How did you come up with it?

Communication Arts Advertising Annual 47. December 2006

2007-01-17T23:21:00.000-05:00

So now we have another chance to read what creatives from around the globe have to say about their ideas. The blog about Cannes I would say was quite a success. Thanks to all the creatives who shared their winning ideas. Thanks to all the other creatives and people from the industry who, through word of mouth, kept checking the blog. Thanks to all the people who asked for more. It takes time and effort, but the reward is great for all of us. Keep spreading the word.
Alex Beker

Rethink, Vancouver. Greengate Garden Centres.

2007-01-16T21:49:00.000-05:00

Greengate has buyers around the world that import the very best plants, trees and shrubs available. They hire certified horticulturalists to help you buy the right product for your garden and they guarantee everything they sell for up to a year (which is unheard in the gardening business). But none of these facts made for interesting advertising, so we instead focused on the benefit of healthy trees: they grow faster. They fill in quicker. They block out nosy neighbours sooner. These were the things customers really cared about.

The client was initially apprehensive about this ad. He thought animal rights activists may not see the humour, but to his credit he gave us the green light with the promise of creative restraint and a dog that didn’t look too pained.

The tree and leash were shot in camera, but the dog was shot in a different location on a ramp that the photographer built. “Ginger” was a really easy-going dog, but freaked out when she was lifted vertically on the board. So in the end the owner had to hold her dog up in the air for us to get he shot. I think the final image was made of about 5 or 6 shots of various dog parts to get everything just right.

Art Director: Rob Sweetman
Writer: Brian Collins
Creative Directors: Ian Grais/Chris Staples
Photographer: Ric Kokotovich
Agency: Rethink, Vancouver, Canada

Rethink, Vancouver. 1-800-GOT-JUNK?

2007-01-16T21:39:00.000-05:00

In our very first briefing with the client, they asked: “What would get us on Letterman?”

This question became our mission. We thought what a great way to think about a campaign. What could we do that Letterman, or Leno, or Conan would pick up or talk about in their monologue?

Thinking in these terms we had a lot of really weird/insane ideas, but the one that seemed to stick was to build miniature billboards on rats.

At first we wanted to do this for real— build a little contraption with the clients’ phone number, attach it to real rats and then release them by the hundreds into various cities. They would then naturally be drawn to people with junk and advertise directly to them. We actually didn’t even think of TV commercials at first, we thought this would just be a PR and online campaign.

In the end doing TV commercials was a much safer idea.

Art Director: Rob Sweetman
Writer: Bryan Collins
Creative Directors: Ian Grais/Chris Staples
Director: Brian Lee Hughes
Production Company: Reginald Pike
Ad Agency: Rethink, Vancouver, Canada

John St. Toronto. James A.W. Mahon Divorce Lawyer.

2007-01-13T00:05:00.000-05:00

From the “Big ideas don’t always have to be big” category we decided to make the most of our client’s request for a new business card. For starters, when the space you have to work with is 3.5 x 2 inches simplicity is of the essence. After that, we started exploring different visual solutions for the concept of divorce. We wanted it to have universal quality so it wasn’t long before the idea of splitting and dividing started working it’s way into the card. Before long we were searching the city to find a suitable printer to perforate the card to provide it’s unique interactive quality. Seeing as we’ve recently received a request for more cards from our client we can only assume that they’ve been a nice addition to an otherwise not-so-nice profession.

Title: Divorce Lawyer
Agency: John St.
Client: James Mahon
Art Director: Nellie Kim
Copywriter: Chris Hirsch
Creative Director: Angus Tucker, Stephen Jurisic

TBWA Toronto. Client: Nissan Canada.

2007-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

Firstly, we had a good positioning: "Infiniti FX is a sports car and SUV, all-in-one". The car, its design, its abilities, is designed for men in their '40's; guys who want the pragmatisim of an SUV, yet still wanted to exercise their peurile inclinations and stretch out as they would in a sports cars.

These preliminaries in hand, it really wasn't too difficult to come to the conceptual conclusion that we did. We knew that guys, not unlike us, would've, in their youth, taken a great deal of interest in Hot Rods, and Dragsters.

From there, we married the imagery of and FX as a Nitro-burning Funny Car, its shell raised to expose the exhorbitantly-powerful guts underneath. The twist here being that instead, we replaced these guts with one of Nissan's legendary track cars, the Skyline GT-R.

It was always our favourite, recommended concept. It happened to be spot-on in the client's eyes. They bought it right away, and spared no expense for us to hire Vincent Dixon, an A-lister in his own right, and then soon enough it was done. We had other concepts, though they were there to show the client we didn't just do this alone with all the money they pay us in fees.

Overall, this ad was an example of all the things that should happen when an agency is organised and focused. We had a good brief, a good relationship with the client, and a concept everyone liked, and went on to do well for the client, and, by judging from your interest, us as well.

Now, even I over the years have wondered how ads like this get to have as many people in the credits as they do. It just so happened that both teams, us in a Cd and conceptual capacity, and Mike and Greg in a conceptual capacity, came up with a similar idea.

Art Directors: Mike Blanch/Scott Couture
Writers: Greg Buri/Allen Oake
Creative Directors: Joe Amaral/Scott Couture/Allen Oake
Photographer: Vincent Dixon

2006 Cannes Festival

2006-08-17T10:50:00.000-04:00

Grand Prix, Gold, Silver and Bronze Lions were awarded to creatives around the globe and are now being showed off on someone's office desk or shelf in France, Argentina, USA, India and South Africa, to name a few.

This blog hopes to collect the thoughts and feelings of those creatives about their ideas which the judges recognized among the best in the world.

Please come back frequently for new postings.

Thanks to everyone for cooperating.
Alex Beker

Leo Burnett, Mumbai. Bronze Lion. Press.

2006-08-02T09:58:00.000-04:00

What Kaushik Mitra, (copywriter at Leo Burnett, Mumbai) has to say about "Receptionist" and "Waiter"

To start off with, I think it's important to understand that over 50% of the population in India is below 25 years of age and when they seek a holiday, they're seeking either complete inactivity and laziness, or they're seeking adventure and fun.

Now the Maneland Jungle Lodge is a resort right at the edge of Gir Forest, an area famous for its lion population in Gujarat. And an area that's certainly not meant to attract the break-from-work-by-lazing holiday seeker.

For us within the agency, it meant an opportunity to create something adventurous and bold, and that's precisely how I remember my art partner, Harshad descibing the brief. Maneland had never advertised before in a big way, and it was our turn to pounce upon an opportunity to create a big, wide splash in the marketplace for holidays and tours in India.

"Mutilated lodge staff" was the first thought that emerged in the brainstorm to follow. While I admit it was I who was guilty of coming up with the idea first, it couldn't have been possible without Harshad and the rest of the team saying what they did. Soon after, our brainstorm got interrupted because there was another urgent brief we had to do immediate justice to, and while presenting the idea to the rest of the creative directors within the agency, we realised that that was the only idea we were left with.

But luckily for us, Pops (or KV Sridhar, as our National Creative Director is otherwise known), Agnello Dias (the Executive Creative Director) and Santosh Padhi (National Art Head), all fell in love with the idea. And saw to it that it was executed perfectly and released in good time, before the holidays began. Luckily the client also had a sense of humour and loved what we created. Of course, we had no idea then that a resort meant to show off the last lions in India would get us one!

Type Of Advertisement: Newspaper
Category: Travel, Transport & Tourism
Title: RECEPTIONIST
Advertiser: MANELAND JUNGLE LODGE
Product or Service: TOURIST LODGE
Entrant Company, City: LEO BURNETT INDIA, Mumbai
Country: INDIA
Advertising Agency, City: LEO BURNETT INDIA, Mumbai
Country: INDIA
Creative Director: K.v Sridhar/Santosh Padhi/Agnello Dias
Copywriter: Agnello Dias/Kaushik Mitra
Art Director: Santosh Padhi
Photographer: Shekhar Phalke
Account Supervisor: Sandeep Pathak
Advertiser's Supervisor: Anil Kumar

Santo, Buenos Aires. Bronze Lion. TV.

2006-07-31T13:46:00.000-04:00

What Sebastian Wilhelm (Creative Director at Santo, Buenos Aires) has to say about "Sorry Mum"

Dirt is good is Ala’s (omo’s) global brand idea, and we think is wonderful. It turns the whole washing powder category in its head by focusing on something much more important than clean clothes: children’s development. As a message, it’s good and it’s powerful. And more over, only a brand with great cleaning credentials could say so.
As our first task on this brand, Santo was asked to launch this concept in latin america.
As it happens, adults often want children to behave like adults. But children will be children: they love to run about, to jump, to explore and experiment and could not care less about clean clothes. The problem is: mums nag them about it. They berate them because they don’t understand the good their children obtain from it. So we tried to expose that ridiculous behavior in a charming way and in the process, explain to mums why dirt is good.
It all sprang from the thought of a 4 year-old girl saying: “sorry mum for getting dirty. It wasn’t very mature of me”. With that ironic thought in mind, we wrote a thinly-veiled sarcastic speech from children to their mums, saying sorry to them for getting dirty, while at the same time, teaching her what “unimportant” things they’d learned in the process.
It was a surprise for us that it won a lion; I reckon some spots are more powerful in the ad break than in the Cannes reel, but nevertheless it makes us proud to have won with a brand (and brand managers) that never even had a decent piece of work to submit to a festival.

Watch "SORRY MUM"
http://http://www.canneslions.com/winners_site/film/winsat10pm_4_2_04464_3.htm

Category: Household: Cleaning Products
Title: SORRY MUM
Advertiser: UNILEVER
Product or Service: ALA/OMO DETERGENT
Entrant Company, City: SANTO, Buenos Aires
Country: ARGENTINA
Advertising Agency, City: SANTO, Buenos Aires
Country: ARGENTINA
Creative Director: Maximiliano Anselmo/Sebastián Wilhelm
Copywriter: Sebastián Wilhelm/Pablo Minces
Art Director: Maximiliano Anselmo
Agency Producer: Andrés Salmoyraghi
Production Company, City: PALERMO FILMS, Buenos Aires
Country: ARGENTINA
Director: Martín Hodara
Producer: Barbara Factorovich
D.O.P/Lighting Cameraman: Juan Carlos Lenardi/Julian Mex Ledezma
Editor: X
Music: X
Sound Design/Arrangement: No Problem

BBH, London. Bronze Lion. Press.

2006-07-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

What Kevin Stark (Art Director. BBH London) has to say about "Pin"

Murphys is an Irish Stout like Guinness. Stout has always taken a long time to serve due to the lively state of the beer. So much so, that some people are put off by the wait.
Murphys have developed a Fast Flow system that enables a pint to be poured in only 26 seconds. That was the brief. So we took that to the extreme. Could we actually produce the whole ad in 26 seconds?

After much scribbling and experimenting we produced three press ads, each one literally produced in the time. Headline,picture, logo. The level of sophistication governed by the time limit.

We then went on to make a tv spot in a similar vein. So there you have it. A cheeky antidote campaign to the big budget Guinness 'Best things come to those that wait'

Watch the TV spot here:

MURPHY'S FAST FLOW BEER

Additional images

Type Of Advertisement: Newspaper
Category: Alcoholic Drinks
Title: PINT
Advertiser: INBEV UK
Product or Service: MURPHY'S FAST FLOW BEER
Entrant Company, City: BBH, London
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Advertising Agency, City: BBH, London
Country: UNITED KINGDOM
Creative Director: Russell Ramsey
Copywriter: Nick Kidney
Art Director: Kevin Stark
Illustrator: Sid Russell/Chris Chapman
Typographer: Kevin Stark
Account Supervisor: Mercedes De Graaf
Advertiser's Supervisor: Jon Sampson

Taxi Canada. Bronze Lion. Radio.

2006-07-13T13:31:00.000-04:00

What Joseph Bonnici & Sam Cerullo (Taxi Canada) have to say about "DEATH SCENE" and "ACCEPTANCE SPEECH"

In film, (Hollywood to be specific), it’s safe to say that sometimes things are better when they’re kept short.
Who could forget Hilary Swank’s acceptance speech for Best Actress in Million Dollar Baby. Or those action movies when big buff men with greasy hair get shot with 132 rounds of bullets, yet still mange to stay alive.
This year’s campaign came from that insight: ‘The Shorter. The Better.’

Listen to "DEATH SCENE"
http://www.canneslions.com/winners_site/radio/win_4_2_00532.htm
Listen to "ACCEPTANCE SPEECH"
http://www.canneslions.com/winners_site/radio/win_4_2_00533.htm

Category: Travel, Entertainment & Leisure
Title: "DEATH SCENE" "ACCEPTANCE SPEECH"
Advertiser: CANADIAN FILM CENTRE
Product or Service: WORLDWIDE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL
Entrant Company, City: TAXI CANADA, Toronto
Country: CANADA
Advertising Agency, City: TAXI CANADA, Toronto
Country: CANADA
Creative Director: Zak Mroueh
Scriptwriter: Joseph Bonnici/Sam Cerullo
Agency Producer: Jennifer Mete
Radio Production Company, City: PIRATE RADIO & TELEVISION, Toronto
Country:
Director: Tom Goudie
Sound Engineer: Wheelz
Account Supervisor: Jessica Tawfik
Advertiser's Supervisor: Barry Patterson/Jennifer Mason

Saatchi & Saatchi, NY. Bronze Lion. TV.

2006-07-13T10:43:00.000-04:00

What Leo Premutico & Jan Jacobs (Creative Directors at Saatchi & Saatchi, NY) have to say about "Boy" and "Girl"

We came up with a demonstration that would move the audience to intervene. By pointing out the one thing that leads to all the associated problems of child abuse, the simple fact that pedophiles out-smart children, we had an argument people couldn't ignore. In the end we decided to direct the spot ourselves as we already had ideas on how to imply the unfairness of the competition, and how to make the tv audience feel as though they were part of the game show audience.

Watch "BOY"
http://www.canneslions.com/winners_site/film/winsat10pm_4_6_03488.htm
Watch "GIRL"
http://www.canneslions.com/winners_site/film/winsat10pm_4_6_03489.htm

Category: Public Awareness Messages
Title: GIRL
Advertiser: INNOCENCE IN DANGER
Product or Service: PAEDOPHILIA AWARENESS
Entrant Company, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Advertising Agency, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Creative Director: Tony Granger/Jan Jacobs/Leo Premutico
Copywriter: Leo Premutico
Art Director: Jan Jacobs
Agency Producer: Diane Burton
Production Company, City: BELIEVE MEDIA, Los Angeles
Country: USA
Director: Jan Jacobs/Leo Premutico
Producer: Liz Silver/Luke Thornton/Seth Levin
D.O.P/Lighting Cameraman: Pedro Castro
Editor: Vito Desario - V2 Editorial
Sound Design/Arrangement: Elias Arts
Account Supervisor: Jay Ferguson/Blair Meisels/Maya Reti

Saatchi & Saatchi, NY. Gold Lion. Outdoor.

2006-07-12T11:32:00.000-04:00

What Icaro Doria (copywriter at Saatchi & Saatchi, New York) has to say about "Divorce. Tourist. China."

Since Stuffit Deluxe is file-compressing software, our idea was to show how it would work in the real world. This campaign was quite challenging, because we wanted to have some humor in the not so funny world of software. If you take a look at computer magazines and outdoor ads, apart from what Apple is doing, everything looks really boring and ugly. So our first goal was humor and our second was to create a designed look. We think the ads invite everyone to spend a little time with them, taking a careful look at every single picture in there — and there are a lot of pictures to look at. On the China one there are over 7 thousand pictures. It was a lot of work, but in the end we were all very happy, specially the client. For them, winning a Lion in Cannes is really great once their consumers are mostly art directors and designers (the Stuffit Deluxe was originally a software for Macs although it works in PCs nowadays.)

Category: Business Equipment & Services
Title: DIVORCE, TOURIST, CHINA
Advertiser: ALLUME SYSTEMS
Product or Service: STUFFIT DELUXE PHOTO SOFTWARE
Entrant Company, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Advertising Agency, City: SAATCHI & SAATCHI, New York
Country: USA
Creative Director: Tony Granger/Jan Jacobs/Leo Premutico
Copywriter: Icaro Doria
Art Director: Menno Kluin
Photographer: The Interns
Account Supervisor: Mark Rolland/Kunal Guha
Other Credits: Art Buyers: Maggie Sumner/Alli Taylor

JWT INDIA, Mumbai. Gold Lion. Press.

2006-07-12T07:24:00.000-04:00

What Senthil Kumar (Creative Director at JWT INDIA, Mumbai) has to say about "Slim figures 2"

In the beginning there was just the red tab and the creative teams from Bangalore & Mumbai staring at it for hours and days until that lightning struck Hital Pandya, the art director on the job, who thought of placing the red tab on a blue line in a ruled book.
It looked like a denim thread that was holding the red tab. Cool but not yet there. Levi’s has always broken rules and pioneered the fashion trends and to stick the red tab in a ruled book just didn’t fit well. But hey, we spotted that ‘little red tab attached to a slim blue line.’ You can’t get slimmer than a slim blue line, can you?

But we went further, and decided to bring the blue line to life, to experiment with lines and create a whole new race called the Levi’s slim figures. To give them character and bring them to life. To take a leap from all the figures that have decorated the chain of graffitti museums, otherwise called science notebooks, walls, buses, trains or even those public toilets. The next task was to ensure that they would stick out, literally from a distance. And sexy slim lines are now known to sport the famous red tab on their hips across urban hangouts.

It takes a brave, really brave client to accept such a radical idea that was designed to stick out in the fashion world, but our client, who’s brave and creative too, Shumone Chatterjee, CEO of Levi’s India loved the idea and the rest is history.

Type Of Advertisement: Newspaper
Category: Clothing, Footwear & Accessories
Title: SLIM FIGURES 2
Advertiser: LEVI STRAUSS & CO. INDIA
Product or Service: LEVI'S SLIM JEANS
Entrant Company, City: JWT INDIA, Mumbai
Country: INDIA
Advertising Agency, City: JWT INDIA, Mumbai
Country: INDIA
Creative Director: Senthil Kumar/Agnello Dias/Bruce Matchett
Copywriter: Karan Amin/Prahlad Nanjappa
Art Director: Hital Pandya/Vivek Kakkad
Illustrator: Nilesh Naik
Account Supervisor: Jaskaran Kapany/Anuj Kacker

Brett Morris (CD at FCB Johannesburg)

2006-07-11T13:42:00.000-04:00

For me what’s also very important is not just coming up with ideas, but picking the right ones. As advertising people it is our job to come up with ideas and any decent ad person will be able to come up with lots of ideas on any given brief. If you’re consistently good at what you do then there will be a magic idea somewhere in there, but this doesn’t just ‘happen’, it takes lots of hard work and discipline. So the trick is not only coming up with ideas but knowing which ideas to put your energy behind.

FCB Johannesburg. Grand Prix. Press.

2006-07-11T13:32:00.000-04:00

What Lance Vining & Charles Foley (Copywriter/Art Director. FCB Johannesburg. South Africa) have to say about "Periscope"

Well from our side I suppose the secret to great advertising is simplicity. It's about the ability to appeal to anyone from anywhere. It's about being universal. Lego is a great product that almost everyone (pre-Sony Playstation) knows. It's about breaking down all the peripheral stuff to get to the core of the product. In the Lego case, that was Imagine so we created an execution that really harnessed that thought. A number of years ago, I was looking at the Lego work that was created and one example was an image of the Great Wall of China with a line that said "Build it". So that worked on a different scale in that people were prompted to think of the enormous possibilities that can be created using many blocks of Lego. So our "Periscope" thought was really about what you can create using a limited number of blocks. The art direction really flew in the face of what has been winning at international awards shows in that it wasn't over art directed. I kind of felt that with over art directed work, the image has been completed for the reader whereas with the Lego work we tried to leave as much to the imagination as possible.

Type Of Advertisement: Newspaper
Category: Entertainment & Leisure
Title: PERISCOPE
Advertiser: LEGO
Product or Service: LEGO CONSTRUCTION BLOCKS
Entrant Company: FCB JOHANNESBURG
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Advertising Agency: FCB JOHANNESBURG
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Creative Director: Brett Morris
Copywriter: Lance Vining
Art Director: Lance Vining/Charles Foley
Photographer: Gerard Turnely
Typographer: Lance Vining

Grey Argentina. Silver Lion. Outdoor.

2006-07-07T10:47:00.000-04:00

What Pablo Gil (Creative Director at Grey Argentina) has to say about "Beach mat"

This piece was part of a bigger campaign developed on one of Argentina's largest beach resorts, where Playboy held the contest to choose its March Issue Playmate. Different ideas were implemented to promote the event, including placing posters of photographers in women's bathrooms as if taking pictures while women lowered their pants or took showers, to give them the feeling that they were posing for the magazine. Posters were also placed in men's bathrooms to let them know about the contest in a very funny way. The beach mat, which contained the details about the contest, was our direct marketing piece for the prettiest women on the beach to keep as a gift. The client fell in love with these ideas instantly and there was no need to present any more alternatives.

Additional images

Category: Ambient: Stunts & Live Advertising
Title: BEACH MAT
Advertiser: PLAYBOY
Product or Service: PLAYBOY PARADE
Advertising Agency, City: GREY ARGENTINA, Buenos Aires
Country: ARGENTINA
Creative Director: Pablo Gil/Sebastian Garin/Alejandro Iglesias
Copywriter: Dauquen Chabeldin/Martin Dofou
Art Director: Diego Rubio/Cristian Feichtenslager