THE PHILIPPINES, AUGUST 13, 2012: How does award-winning Australian advertising agency Droga5 come up with ideas that set a campaign apart? “It’s all about collaboration”, said Sudeep Gohil, chief executive officer and partner at Droga5.
Gohil’s talk on “The Death of the Lone Wolf Creative” at Graphika Manila last Saturday showed that even though this principle may seem chaotic to some, it is the way to go especially with the changing landscape in communication.
“The very nature of creativity is changing,” Gohil said. And along with the changing communication landscape, the 4Ps of advertising has also changed. Today, it’s not about the product, but consumers; not about the price, but the cost the people would be willing to pay; not about the place, but convenience; and not about promotion but communication, Gohil said.
So with everything changing, how are the best creative ideas conceived? Collaboration is critical, Gohil stressed. An example of this is the ‘4320 LA/SYD’ in 2009 which won a D&AD Yellow Pencil award. The campaign saw three Australians try out new things in Los Angeles and then tweet about it. The goal is to post 4,320 tweets in 72 hours.
Over three weeks, the 4320.com website recorded: over 67,000 visitors, over 175,000 page views, and just under 50% click through rate to V Australia’s “Flight Deals” button on the website.
Because of the success of the first phase of the campaign, three Americans were sent to Australia a month later to do the same. The only difference between both campaigns was that 4320:SYD saw the tweets being fed live to television screens.
Gohil also talked about the common misconceptions about collaboration, one of which is working with like-minded people. Instead, Gohil encouraged the audience to work with diverse and opposing people but who has a common goal.
Furthermore, collaboration is about going to a place where you feel completely and totally uncomfortable and letting others take control and letting creativity run riot.
In this setting, the role of the creative has, consequently, changed. It’s not about being the smartest person in the room like Star Wars’ Yoda, or simply being able to solve problems like Morpheus in The Matrix. Today, the creative person is like Entourage’s Ari Gold who has the “connection, tenacity, the ability to make things happen”, Gohil said.
Other speakers at the event were: Psyop, Gmunk, Hydro74, JP Cuison, Jerome Austria and Create.ph.
