Crime pays for young Melbourne creative team
Young Melbourne creative team Andrew Grinter and Lee Spencer-Michaelsen have taken the law into their own hands, extorting some of Melbourne’s top creative directors in a bid to get noticed.
Late last year the duo purchased the domain names of leading ECDs and held their pages hostage, leaving a digital ransom note on the site demanding a meeting or else “their site would get it”.
Coerced by their threat, meetings with the pair were organised, where unbeknown to the
creative directors, the stunt was to continue offline.
Armed with a camera and hidden by balaclavas, the duo stormed agencies across Melbourne,
leaving an unforgettable first impression, which they then backed up with an impressive folio of
work.
Dubbed ‘The Creative Ransom’, the project has proven that crime does pay.
Says Grinter: “Ultimately our aim was to get noticed and get a job. We wanted to stand out,
create talkability and give CD’s a taste of our personalities. Fortunately our gamble paid off
and we managed to initiate a number of positive relationships with several high profile creative
directors.”
The pair are currently doing time at a leading digital agency, planning and executing their brand of mischief on a regular basis.
CREDITS:
Art Director: Andrew Grinter
Copywriter: Lee Spencer-Michaelsen
18 Comments
Enjoyed looking at the work.
Mercedes headline – very nice. Makes you look like an old pro.
Vegemite ad is very fitting for the product because people, yes, will either love it or hate it.
Good luck to you both.
Great idea guys and good on you for putting yourselves out there. Only thing is, all the stuff in your folio feels a little conservative and expected compared to your stunt. I bet you have wilder thoughts that what’s on there. You should show them – doesn’t matter if they haven’t run, especially as you’re looking for your first break.
umm, been done recently in the USA with bogusky, clow, lubars etc.
look in the big award annuals.
A nice execution of someone else idea:
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/1003185/creative-lands-dream-job-6-google-campaign/
Somewhat of a trend to use social media in the US. Been done many times over in the US.
http://adweek.blogs.com/tweetfreak/2009/05/chris-kahle-tweets-his-way-to-crispin.html
Yep been done in a similar and more insightful way with the Google Experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg
Lesson learned young ones, beware what you PR on CB, you’ll be exposed very very quickly.
Come on, these guys have shown they are obviously qualified for a creative job in Australia – they know how to copy stuff from youtube.
Personally took a look at your work and loved it! Vegemite ad made me crack up!
good work!
Fair play, they got CD’s attention and the start they needed original idea or not. Best of luck to both.
To all those crying ‘done’ – targeting top CD’s isn’t an idea. It’s a strategy. Good luck fellas. Next stop: any market but Australia.
was done in singapore in 2000
So instead of encouraging a young team who obviously have talent, as usual a few feel the need to just trot out the old ‘been done’ thing. At their stage, it’s about potential and ambition, which these two certainly have spades. Well done guys. And don’t be put off by those in the negative camp. There are plenty of them around sure, but there are just as many decent, positive, forward thinking people too. Stick with them and you’ll be fine.
I agree with NYC that targeting top CDs is a strategy, not a creative execution.
And the way they’ve executed it is original – and comprehensive.
I love that they’ve treated it as a proper campaign using multiple media – including direct to get the CDs to the site, online to harass them for an gig and guerrilla by wearing balaclavas to the interviews.
Made me smile.
Nice work boys. Good luck to you both.
Do you old advertising losers have nothing better to do with your time than slam a juniour team that’s trying to stand out?
Nice work boys! Hope it gets your noticed 🙂
So very glad to see there are still people left in this business who want to encourage others instead of looking for opportunities to take a dig.
Reminds me of a piece I just read by Luke Sullivan (author of Hey Whipple: Squeeze This)
“Advertising is so hard. There is so much rejection, so much brutality, so many late nights. A famous CD once confided to me “You need to have people fear you.” I disagree. Life is short and this is just advertising, people. If this means I’ll always produce less stellar work that a much-feared-CD, I’m okay with that. We all have our priorities. Those are mine.”
Love it.
Top work lads, ignore the haters. Takes guts. Fortune favours the unconventional. Nicely done.
@Kate: Disagree – it should be both: a creative idea including a great strategy and execution. But hey, they got a job…congrats.