Following on from Tom Donald’s piece suggesting planners should learn how to fight or lift weights to become better planners, Kevin Macmillan, creative partner at The Works, suggests how to make creatives better at what they do.
I read with interest the thoughts of Tom Donald on hiring former sales people and ex-business owners as planners, or failing that make sure your planners learn a martial art.
Most of what he said could have been directly applied to creative because it all centers around one specific point; development is not a substitute for application.
And just like a good plan, a creative idea is worth nothing without application.
As a starting point, I’ve always been amazed at how few people actually apply their ideas to paper.
Once you have applied the thinking to paper it actually exists. It becomes real. So few creative ideas are applied to paper these days.
I read with interest the thoughts of Tom Donald on hiring former sales people and ex-business owners as planners, or failing that make sure your planners learn a martial art.
Most of what he said could have been directly applied to creative because it all centers around one specific point; development is not a substitute for application.
And just like a good plan, a creative idea is worth nothing without application.
As a starting point, I’ve always been amazed at how few people actually apply their ideas to paper.
Once you have applied the thinking to paper it actually exists. It becomes real. So few creative ideas are applied to paper these days.
- 11/8/2012
- by mumbrella
- Encore Magazine
In this guest post, Tom Donald argues that strategists should face the reality of regular combat.
“The goal is not the thing itself. Talking about it is not execution. Please stop confusing goals and plans with the actual doing of things.” @GymJones
Too often ‘developing strategy’ is a bookish, quasi-academic exercise. Purple Cows are thrown into Blue Oceans to find the Tipping Point that will Nudge the Herd to Eat The Big Fish.
Correspondingly, self-proclaimed ‘strategists’ are often aloof, elite and too removed from the reality of closing sales and making shit happen.
Certainly too few marketing strategists have ever made anything, sold anything or been hands-on responsible for the execution of their plans. The cock is never on the block. And this is why they confuse planning with doing. (Which, in turn, is why they drive creatives and clients crazy, but that’s another story…)
But I’ve recently...
“The goal is not the thing itself. Talking about it is not execution. Please stop confusing goals and plans with the actual doing of things.” @GymJones
Too often ‘developing strategy’ is a bookish, quasi-academic exercise. Purple Cows are thrown into Blue Oceans to find the Tipping Point that will Nudge the Herd to Eat The Big Fish.
Correspondingly, self-proclaimed ‘strategists’ are often aloof, elite and too removed from the reality of closing sales and making shit happen.
Certainly too few marketing strategists have ever made anything, sold anything or been hands-on responsible for the execution of their plans. The cock is never on the block. And this is why they confuse planning with doing. (Which, in turn, is why they drive creatives and clients crazy, but that’s another story…)
But I’ve recently...
- 11/7/2012
- by mumbrella
- Encore Magazine
The Monkeys’ work for Oak milk drink dominated the top prizes at the Creative Strategy Awards.
Planner Fabio Buresti won the grand prix and new brand or advertiser categories while The Monkeys was also named strategic agency of the year.
The ad featured a threatening man talking to camera in the style of Ben Kingsley’s Don Logan in the movie Sexy Beast.
The awards are organised every two years by the Account Planning group, which is part of The Communications Council.
The winners:
Established Service Brands
Gold
Bmf Rob Chandler Commonwealth Bank – Investorville
Silver
Naked Adam Ferrier, Matt Houltham & John Halpin - Art Series Hotel
New Brand Or Advertiser
Gold
The Monkeys Fabio Buresti Oak – Flavoured Milk
Public Service & Charity
Gold
303Lowe Derry Simpson, Bart Hodgen Office of Road Safety, Wa
Gold
Droga5 Tom Donald, Dannika Coleman, Justin Graham - Telstra (for Legacy)
Established Product Brands
Gold
George Patterson Y&R Meredith Simpson,...
Planner Fabio Buresti won the grand prix and new brand or advertiser categories while The Monkeys was also named strategic agency of the year.
The ad featured a threatening man talking to camera in the style of Ben Kingsley’s Don Logan in the movie Sexy Beast.
The awards are organised every two years by the Account Planning group, which is part of The Communications Council.
The winners:
Established Service Brands
Gold
Bmf Rob Chandler Commonwealth Bank – Investorville
Silver
Naked Adam Ferrier, Matt Houltham & John Halpin - Art Series Hotel
New Brand Or Advertiser
Gold
The Monkeys Fabio Buresti Oak – Flavoured Milk
Public Service & Charity
Gold
303Lowe Derry Simpson, Bart Hodgen Office of Road Safety, Wa
Gold
Droga5 Tom Donald, Dannika Coleman, Justin Graham - Telstra (for Legacy)
Established Product Brands
Gold
George Patterson Y&R Meredith Simpson,...
- 11/1/2012
- by mumbrella
- Encore Magazine
In this guest post, Tom Donald argues why adland needs hipsters.
There are few things more reviled on the blogs and Twitter feeds of Adland than the hipster. This, of course, is ironic as Adland is awash in hipsters. (Curiously, some of Australia’s most vociferous hipster-bashers are at some of the ‘hippest’ agencies I’ve seen anywhere in the world.)
But the hipster haterade needs to stop flowing, and here’s why: Adland needs hipsters.
At its core, marketing is about behaviour change – getting large numbers of people to do something. Buy your product, vote for your party, sign up for your service. That said, very few people in marketing have a model for – or have even thought about – how behaviour change actually happens across mass markets.
So here’s a highly unscientific one: It’s because of hipsters.*
This ‘hipster theory of marketing’ is based on one of...
There are few things more reviled on the blogs and Twitter feeds of Adland than the hipster. This, of course, is ironic as Adland is awash in hipsters. (Curiously, some of Australia’s most vociferous hipster-bashers are at some of the ‘hippest’ agencies I’ve seen anywhere in the world.)
But the hipster haterade needs to stop flowing, and here’s why: Adland needs hipsters.
At its core, marketing is about behaviour change – getting large numbers of people to do something. Buy your product, vote for your party, sign up for your service. That said, very few people in marketing have a model for – or have even thought about – how behaviour change actually happens across mass markets.
So here’s a highly unscientific one: It’s because of hipsters.*
This ‘hipster theory of marketing’ is based on one of...
- 8/31/2012
- by Robin Hicks
- Encore Magazine
In this guest post, Tom Donald argues that reminding Australians of the days of drought is the way to sell the carbon tax.
Innovators and marketers need to understand the context in which people experience their creations much better. Failing to do so leads to the generally dreadful state of Australian cinema, and most TV ads being virtually unwatchable.
In recent debates about the Carbon Tax and the waning of popular support for it, we have again failed to recognise, and therefore address, the most important bit of contextual information: The environment itself. Specifically, it’s been raining in Australia for the last four years after barely doing so for a decade.
In a sunburnt country plagued with droughts, life feels perilous at times, especially when the water runs low. Unsurprisingly, support for environmentally progressive legislation went up and up as the dams got lower and lower.
But then the rains came back,...
Innovators and marketers need to understand the context in which people experience their creations much better. Failing to do so leads to the generally dreadful state of Australian cinema, and most TV ads being virtually unwatchable.
In recent debates about the Carbon Tax and the waning of popular support for it, we have again failed to recognise, and therefore address, the most important bit of contextual information: The environment itself. Specifically, it’s been raining in Australia for the last four years after barely doing so for a decade.
In a sunburnt country plagued with droughts, life feels perilous at times, especially when the water runs low. Unsurprisingly, support for environmentally progressive legislation went up and up as the dams got lower and lower.
But then the rains came back,...
- 7/11/2012
- by mumbrella
- Encore Magazine
Tom Donald has joined Droga5 Sydney as planning director after a two year stint with fellow ad agency The Works.
According to Donald’s profile on LinkedIn, he will be working on Droga5 clients Telstra business and Ing Direct.
Ing Direct ended its relationship with Jack Watts Currie and gave the business to Droga5 in January.
Damian Pincus, founding partner at The Works told Mumbrella: “Tom’s a fucking good bloke and a brilliant planner.”
At the time of posting nobody from Droga5 could be reached for comment.
Donald was The Works’ first planning director. In his LinkedIn update, Donald said: “Bringing planning to creatively-led agency for the first time was a challenge, but one well worth the ride. And I believe I left The Works in better shape than I found it.”...
According to Donald’s profile on LinkedIn, he will be working on Droga5 clients Telstra business and Ing Direct.
Ing Direct ended its relationship with Jack Watts Currie and gave the business to Droga5 in January.
Damian Pincus, founding partner at The Works told Mumbrella: “Tom’s a fucking good bloke and a brilliant planner.”
At the time of posting nobody from Droga5 could be reached for comment.
Donald was The Works’ first planning director. In his LinkedIn update, Donald said: “Bringing planning to creatively-led agency for the first time was a challenge, but one well worth the ride. And I believe I left The Works in better shape than I found it.”...
- 3/15/2012
- by mumbrella
- Encore Magazine
Tom Donald, from The Works, will join the Brand Australian Film panel at Encore Live, offering an insight on how the advertising agency would attack a brief if ‘Australian Film’ was their client.
“Why don’t Australians like Australian movies? Because they’re all dark and depressing… Australian films should be expected to be bad; they’re a disgrace and we shouldn’t even try anymore.”
That is the exact same discussion that takes place in the mainstream media every time a small independent Australian film fails at the box office, regardless of the actual merits of the film. That is also the perception that most Australians have of their national cinema, even if most can’t name three (or even one) of those supposedly ‘dark and depressing’ films.
While it is true that certain Australian films are confronting dramas, there are plenty others which are not, yet they all...
“Why don’t Australians like Australian movies? Because they’re all dark and depressing… Australian films should be expected to be bad; they’re a disgrace and we shouldn’t even try anymore.”
That is the exact same discussion that takes place in the mainstream media every time a small independent Australian film fails at the box office, regardless of the actual merits of the film. That is also the perception that most Australians have of their national cinema, even if most can’t name three (or even one) of those supposedly ‘dark and depressing’ films.
While it is true that certain Australian films are confronting dramas, there are plenty others which are not, yet they all...
- 5/10/2011
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
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