Ben and I went to a great talk last night hosted by LBi and put together by Creative Social. Excellent speakers riffing and ranting on a provocative subject…NO! Each speaker spitted and swore their way through the world of advertising, regaling tales of what really makes them think, scream or cry…..NOOOOO!
Speakers…
Sam Ball, Creative Partner, Lean Mean Fighting Machine
Laura Jordan, Bambatch, Creative Director, Dare
Steve Price, Creative Director, Plan-B Studio
Becker Power, Executive Creative Director, Grand Union
Flo Heiss, Executive Creative Director, Dare
Andy Sandoz, Creative Partner and Innovation Director, Work Club
Quick run-down of the eve below…
- Sam talked bullsh*t…or to be more precise, that there’s more bull in advertising than anywhere, ever. Full of charlatans espousing nonsense. His view, think critically. So-called experts may not be. If Newtonian physics was proven to have holes in it, the stuff you hear in our world every day probably does too. Think about stuff, don’t just accept it.
- Laura we learnt is an existentialist (dangerous position given Sam’s opening gambit). For her, and contrary to accepted wisdom, existentialists are essentially positive. So celebrate what’s possible, believe in yourself, take action, do something, don’t just sit there. Also backing tracks to presentations can be useful, especially if it’s this.
- Steve screamed NO! to desks (a largely good idea), NO! to brainstorms, NO! to egos (employ more women), and asked everyone to love what they do; if you don’t love it, don’t do it, go do something else or rediscover why you loved it in the first place
- Laura Power talked about how to turn NOs into YESes. Key advice, “a good idea is not enough” and “the client is (probably) not stupid”. Put as much thought in to the selling as the thinking. Never forget that your client needs to sell the idea to their boss. If they don’t get it, they can’t sell it
- Andy implored everyone to set their NO filter. But don’t be a prat about it – its not binary – your filter should be a dial – set it to “minimal viable shizzle” just enough “shizzle” to make it fly but not too much to frighten off the money, i.e. your client. Be brave but not stupid
- All the speakers were great but for me, Flo Heiss from CD @ Dare nailed it. He opened with this…
If you’ve ever been to Louvre you will be familiar with it. Why? He wanted to reflect on digital living, the 21st century need to document every moment…but what on earth are we doing he asked? To prove his point he threw down his clicker, greyed out his screen and made us all sit in silence for 5 minutes…in a room with 250 other people this was horrible – weirdly painful. It was a good experiment though – with tweeting through talks, when watching shows, 2, 3, 4 screening, massively multitasking every waking moment…when was the last time you put your phone down, sat in silence, opened your eyes, looked around, observed, thought, considered, appreciated, enjoyed, even felt bored? He’s got a point – we’re all too busy documenting to feel – we think we derive value out of sharing which we do to a point, but what about the thing itself, don’t just show people you were there, really BE there.
Inspiring stuff…
John
