Monday, October 5, 2009

Lipton competition interview

We (Robbin, Nathan & me) went to Paris last week to present our idea and work in front of the Tribal DDB team and Garth Woolley, the global brand manager of Lipton.

Here's an interview from the Hyper Island blog about it:

How did you end up working together?
We (Robbin & Waldemar) worked together in a previous school project. We enjoyed that, so when we got the brief from Tribal DDB and Lipton it felt natural to continue with our collaboration. Nathan joined in as the missing piece and our group was formed.

How come you submitted to the contest in the first place?
The brief arrived immediately after our second module where our very inspiring project leader Henrik (kudos!) armed us with tools for generating and developing ideas. This challenge looked like a perfect opportunity to practice and use those toy on our own. And obviously we were excited about having the chance for a trip to Paris.

What was the brief about?
It was about finding a solution that would connect Lipton Ice Tea and their message "Drink Positive" with its audience. The criteria was that it would have to be innovative; something that simply could not have been possibly five years ago.

What's your concept about?
We call it the "Smile Experiment", basically it's about bringing the Lipton Ice Tea message to life and connecting it to Lipton's target audience in a really cool way. Think emotional browsing... for the moment though we can't give away too much information because we're Tribal DDB and Lipton are looking for a way to produce our idea.

What if you win?
We did win! We went to Paris thursday morning and presented to the client, Tribal DDB and a bunch of other people visiting the Digital Days. The client loved it and we've received nothing but praise from everyone involved. Bringing our idea to life will initially mean a lot of planning and testing on behalf of Lipton and Tribal DDB. For us, this means that we not only won a competition and a piece for our portfolio – but also a chance to get our idea produced. Maybe even more trips to Paris or London, fingers crossed.

Any new learnings?
Lots! First of all about the work progress and the great value of having tools and structure for generating ideas. Secondly that don't settle for an idea before you get that special butterfly feeling in your stomach. We generated a couple of hundred ideas, lots of bad ones and about three "good enough" and in the end this one that filled our criterias of being both great and innovative. For the presentation we created a case movie. Despite of being a bit persuasive the movie also made us think ahead and plan exactly what we we're gonna say to whom. We ended up rewriting the script a couple of times and each time made the idea and our common understanding of the possibilities even greater.

Feature dreams, where would you like to end up?
Answering this questions while sipping a cappuccino next to the impressive Notre Dame, it's tempting to say Paris. But honestly, time will tell. It's not so much about a certain place in the world as about finding a nice atmosphere with values focused on creating idea driven work. Nathan is excited about Japan as a place to work, we are still spinning the globe.

Congratulations also to the following students whose projects made it to the final stages of the contest: Azin Ashourvan, Gro Larsson, Lasse Korsgaard, Jon Eskilsson, Minna Johans, Magnus Karlsson, Alexander Kristensen

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounding very confident Wal! Look forward to seeing your piece in the real world. You seem proud of it too unlike some of the other bits and bobs you've previously done.

Can tell you're not copywriters though - but I must admit English is probably a second language for most of you, so I shouldn't really pick your interviewer / note taker on that.

Well done mate!