MANILA, JANUARY 23, 2013 – "Advertising is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. That’s what they used to say. I’ve always debated that. I think it depends on the brand you have on, because I enjoy many things with my clothes on." The first session of Raw School SY 2013 opens with laughter, as chairman Raul Castro welcomed the class of young creatives to the McCann Philippines office at Bonifacio Global City.
Easing out of the daily grind, young art directors, copywriters and artists from some of the most respected advertising agencies in the metro assembled for a night of booze, buffet and unabashed geekery.
"You cannot be creative without getting in touch with pop culture." After all, comics are storyboards, justifies photographer Jay Tablante. Before The Jinri Park Experience and Geekology 101, he used to "toil away" on commercial work for JWT Manila as an art director and referred to cosplay photography as "research and development". Now, he does it for fun. (He doesn’t earn from it, clarifies Tablante. His work on cosplay supports Operation Smile.)
For Budjette Tan, deputy ECD at McCann Philippines, advertising work is comparable to magic. As kids, we loved the idea that the impossible can be made possible. As we grew older, we realized that it’s all tricks and lose the excitement.
You do one great ad today and tomorrow, your CD tells you it’s been done before. Tan says that shouldn’t stop creatives. "There’s a way to make a trick become magical again. All you need is to look at it from a different perspective."
Find other passions was the consensus at Raw School.
It works for Ian Sta Maria, associate creative director at BBDO Guerrero. He once used Jabba the Hutt as peg for an ad on diarrhea relief. "Comics and advertising, it’s the same. My everyday work is derived mostly from what I love about geekery. The execution is only the tool to push the idea. The idea will always come first."
Mervin Ignacio, creative director at McCann Erickson, shares one of the things he had to deal with in making comic books was the absence of the most hated document in advertising: the creative brief. Stepping away from advertising to create the comic book series Skyworld with Sta Maria, he realized that sure, there were no clients to please or account executives to argue with, but there is the difficulty of starting with a blank page.
"We are encouraged to create stuff and we are paid to do it," Ignacio points out. "But would you still create if it wasn’t required?"
At the end of the day, it’s about loving what you do. "You have to love advertising to survive in it," concludes Joey Ong, Creative Guild president. "With Raw School, I like to make people talk about other stuff aside from advertising. That’s what keeps you sane. This is a very insane job. You have to find other passions to keep you entertained."
The next session of Raw School takes place at the Lowe Philippines office on Thursday, January 24, 8PM, with Lowe president and chief operating officer Leigh Reyes.
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