“Stop squeezing the hamster to death!”

Posted: October 30, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

OMG. TRACY WONG.

When Tracy Wong, chairman and Creative director of Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener, nonchalantly meandered into my Creative Strategist class Thursday afternoon, I wasn’t quite sure what was in store. From what Deb had said, I knew my fellow classmates and I would need to hold on to our hats! Dressed in sneakers, skinny jeans, a black zipped-up hoodie and thick, black-framed glasses, Wong was the spitting image of my vision of a stereotypical ad-geek/hipster (which is a compliment).

Like with every guest lecturer, Deb gives us a short introduction on the person: Where they work, work they’ve done, how amazing they are, etc. Tracy, most likely feeling like he wasn’t worthy of such praise (he’s mistaken), interrupted to say that it’s best to “under-promise and over-deliver.” His actual presentation hadn’t even started yet, but I and classmates around me grabbed our pens and scribbled down his words.

Once introductions were done, we got down to it. The hour and a half flew by! His lecture covered 6 points about creativity.

 

  1. Biggest Creative Barrier? Your big, fat fucking EGO.

 

Your ego can highjack your career and block ideas. Creatives (and anyone in the advertising business) with big egos may hold tight to their first idea, destroying the opportunity to dig deeper and possibly find something greater. Creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised! If you stop after one repetition, you won’t get far. It’s important to learn how to let it go and that your very first idea might not be your best. Also, you aren’t your ideas! Sometimes when an idea is criticized by the client, the Creative who had the idea takes it very personally. Their idea is like their baby, and it hurts their feelings when someone says it sucks.

I doodled this while Tracy was explaining how many ideas are immediately put into the “No” pile by the higher-ups in an agency setting. Don’t get discouraged!

  1. 99% of any great idea is strategy.

 

There isn’t much to add to this point other than the fact that everyone is responsible for strategy. It isn’t just up to the art director and the writer. Account people play a huge role in strategizing, being the ones who work between the client and the Creatives. Account people need to hear both sides and think, “Okay, how do we make both sides happy and still solve a business problem?”

 

  1. Greatest creative weapon? EARS!

 

Open up your ears! As Tracy put it so beautifully, “Knowledge talks. Wisdom listens.” Sometimes Creatives can be guilty of shutting out what the client has to say if the client shoots down the idea. Again, this relates back to letting go. The client most likely has a reason for disliking something about the idea. When you get down to it, they need you to solve a business problem for them. You need to figure out how to make it work. Tracy compared a Creative’s idea to their pet hamster. They own it and love it and SQUEEZE it nearly to death, trying to hang on to it. Loosen your grip on your poor, suffocating hamster. Open your ears, empty your mind and listen to your client.

 

  1. Secret to success in advertising? Embrace compromise.

 

Whether you like it or not, the client is your customer and the customer is always right (even if they aren’t). This relates back to the importance of listening. If you don’t take the time to listen and find out what your client is looking for, you’re cutting yourself short by denying yourself the chance to work your creative muscle even more.

 

  1. What process garners the best creative work? Engage in the democracy of good ideas.

 

A great idea is a great idea, no matter who comes up with it. Every single person in an agency can contribute to the creative process by sharing ideas. The Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener website has a video on their “Career” page on the importance of the democracy of good ideas.

Again, this ties back in with big egos, letting go and strategy. Creatives need to know that they aren’t the only ones who can come up with the winning idea. It can come from an account person or even the agency’s receptionist.

 

  1. Love your client like you love your dog.

 

They are not the enemy and they basically write your paycheck. Befriending them will make working and creating a great piece of work much more pleasant and easier.

I could easily sit through 10 more of Tracy’s lectures. I felt like there was SO much to absorb and wished my brain could only take it all in faster. Along with these six points, he showed us many examples of work his agency had done. What I took away from his lecture and videos is really how important it is to listen and understand your client. He gave us so many examples of times when his team listened hard to the client’s words and then created amazing work (some which had me on the brink of tears, like their “Dear Me” anti-smoking campaign). He also really seemed to understand the importance of the mind and point of view of the consumer.

If you didn’t already know it’s ridiculous to say “Well, I’m not creative so I’m interested in planning…” from Deb’s lectures, you better know it after listening to Tracy Wong of talk for an hour and a half. He gave so much credit to the account people at his agency and really recognized them as a crucial part in the strategizing process. Account people really need to be creative in their work of understanding both the agency side and the client side. It takes a lot of work to make everyone happy.

I look forward to the day I get to learn more from Tracy Wong, but until then I’ll remember and practice these basic ideas I took away from his visit: Get down off of your high horse, empty your mind, listen to everyone and exercise the hell out of your creative muscle.

7. A pep talk in every drop.

Posted: October 23, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment


Halls Defense’s sugar-free cough drops and I have become very close friends over the past week. Along with probably half the student body, I was struck down by the cursed Week 4 Cold. Just as classes start to really pick up speed, we’re sleeping less to keep up…only to get sick and fall further behind! Ah, such a vicious cycle, really.

This is where Halls Defense comes into play! As far as I can remember, I’ve never noticed Halls advertising in the past; however, when I bought two new bags of them at the health center, I noticed the packaging of the individual drops had changed. Gone are the days of the plain, white wrapper with “Halls” printed on them. They now have short and to-the-point motivational phrases all over them. When you’re feeling sick, nothing is more encouraging than a little pep talk. I was pleasantly surprised when I dug into my first bag.

After seeing this new packaging design, I wondered what other creative ads Halls had done in the past that I’d missed out on. I found these 2007 print ads to be really clever. Put together by J. Walter Thompson, they compare Halls Defense to things like breaks on roller skates and seatbelt buckles, implying that Halls Defense is there to protect you.

In my search to find past Halls Defense ads, I discovered the “Pep talk in every drop” campaign had been running since fall of 2010.

While I would normally toss my cough drop wrappers away, I loved the little slogans so much that I held on to all of them, creating a little pile on my desk. I took some photos of my favorites.

This new campaign is a great step towards reaching out and understanding the Halls Defense consumer. It’s creating an emotional bond with the consumer, which increases the likelihood of a first-time customer becoming a returning customer. The team that came up with this pep talk idea completely understands what it’s like to be sick! You always just want to mope around, crawl into bed and forget about class and work. Encouraging words can do wonders.

6. Pure, clean & simple.

Posted: October 22, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My 84-year-old grandma swears by it.

Ivory soap, that is. She has used it for as long as I can remember. When my mom and I would do her shopping, we always had to pick up a bar of plain, white, Ivory soap. That’s what soap should be after all: plain and simple. This is probably one of the Ivory print ads my grandma would have seen when she was a teenager.

Ivory’s newest campaign is taking the little bar of soap back to its roots of simplicity. The “Simplicity” campaign, created by Wieden + Kennedy, highlights the fact that Ivory may be simple, but it works. Dirt has remained the same all these years, so why should soap change? There’s no need to fix it if isn’t broken.

I saw this ad, Identity Crisis, the other day while I was on hulu.

When the ad first started, I thought, “…that’s soap, right?”  Some of the soaps look like they should be decorations instead. What’s with the bacon and eggs?! I wouldn’t want to wash with something that represents a food that’s greasy (…even if it is delicious), and I know I’d much rather use a plain bar of white soap than a brain.

Wieden + Kennedy’s creative director, Karl Lieberman, says that the Ivory brand “has remained the antithesis of the overly complicated—from its ingredients, packaging and advertising—it’s a throwback to an era where there wasn’t time for such things.” In today’s society of glitz and glam and busy, complicated lifestyles, having something be advertised as the complete opposite is quite an attention-getter.

As a side note, I found the choice of music rather interesting. It sounds exactly like something from the soundtrack of the hit show, Glee. With Glee being such a new cultural phenomenon, this could have been Wieden + Kennedy’s attempt at grabbing the consumer’s attention. People watching Glee online could be fooled into thinking the show is back on. This particular a capella song is also very speedy and has a busy, nervous feeling, which could be playing into the idea of our overly-busy lives. While the music is congruent with the strange and complicated soaps, it’s very incongruent with the simplistic idea Ivory is selling. When the montage of obscure soap ends and we see the Ivory soap, the nervous music stops as well, leaving just the Ivory soap.

5. Perverted for life.

Posted: October 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , | Leave a comment

“You’re perverted for life.”

These are the wise words of Dave Koranda, whose Media Planning Bootcamp I attended yesterday afternoon. We attempted to learn an entire term’s worth of information in a mere 3 hours. Talk about getting down to business, right?

I didn’t realize how soon his words would ring so clearly in my mind. As I stepped off the treadmill after my workout this evening, I tiredly slumped over to the laundry baskets of clean and dirty sweat rags. As I reached in for a clean one, and then for the bottle of cleanser, I noticed a poster advertising a 5K Marathon run.


(Excuse the shoddy photography. It was a photo taken rather sneakily…)

At first I thought, “Well, this sounds fun!” Looking at the application date, I was disappointed that it had already past. Not even a second later, however, I thought,

“…how did they decide to put this poster RIGHT here? It really is a perfect place. Runners will see it immediately after getting off the treadmill when they’re still thinking about their run. Some might be thinking, ‘That felt great! I can’t wait to run again! Hey, what’s this poster?’ or ‘Ugh, that run was BRUTAL. How can I find more ways to build up my stamina? Hey…’ Everyone is required to clean off their machines, so this place gets a lot of traffic. It’s also the place everyone stands while waiting for a machine to open up. I hope these posters are also up outside of the REC Center. It seems like a great community event. Are they only targeting gym-goers? The running feet sure caught my eye. Why is this poster still up if the application date has already passed?! Whoever is responsible for this ad obviously didn’t create a schedule to check up on things. And…oh yeah, I’m supposed to be cleaning off my treadmill.”

Perverted for life, indeed.

4. Handbag Interviews

Posted: October 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A new Japanese ad campaign I came across today seems to satisfy that urge you might get when you’re in someone else’s house to look through their desk drawer or cabinets. Everyone is always a little curious like that, right?

Japanese phone service provider NTT DoCoMo and fashion and lifestyle magazine, “Tokyo Graffiti” have teamed up for the “Handbag Interviews” campaign. The campaign brings together 57 different girls from all walks of life with professions ranging from doctor to waitress at a café. The girls were asked to empty the contents of their purse and display them on a table. See? Like the desk drawer.

When I clicked through to the site to see what this campaign was all about, I loved what I saw right away! Vibrant colors, jingling bells and upbeat music and videos of real girls with their handbags. After the opening video is finished, we get to take a closer look at all 57 girls, their handbags, and what’s inside.

The focus of this campaign collaboration is to show why different girls buy certain cell phones and how they use them in ways relating to style and fashion. It’s interesting to see how many girls have items in their purse that match or compliment the look and color of their cell phone. The campaign also surveyed the girls, asking them different questions about their phones. It turns out that most of the girls chose the phone model they did because of the way it looked, as opposed to something like practicality.

The site uses digital and interactive media BEAUTIFULLY! It’s easy to navigate through. You can either watch a slide show of the bag contents of all 57 girls and see them lay out the items themselves in a quick video, or you can click “View” and see thumbnail images scroll by and choose which one you want to see.

If you spot a girl’s handbag contents you find interesting, you can click on the thumbnail and zoom in for a closer look. From there, you can click on individual items such as make up, writing utensils, or cameras to see why she carries it with her or why she likes it. You can share her bag contents with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, and mixi (a Japanese social networking site). You can vote on how かわいい (kawaii/cute) her bag contents are using a “Three ❤ system.” You can even click the “More About Her” button to see her name, her picture, and her answers to some interview questions, such as “What do you use your Smartphone for the most?” In this section, you can get a closer look at her phone as well. Clicking on it then takes you to the DoCoMo website. Another option is you can organize the thumbnail images by age of the girl, her profession, or the model of phone she has.

Depending on how long this ad campaign continues, I think people would really respond well if Japanese celebrities were brought into the picture. I know I’m curious about what celebrities I like always carry around with them, and I’m sure fans would want to have a cell phone like their favorite celebrity if they could!

Not only is the website set up in a wonderful way, the idea for this ad campaign is very smart. It ends up being an ad for much more than Tokyo Graffiti and DoCoMo. It becomes an ad for any of the products or brands the 57 girls take out of their handbags. In today’s advertising world, where consumers are starting to listen to what their friends have to say about a product more so than they listen to an ad, this ad plays up the idea that these girls are just like every other consumer checking out the campaign. With such a wide variety of girls, a future consumer of DoCoMo is bound to find one she can connect with. NTT DoCoMo is trying to say that they have a style of phone for anyone and everyone. They want to create that feeling of understanding their consumer’s needs. If a successful brand is a lock, creating a meaningful connection with a consumer is one of the many keys.

3. Let’s Dance!

Posted: October 11, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why can’t all ads be this fun? Okay, okay. There are the obvious answers like money, time, clients, etc., but even if you don’t have the biggest budget in the world, there’s no excuse to not be this fun and creative. My hat is off to 72andSunny.

Created by 72andSunny’s Amsterdam office, this ad is for Pirelli’s new Pzero tires and is a part of the Let’s Dance campaign. It was filmed in Milan with 30 professional dancers from Paris, Milan and Rome in a flash mob sort of style.

This ad seems to have been born from a group of brand thinkers as opposed to advertising thinkers. While advertising thinking shows off the product, brand thinking shares an idea or emotion. The 2-minute ad is more like a music video, giving off a feeling instead of showing a product. Honestly, the first time I watched it I was too swept up in the awesome choreography and cinematography to even realize what product was being advertised. I simply found myself thinking, “This looks like fun!” The tires themselves are really only shown a few times throughout the entire ad, and even when they are it is barely even for a second at a time.

The main focus points are the dancers, the city and the crowd having a great time. I don’t know if the people in the crowd around the flash mob were hired or not, but I like how they all appear to be people who were just walking around and decide to join in on the dancing. If the latter is true, that makes it even more fun. With this in mind, the brand thinkers who created this ad want the consumer associate Pirelli Tires with fun and good feelings. Sure, they might not know much about the tires themselves from an ad like this, but having a good feeling about a company will eventually influence people to check it out.

2. The brand that couldn’t die?

Posted: October 10, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My roommate and I are both Japanese majors (I’m double-majoring in Japanese and Advertising). Needless to say, we talk about Japanese culture A LOT of the time we’re together. Last week when we were fixing dinner, my roommate asked, “Have you heard of Hatsune Miku?” I knew she was an animated character known as a Vocaloid. Vocaloid is a synthesizer program created by Yamaha that uses voice samplings from different Japanese voice actors. The user of Vocaloid can create songs and sounds that resemble speech by putting different samples together. Each new Vocaloid system uses the voice samples of a different actor and, along with that, an animated character (also referred to as a Vocaloid) is created to represent the product and the voice samples used in the product. The first character created was Hatsune Miku, whose name means “first sound” in Japanese. Created by Crypton Future Media , she is known for her long, turquoise pigtails. Her image and sound has turned her into such an icon that fans attend digital concerts where music created using her sounds is played while she is displayed as a digital hologram. In May of this year, Toyota announced that they were teaming up with Hatsune Miku herself for their new Corolla campaign.

“I have heard of her! She’s in all of the new commercials for Toyota,” I replied.

“She’s kind of creepy,” my roommate continued. “She can never die!” she added.

This thought had never really crossed my mind before. It’s of course true that one of the amazing things about animated characters is that they live on in history forever, even after the original media they were created for is no longer being produced, such as a cartoon series. People still remember the love they had for the character! Like the love of a character, a brand is more about the emotional thoughts and ideas. It’s more about giving people a feeling to remember rather than a price.

Looking at it from a brand perspective, Toyota chose a new spokesperson for their Corolla campaign who is immortal. What does this say about the life of their brand and product? If their spokesperson is immortal, perhaps that represents the idea of Toyota being immortal as well. While a brand needs many things to be immortal, such as a high-quality product and customer service worth bragging about, having an immortal spokesperson doesn’t hurt either.

Here is a compilation of ads for the new Toyota Corolla, featuring Hatsune Miku.

1. Getting my s#!t together. It’s now or never, right?

Posted: October 6, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , | Leave a comment

While it seems Deb Morrison’s slogan for our Creative Strategist class this fall is “Let’s do this,” the vibe I’ve gotten from Deb so far is that it’s time for us to buckle down and “get our shit together.” With the amount of times this is repeated in class, it might as well be the slogan!

Like many of my fellow classmates, I’m not 100% sure what I want to do yet. I know I’m obsessed and passionate about certain products. I’m a creative person. I’ve always loved ads that evoke emotions as opposed to just shoving the product (and price) in your face. I know I love to tell people about whatever it is I love and get them interested, and I know this is one of the things that led me to advertising. But what’s next? With so many jobs in the advertising industry, what do I do now? With this mindset, sometimes it’s hard to start doing things. If you don’t know what you want to do, how do you know what you SHOULD do right now? It’s hard to dive head first into something you don’t know everything about, and yet I’ve realized the only way to figure out where I belong is to start doing! Try things. Find what I like and don’t like. Step out of my comfort zone. Meet people! Listen. Read. Learn. Write. Create! Listing off things to do is the easy part. Actually doing it is the challenge.

I’m currently a 5th-year student. A Super Senior. Taking my victory lap! However you choose to describe it. With two majors and two minors in the making, it’s time to think about eventually wrapping things up, bringing it all together, and getting out there. There’s no time to waste, which is why I wonder what I’m waiting for. At this point in my life and college career, the world is mine for the taking, right?

So today I start! I started by sitting down and writing. I have put off this blog post for fear of not knowing what to write about and thinking it wouldn’t be high enough quality for this class. We’re being treated like beginning professionals, after all. I looked at blogs of fellow classmates and thought, “Aah, their first post is so good! They’re so ahead of me skill-wise.” I have to forget about others for a minute and just do my own thing.

This first post has turned into more of a personal pep talk than anything else, but it’s what I need before taking on a class that, if I can rise to the occasion, will give me endless opportunities! I’ve come up with a little list for myself, just to keep me motivated throughout the term.

After completing Creative Strategist…

  • I’ll be interesting and interested.
  • I’ll have a better understanding of where my place is in the world of Advertising.
  • I’ll be able to rattle off all the top agencies an Advertising student should know and be reading about.
  • I’ll be more confident in thinking, hey! Even though I’m a student, I can create and produce something worth looking at.
  • I’ll start doing, instead of waiting.
  • Most importantly, I’ll have my shit together!

There is no reason not to.