Nick Warren Corporate Creative
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
LOERIES ON THE WING
We've just submitted our Loeries entries for 2012.
Well done Marisa and the team!
It's amazing how much work one relatively small team in one relatively boutique agency can produce in a year.
It's very gratifying when so much of that work gets entered into the nation's biggest creative awards.
And it's very exciting to sit by and see how these entries fare in the hearts and minds of the judging panel.
So, thanks to Producers Shayne and Mic Mann, and directors, Jenine Collocott, James Cunningham, Tyron Janse van Vuuren, Charmain Weir Smith, and Gilli Apter, and all of the cast and crew and technical wizards like Stephen Buchanan and Designer Goddesses like Chantelle Lourens that turned words on a page into wonders in the world.
Holding thumbs up!
We've just submitted our Loeries entries for 2012.
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Standard Bank PBB Indaba 2012 - Multimedia |
Well done Marisa and the team!
![]() |
Out of the Blue - Internal Communications - Video |
It's amazing how much work one relatively small team in one relatively boutique agency can produce in a year.
![]() |
Kumba Shareholder - Theatre Piece |
It's very gratifying when so much of that work gets entered into the nation's biggest creative awards.
![]() |
Telkom Business Mobile Launch - Multimedia |
And it's very exciting to sit by and see how these entries fare in the hearts and minds of the judging panel.
![]() |
KickStart Awards - Multimedia |
So, thanks to Producers Shayne and Mic Mann, and directors, Jenine Collocott, James Cunningham, Tyron Janse van Vuuren, Charmain Weir Smith, and Gilli Apter, and all of the cast and crew and technical wizards like Stephen Buchanan and Designer Goddesses like Chantelle Lourens that turned words on a page into wonders in the world.
![]() |
SAB Responsible Trader - Live & Video |
Holding thumbs up!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Opinion Piece for Marketing Mix
CREATIVE STRATEGY – A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?
Creative
strategy is like conceptual architecture; it underpins the direction of a
campaign, provides form, shape and function to an idea, and offers a blueprint
for execution.
When I
worked as a copywriter in advertising, the strategist was an important – if
sometimes frustrating - member of the team.
My art
director and I would listen to a brief and allow that accidental collision of
conceptual collateral spin around in our brains like so many diamonds and pearls
in a mixer. All the while waiting impatiently for the suits to leave so we
could ‘crack’ the concept.
But
more often than not the strategist would then pipe up and - with a flick of his
tie or her cravat - share a series of market insights and brand associations
and research findings and competitor landscapes and then even – horror of
horrors – a couple of potential creative avenues that might be worth exploring.
The
point I learned about strategy - good strategy – is that it can be very
creative. Good strategy can open up whole new vistas of possibilities, each
bolstered by the cautious probabilities of target market and media insights.
That’s
all good PR for strategy, but can creative be strategic? I think it can. In
fact, increasingly I think it has to be.
If you
spend enough time listening to rubbish radio ads, suffering bad billboards, poor
print ads, and terrible TV commercials then you will soon recognise the empty
ring of hollow creative.
There
used to be a saying in radio advertising, ‘if you have nothing to say, sing
it’. A lot of empty creative communications today seem to be saying, ‘if you’ve
got nothing to say, spell it out.’
These hollow
howlings can be an insult to intelligence, a bewildering barrage of visual
baloney, or the sledgehammer slaughter of creative integrity. But either way, when
you see it, you will know it. There is something not quite right. Something is
missing.
A
concept without a creative strategy is like a Canadian action movie – it can
sometimes be quite good, but it can never be quite satisfying.
The
same applies – even more so perhaps because the time we demand of our audiences
– to events and productions in the experiential space.
Here -
where we have an audience in a place where we can lock the doors and kill the
lights - a strategically sound creative concept becomes even more critical.
Experiential
is where we can promise an audience ‘a delightful journey of discovery’, only
to deliver ‘a torturous stumble through a conceptual vacuum’ if there is no
creative strategy guiding the way.
A creative’s
first impulse is to discover brand new territory. A strategist seeks to know
the terrain and plan the route. Without each discipline a great communication can
get lost, or get nowhere.
For
example, when we recently launched the BMW sponsorship of Springbok Rugby team
our creative strategy was to put our audience in the boots of a Springbok
player and parallel the thrill of running into a packed stadium with the trill
of driving a BMW. The creative concept for this event, ‘Tar to Turf’ contained
the strategy but projected the promise with much more emotional force.
When
Telkom Business invited us to launch their Mobile offering our creative strategy
was to focus on the unique strengths of their fixed line infrastructure as a
powerful and reliable anchoring point for the newly converged mobile services.
The experiential elements that we built around this strategy only really
started to fly when we came up with the concept of ‘Fixed Line, Infinite
Mobility’.
And when
we produced a conference for 1500 managers at Standard Bank our creative strategy
centred on the fact that they have been in operation for 150 years. Once again
the creative theme, ‘from Steam Train to Gautrain’ did a better job of turning
that potentially dry historical milestone into a compelling experiential event.
So, if
you don’t have a creative strategy guiding your next campaign or experiential
communication, then you might have something missing in your thinking. You might
find yourself locked inside a darkened room, with an audience that feels
somehow … empty.
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