naturally it left most disappointed but the two winning ideas totally deserved it, they were quite brilliant. Sadly none of them was us but hey there's always next year, a great day like this deserves a second try.


To drown the sorrow and celebrate the lesson the whole bunch went on to the pub.

Where people discussed the work, made new friends and enjoyed the Friday evening after this day of brain acrobatics.

Congratulations to the winners, Miranda and Zoe from LeanMeanFightingMachine and Enrique and Borja from Mother. Even crestfallen about not having won we agreed that their work was great and earned them the prize: They will attend the European wide competition, which will be held for two days in Stockholm in a months time. So fingers crossed for our UK teams! Go on guys make us proud.

After a couple of hours things became hazy and the photos blurry, good times. It was a great learning curve for us and can't wait for next year.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

How the hell do you find out about these things? You should post a diary of up and coming events for young creatives, now theres an idea

Anonymous said...

Congrats Borja!

Anonymous said...

Do you ever do any work?

Anonymous said...

Up and coming events listing sounds great - you should do that guys.

This events should then be big hits, and get the recognition they no doubt desevve.

Anonymous said...

UNLUCKY... You should be glad you didn't win... Did you see the stupid pose the winners were made to be photographed in last year! HAHAHAHA

Anonymous said...

Would you be kind enough to post the result of your efforts? a.i. your ads for this brief. That'd be cool.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a good day, never heard of it before.

what did you come up with?

Jai said...

anon 12:57

might be a good idea to read campaign now and again, it's filled with lots of useful advertisingy stuff. here's a link to start you off http://www.brandrepublic.com/campaign/

good luck!

Anonymous said...

pisspoorenglish

we left our work with the judges, our line was 'make the most of 'hounslow/huddersfiel/insert local area here' now.

we're planning a diary, dunno if it happens.

Anonymous said...

"might be a good idea" - you don't say! How patronising; people are only saying it looked like a good day and are obviously interested to get involved in days like this themselves.

What would be your reasoning for not sharing the info?

Not everyone can afford to buy Campaign each week you know.

Anonymous said...

Diary is a good plan Wal - go for it.

It should increase the number of hits on your blog too (I assume that's something you'd want - more readers)

Anonymous said...

we signed up for this thing two days before it started, found an ol' campaign lying around and the ad in it. lucky i guess. we're not coy about things, we love to share, that's why we write this blog in the first place.

Anonymous said...

Lucky indeed - you were obviously meant to go!

I'm glad you say you like to share, we've all got to help each other out even though you feel like other creatives are your competition.

It's a small industry, and you'll find everyone knows each other in way or another. The fact you're free with the events you find etc will inevitably create contacts for you guys, and people who are more willing to do you a favour i.e. 'I heard of a job going at XXX that I think would be great you for'

I've had that myself simply becuase I've tried to help others...

What goes around comes around!

Anonymous said...

not 'your'

Anonymous said...

The brunette in the gray shirt is tasty.
I'd do her.

Anonymous said...

'grey'

Unknown said...

wow post this.

Anonymous said...

anon. @ 4/17/2008 05:28:00 PM
I'd do that one too.

Anonymous said...

Did you know that Zoe & Miranda came first in the Best YET competition in Stockholm and Enrique & Borja came 2nd? Hurrah for the UK teams!! It could be you next year http://www.brandrepublic.com/login/News/808500/

Anonymous said...

Well said.