We have Bookmarks

We received our Bookmark Pixels yesterday. Here they are sitting on our Award mantelpiece.

Hoping to add a whole lot more over coming months!

Andy’s Lexus IS-F Experience

Our creative team went up to Joburg this week to get the experience of the new Lexus IS-F for a new upcoming campaign. This car is a beast. Here’s a clip of our great and industrious Creative Director Andy Ellis giving it a go.

Words that ring true today – Bill Bernbach

One of the industry greats, Bill Bernbach (the B in DDB) wrote this letter to his  employers at Grey World Wide in 1947. This seems to be ringing true, even more so today then ever.

Dear ___________:

Our agency is getting big. That’s something to be happy about. But it’s something to worry about, too, and I don’t mind telling you I’m damned worried. I’m worried that we’re going to fall into the trap of bigness, that we’re going to worship techniques instead of substance, that we’re going to follow history instead of making it, that we’re going to be drowned by superficialities instead of buoyed up by solid fundamentals. I’m worried lest hardening of the creative arteries begin to set in.

There are a lot of great technicians in advertising. And unfortunately they talk the best game. They know all the rules. They can tell you that people in an ad will get you greater readership. They can tell you that a sentence should be this sort or that long. They can tell you that body copy should be broken up for easier reading. They can give you fact after fact after fact. They are the scientists of advertising. But there’s one little rub. Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art.

It’s that creative spark that I’m so jealous of for our agency and that I am so desperately fearful of losing. I don’t want academicians. I don’t want scientists. I don’t want people who do the right things. I want people who do inspiring things.

In the past year I must have interviewed about 80 people – writers and artists. Many of them were from the so-called giants of the agency field. It was appalling to see how few of these people were genuinely creative. Sure, they had advertising know-how. Yes, they were up on advertising technique.

But look beneath the technique and what did you find? A sameness, a mental weariness, a mediocrity of ideas. But they could defend every ad on the basis that it obeyed the rules of advertising. It was like worshiping a ritual instead of the God.

All this is not to say that technique is unimportant. Superior technical skill will make a good man better. But the danger is a preoccupation with technical skill or the mistaking of technical skill for creative ability.

The danger lies in the temptation to buy routinized men who have a formula for advertising.  The danger lies in the natural tendency to go after tried-and-true talent that will not make us stand out in competition but rather make us look like all the others.

If we are to advance we must emerge as a distinctive personality. We must develop our own philosophy and not have the advertising philosophy of others imposed on us.

Let us blaze new trails. Let us prove to the world that good taste, good art, and good writing can be good selling.

Respectfully,
Bill Bernbach

Breakfast session with Chris Colborn from R/GA New York

On Tuesday, the Cape Town Stonewall+ team had the opportunity of meeting with Chris Colborn, Chief Experience Officer at R/GA, who was in South Africa to judge the entries of The Bookmarks 2009, an initiative founded by the OPA to award outstanding digital work in South Africa.

During his session he presented insights on two very significant and well-known campaigns produced by R/GA, NIKEiD and NIKE+. He talked about how these were built to be scalable engagement platforms that enhanced the digital brand experience for Nike customers. He also discussed R/GA’s theories on bought, owned and earned media using brand platforms as well as looking at branding in the digital space using signifiers & behaviours and ultimately blending user experience with e-commerce.

It was extremely insightful for the Stonewall+ team and a very active Q&A followed afterwards, which delved into, innovation in an agency, approaches to campaign measurement, an info session on RGA University, R/GA’s expansion into Singapore & Sao Paulo and Agency dynamics.

A big thanks to Chris for his time and sharings, hope you enjoyed your stay in South Africa!