Ron Samuel: Learnings from Adfest, Day Two

Saw a few familiar faces at breakfast this morning and talked about what was happening in the industry in the region. The major trend seemed to be the same as it is in Australia in that clients are taking more control of their brands and are not afraid to look beyond big agency networks for true creative partners in each of the markets that they are in.

I was very happy to hear this as it seemed to confirm that our business model is even more relevant in todays market place. The demand for a closer relationship, which is difficult to achieve in a large agency, was a common theme. The fact that it was being discussed by people from some of the largest agencies in the region was interesting.

Speaking of poor brand image, one of my Chinese friends who had been transferred to Canberra from Shanghai put Sydney on her name badge because she didn’t want to be associated with a boring place. Love that city.

The brief for this year’s Young Lotus Creative Workshop was to create a recruitment campaign for McCann Erickson. The young teams represented almost all of the countries in the region. The work that they did was excellent and it was interesting to note that no team did any kind of traditional ad, everything was interactive and engaging. A clear indication that the creative process has fundamentally changed and that it may be a good idea to keep up. One of the campaigns was very sexist but also funny, prospective recruits had to chat a lady up at a bar and if they did well she gave them her phone number which was the HR department at the agency.

Aleisha (pictured below with Stephen Douglas from Fin) attended D&AD Academy Inspiration Sessions, I couldn’t get in because I was too old and obviously beyond inspiration but I’m not bitter even after flying all the way here. Aleisha said that it was very good. Paul Grubb, a British expat now at Red Pill Bangkok, gave an enlightening sessions titled ‘It sure isn’t advertising’ . His belief is that inspiration should not come from ads because they have already been done. His advice is to look for the genius in stuff you don’t like because no-one can teach inspiration you just need to open your eyes.

Paolo Moscatelli Visual Artist – talked about inspiration by observation. He never goes anywhere without taking a lot of pictures on his iphone. For him light is a language with movement, texture, shape. His advice is to travel for enrichment and inspiration and to keep taking pictures.

Tim Lindsay, the CEO of  D&AD and chairman of the workshop added that you have to work to be inspired and put yourself in the way of inspiration. There will always be restrictions because every brief has constraints but as he quite rightly says ‘you can’t play tennis without lines.’

I attended the radio workshop in the afternoon with Tony Hertz and thirty nine much younger delegates. It was called A Trip Beyond The Comfort Zone and was all about creating the imagery you need in order to create brilliant radio commercials. Tony is a master of his craft and it was a privilege to hear first hand advice on how to create and work with images before you even think about writing a script. He left us with a final instruction – become a radio art director and always start with an image, any image.

The day finished with a sunset drink at the Cliff pool bar at the Campaign Brief Asia party sponsored by Fin Post Production and Sweet Shop.

Ron Samuel (pictured above second left) is co founder and creative director at Cooch Creative, Perth.