Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity: Agents for change; why there isn’t much creativity in social advertising and the art of make belief

The Sweet Shop’s executive producer, Asia and MENA Claire Davidson is at the Singapore based Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity. Here’s her take on the final day of the festival.

Well it’s the third and final day here at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity.  There’s certainly excitement in the air ahead of the awards ceremony tonight.

It was a slow start for most after last night’s “Networking After Dark,” which saw parties around Singapore hosted by Lowe Asia Pacific, JWT, McCann Worldgroup, Bates Chi & Partners and VivaKi.

I kicked off the morning by taking in the forum “Creativity in Social:  Why There Isn’t Much Of It, and What Can We Do About It?” brought to us by Graham Kelly, the Regional Executive Creative Director from Isobar.  He stated that Social Media is the biggest shift since the industrial revolution.  Social media, or rather the social revolution, has taken over as the #1 activity on the web, and is now the main media that counts.  It’s the driving force behind the economy.  The way to survive in the internet economy is with a new product or service that everyone will want.  Social media is here to stay and it’s not a fad, it’s not all hype.

Kelly believes we need a balanced view of social media and to use it objectively.  It can be a very powerful tool when used correctly.  We need to be innovative and intelligent, which will lead to work being more creative.  At the moment, social isn’t creative enough. There hasn’t been a flood of big ideas.  We need to focus on those. There have of course been a lot of social campaigns, but they have been uninspiring at best.  It’s formulaic. You don’t give a social brief to the intern down in the back of the agency and your senior creatives briefs for traditional work.

Be contrarian. Social is not all about likes. It’s about reaching the people that count, and not counting the people you reach.  Be smart about formats and remain true to the core idea.  If you have a great idea that has been working in traditional media, then stay true to that.  Carry it on to social.  Today there is a problem where different agencies may look after one the brand – a digital agency, and a traditional agency for their products – which often leads to a campaign not being integrated. Be focused. A lot of brands try to cram too much into and say too much in social. Be useful to your audience. Be social in the real world. Be imaginative with promos. There are a lot of promos on the internet and so make them creative.

Don’t be afraid of data. Kelly thinks there is quite a lot to be learnt from data. Derive useful learning to support insights. Kelly left us with the following key takeaways: Be entertaining. Treat the audience with respect.  Be balanced.  If we do these we can expect a lot more great work.

Next up for me was Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of Ogilvy, Tham Khai Meng’s seminar on “Transformational Creativity”.

Real transformation goes to the core and leaves the world a better place.  Khai Meng took us on a historical journey through the ages, back to the beginnings of the human race.  He looked at our amazing achievements since this time, and the role that creativity has played in shaping our cultures, our selves and our world.

Khai Meng discussed the notion that everyone is creative.  In this new world of social – on twitter, facebook, youtube and google + – ads are shared, increasing viewership and thus purchasing.  Interestingly, creatively awarded ads sell 11 times more in the market place than non-awarded ads.

But we also need to look further.  We need to look at what is central to each of us, and has always been with us, in our hearts, because we feel from our hearts.  Effect is more powerful and more lasting if it touches our hearts.  We looked at Dove’s ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ and Brazilian football club Racife’s ‘Immortal Fans’ organ donation campaign as case studies.  These made real people a global topic of conversation again.

To transform us, reach for our hearts. Advertising can charm us, seduce us, make us laugh and make us smile.  Advertising can make us shed a tear.  Advertising should tug at our heartstrings in highly emotional ways. Meng finished by showcasing Metro Trains ‘Dumb Ways to Die’.

Next up was Lo Sheung Yan, Chairman of Asia Pacific Creative Council JWT who brought us “Craft – The Art of Make Belief”.

Believe in / Belief?  Advertisers need you to believe in their products, and to change your beliefs.  We need to convey an audience so that consumers believe it.  Our belief is the idea – the idea that connects and engages our audience.

The first case study Sheung Yan looked at was The Sweet Shop’s own Steve Ayson’s ‘Beer Chase’ for Carlton Draft.  Steve Ayson told Yan “I always base all of my projects in the casting, because if you don’t buy into / care / in some way believe why and who the people are in relation to the story, there’s no point in making it”.  (Isn’t he clever!)

Next we looked at other entries submitted in this year’s Film Craft category, of which Sheung Yan was the jury president.  We first saw an efficient way to separate the worst greasy stains from your cooking utensils.  The case study was Lowe Thailand’s recent Sunlight ‘Separate Them’ campaign.  The next idea was for Schweppes ‘Tumble’ TVC, which visualises the sensations of drinking their beverages. The challenge was how to make us believe that tumbling downhill was elegant as ballet. We looked at Johnny Walker’s Red Label spot for ‘Keep Walking’, with the idea routed into the exploration and complexity of it’s smoky, spicy and fruity flavours.  The challenge here was to have the audience believe in the journey with mysterious, enriching and full textures.  Another highlight was a cricket spot titled ‘Parallel Journeys’ for Nike in India, the idea for which came about with a focus on the collective passion of the nation – from rural grassroots to the urban underground playgrounds across India.

Sheung Yan left us pondering on a scene from The Life of Pi.  Believe in the idea, so that as you craft it people will in turn believe in it.  What is the idea you want people to believe in?  You need to rely on your craft – the art of make belief.

Next up was Tuomas Peltoniemi, Head of Digital at TBWA’s Digital Arts Network Singapore, and Nicholas Smith, Global Parner Manager of Adobe, who brought us “Creative Content is One Thing, But Context is King”.  Snappy title, boys.

Peltoniemi started by telling us that creatives must become best friends with the data specialists.  Understanding just how data – and thus insights – can influence creativity has become a competitive advantage for creative teams in the current digital landscape.

How do you use data, combine it with creativity, and make something worthwhile?  We know that 60% of the world’s population is in Asia-Pacific.  73% of Asian agencies see their clients increasing their digital spend, and yet only 26% of budgets here are spent in digital.

How do you quantify the value of creativity?  We can spend our way to success…if we spend ahead of our market share.  But creativity makes marketing investment work harder.  When we can use data and insights in collaboration with creativity, we can make that campaign and budget spend all the better.  We can fuel that creativity.

Data is nothing new.  Creative is important and highly valuable.  But how can you make it smarter, or work harder for you?  Data can be libera
ting.  Identify and understand your customer.  Understand which products and services interest each segment.  Data allows you to be culturally relevant.  It’s really important to understand the now.

Measure what matters, not what you can measure.  This is where your offline and online worlds can merge.  The task is to understand people’s behaviours and responses, then measure that data to refine and make improvements.

No two customers’ journeys are the same, so context is critical.  Gather information about your customers.  But how do we gather that data for a single view, how far can we go in identifying our audiences, and how does it apply digitally?  In the online world, we know a lot about our customers.  We can see their history, what they are viewing, where they are looking.  You want to create that big idea for the right people in the right culture at the right time on the right device.

Buying is an emotional decision.  Data is designed to fuel potential creative.  The more you find, the more you can inform, and your creative approach in the campaigns can be refined.  Data is not boring.  It is not the enemy.  Contextual creative can be very powerful.

Creativity plus Data plus Technology = Real Magic.

Looking at traditional marketing approach we have Strategy Insight ~> Creative ~> Production ~>Media Plan ~> Post Campaign Research.  What’s wrong with this approach?  The data and insights are currently done at the first and last stages.  The problem here is that data and creativity are not working together at the same time – one size does not fit all.  People are looking for personalized experiences, and they are looking at better and more sophisticated service.  It’s not about the platform, it’s about the people.  What if we started by looking at the media plan, and looking at it in the middle of the creative process.  Every month, every week, every day on the hour you can constantly keep making changes to what is and isn’t working.  Test in the real world with real people.  Technology tells us when to change, and data tells us what to change.

Three immediate things you can do next:

Go and find the guys that know how to unlock the secrets the data holds.  You have more in common with them than you think.

Use data to drive better creative, and creative to drive better results.

Look at data every month, every week, every day.

Last up today I took in John Mescall, Executive Creative Director for McCann Melbourne who brought us “Agents for Change”.  Mescail started by telling us, God, it’s great to be in advertising again.  With the advent of the internet and online the world forced us to change as an industry and now it’s our industry’s chance to change the world.  For a while there it looked all doom and gloom and the end of our industry as we knew it.  But we changed with it, and now we’re here having the time of our lives because we adapted.  We are living our lives online and we bought into the online space.

Technology has fundamentally changed the way we approach advertising, and we now have a far greater potential to change the world. We’re seeking out brands that profit us as well as profit from us. We’ve gone from aspirational to conversational to inspirational.  Sure you can sell me something, but you must have purpose and utility.  Don’t just be another brand.  Brands live in the world where the consumer psychology has changed.  Whilst this was changing the internet destroyed the command and control model.  So the world changed, and we were forced to move out of our comfort zone.

The internet has saved us.  There has never been a better time to work in the industry we work in.  Look at the tools we have at our disposal.  They allow us to do anything we want.  You now have a global audience and can change people’s thinking of a brand with just a small group of people.  Yes, it made it more difficult to use the old tricks but it has given us more power than we have ever had before.

Power + Transparency = No Evil.

This is why we are seeing so many case studies with a social conscience.  People won’t accept greed any more.  We have to do the right things now adays.  We expect large brands to engage with us at fundamental levels.  Make the brand have a genuine meaning beyond the marketing message.

Use your heart.  Allow your ego to drive you.  Look at what I made.  But if you create an idea and challenge people on a global scale to change the world, you’ll be able to say look at what I did.  Mescail calls this real world creative impact.  Use your talents to change things.

Thank you for a very interesting final seminar for me Mr Dumb Ways To Die.

It’s time now for me to attend the Spikes Asia 2013 Awards Ceremony and Awards After Party.  Good luck tonight everyone.  I suspect the previous evenings’ themes might continue here once again, and there might be some very sore heads tomorrow morning.

Thank you Spikes Asia 2013.

Claire Davidson, Executive Producer ASIA & MENA @ The SweetShop, reporting for Campaign Brief Asia at Spikes Asia 2013