Farewell Blogger

Thanks for visiting my blog.  I've said farewell to Blogger.  My creative observations can now be found over on Tumblr at  http://geniuscreative.tumblr.com/

Some online goodness found amid the riot chaos.

It’s hard to imagine that any good could come out of the riot chaos that happened across the UK this week.  Social media has come under scrutiny for fueling the events.  Yet recent online projects have proven that it has also brought people together in tough times and shed light on such a terrible situation as well as resulting in some entertaining online content.  Here are my online highlights:

 http://keepaaroncutting.blogspot.com/ was a project set up by interns at agency BBH London.  Aaron lost his barber business to riots in Tottenham, which he had built up over several decades. Touched by his story a blog was set-up by the interns where members of the public could donate to get Aaron’s business up and running again.  The project has now closed after raising a staggering 35k.

Another do-good project was  http://somethingniceforashraf.tumblr.com/ Ashraf was a young boy who was robbed as he lay injured during the riots. A fund was organised to raise money to do something nice for the guy which finally totaled at over 22k.

This week proved how social media tools could be used to enable people to collaborate and respond to the riots to produce positive outcomes. @riotcleanup with over 80,000 members was a group with the aim of organising and publicising clean-up efforts throughout the UK.

http://catchalooter.tumblr.com (which seems to have now moved over to (http://zavilia.com/) and its Twitter/Facebook page called on members of the public to identify uploaded images of rioters.  From such images a number of humorous blogs were set-up such as http://photoshoplooter.tumblr.com/ and http://lootalikes.tumblr.com/

Agency Dare created http://thisisourlondon.com/ to send the message that not all Londoners possess such disorderly behaviour, that the ‘actions that happened are not a true reflection of our city’.  The site displays pictures of Londoners coming together to ‘revive and reclaim’ their streets.

Sites such as http://tinyurl.com/4yfh97w  that mapped the London riots displayed the alarming scale of the rioting and warned people of effected areas. 

The campaign ‘Operation Cup Of Tea'  http://www.operationcupoftea.com/  encouraged people to anti-riot by staying in with a cup of tea instead, with the message of ‘make tea not war’.  The group took Facebook and Twitter by storm with 321,985 attending. Supporters had to take a photo of themselves posing with a cup of tea and then upload it to the Facebook page. 

Above displays one of my favorite images from the week depicting a couple handing out tea to police officers on a riot shield, some of which had been on duty for 30 hours.  A typical British sentiment: tea solves all situations.

Here’s an interesting read on ‘How the riots showed us two sides of social networking’ http://bit.ly/npcC7L

Industry insight, what makes a winning portfolio?

I’ve recently been working the book crit circuit after graduating from University and thought it would be useful to share my insight.  It has proved a challenge judging precisely what constitutes a sound portfolio; agencies can give conflicting feedback.  Creative is a subjective matter, though parallels emerge.  I am putting this experience to good use by compiling a list of suggestions below.

1/ The big idea must come across in all forms of communication.  The key is: if you can communicate the big idea in a poster, you’re on to a winner.  The best ideas are clear and simple.

2/ Make sure media choice is relevant, don’t just throw a Facebook page on the end of a campaign for the sake of it.  Your creative judgement is questioned.  Choose the medium which best gets the idea across.
 

3/ Tackle major household brands - agencies like to see how you can turn them around - as they prove more of a challenge.  Don’t go for the obvious or include little known brands they will not have heard of.

4/ I can’t overstress the importance of reading up on the agency prior to a crit.  It’s not all about you. You will be working for the agency and they want to know how you can be of benefit to them.  If you really want to impress, produce ideas for an account the agency has just won, or show how you would improve on past clients’ work.  Tailor your portfolio for each agency.      

5/ It’s all about the ideas.  You don’t have to be a whiz on Photoshop, a book of scamps is perfectly acceptable.  Although, work does have to be well presented, especially if you are an Art Director.
    

6/ Work with brands from a range of areas to show how you can diversify creative.

7/ Follow up a crit with an email/phone call, even if they said they would contact you.  Face the fact that you are not at the top of their to-do list; keep reminding the agency who you are.  Send them improved work and new ideas, be keen.  

8/ Start and finish with your best work.

9/ In terms of digital v. traditional, you need to have digital in your book to appear up-to-date, it is where the future of advertising is heading.  Obviously, its dominance in your book depends on what type of agency you want to work in (integrated, digital, traditional).  Your book should reflect your role and where you want to be.

10/ Don’t play safe. Push the boundaries. Be creative.  After all, your book provides an opportunity to show what you are really made of.

11/ Include a title page for each piece of work with brief and insight, but keep it short.  As a guide, 7-9 campaigns are advised.    

12/ Have your work in a digital space for convenience, sites such as www.thecreativefloor.com/ are useful.  Be willing to conduct a crit over Skype.

13/ Although we all have a passion for advertising, it is important to have other interests you can talk about.  Agencies appreciate that external influences can lead to interesting insights in idea generation. 

14/ It is a good idea to include non-advertising ideas in a book.  Being creative is more than inventing advertising solutions; it is problem solving on different levels.   This proves you can understand a bigger picture.

15/ Most importantly have an opinion and argue your case if necessary. 

I recommend the book, Breaking In, which details all you need to know about creating a winning portfolio with insights from industry professionals.  Here is a preview of the book http://breakinginbook.com/  

Look out

In The Sunday Times newspaper yesterday was an article on a new technology which will change the way we advertise using digital display systems.  The technology scans your face then will tailor adverts in reference to your gender, age or mood.  This takes target marketing to a whole new level.  Far away from the mass targeting approach in the Mad Men days of the 1960s. 

The company 3MGTG who created the product gives a few examples of how this new innovative technology will work.  An example is given of a middle aged man who walks past a chemist where a digital display in the window catches his eye.  A hidden camera in the display scans his face using facial-recognition software and registers his mature years and subsequently displays a hair dye product promotion.  As the man’s wife peers into the window with a furrowed brow, after suffering a headache all day, the technology duly presents her with an advertisement for painkillers, conveniently pinpointing their location in store.  A launch within clothing retail is planned, where it will recommend items depending on how it identifies its target.      

The system can recognise within seconds four types of emotional state: angry, sad, happy and surprised as well as 35 categories of age, working within a 16ft range.  When the system has identified an emotional state it gives a strength/weakness percentage of the detected emotion (as seen in picture above).  Launching in the UK within the next 12 months, a similar technology was released in Japan last year.    

In advertising, we cleverly target ads to specific markets all the time.  However it is never done with such precision or in a way that is so obvious to the consumer.  Could there be an invasion of privacy issue here?

everythings an influence