Last week saw the Level 2 students undertake Superbrief Day where they worked on a number of briefs throughout the day with only a short break for lunch. There's no time to mess around when you've only got an hour to come up with an idea, followed by an intensive critique.....followed straight away by yet another brief! This goes on all day. It's very demanding.
This is the tough schedule that runs throughout Superbrief day and everyone who participated agreed that they got a lot out of it. When you've sometimes been working on a project for a week or two it's good to blow away the mental cobwebs with an intensive session like this.
It probably wouldn't be a good idea to work like this every day but putting variety into your working practice stops you getting complacent and keeps you fresh. So whilst we won't be doing Superbrief Day every week we will be coming up with plenty of other ways to keep things interesting.
As regular readers of this blog will know, every year the Creative Advertising programme team run live students projects with local businesses to give the third years the valuable experience of working on a real client brief. And nothing beats that feeling of seeing your final ad actually produced and proudly displayed on a billboard or in a magazine! Previous projects have included campaigns for St Marks shopping centre and North Lincolnshire Safer Neighbourhoods.
This year's live project is with DoubleTree by Hilton who have recently opened a very nice new hotel in Lincoln. In November last year, the third years were set a brief to advertise the rather splendid top floor Electric Bar and Restaurant via the strategic positioning of 'sophisticated escapism'.
The third year students worked on the brief with each team developing a creative campaign. Following an initial selection of the best ideas, the shortlisted students prepared and gave presentations in the hotel's business facilities to the client team that was made up of Niki Shepheard - Sales and Marketing Manager; Dan Ralley - Food and Beverage Manager; and Andy Hallam - Bars Manager.
After the very impressive and professional student presentations the client team (with tutors Gyles and Mike) then cogitated and deliberated, eventually decided which campaign they thought was the best and most appropriate.
Niki, Dan and Andy considering all the campaigns
Which campaign best answers the brief?
A few days later, all the shortlisted students were invited back to the Electric bar at the Lincoln DoubleTree by Hilton hotel to be thanked by the client team and the winning team was announced.
The shortlisted students with the client team in the Electric bar
The wining campaign was created by creative team Maria Sousa and Sam Barber with the client having discussions with Mel Webb and Matt Parsons on potentially producing their campaign later in the year.
Maria and Sam will now work with Gyles, Mike and Niki to produce their campaign with a 'go live' date set for May. Exciting times!
Brooke Cutmore & Ruud Kool graduated from the Creative Advertising programme in 2010 and now work at Creature, London. They've just returned from working at Creature's offices in Seattle. Here's Brooke to tell us more...
'We've been working at Creature, London for nine months now – working like crazy on pitch after pitch. As the agency is relatively new, it has meant a lot of long days and working weekends pitching for new business. The biggest and most exciting project that we're working on is for Adidas. After winning the account in December, it is now in production and you'll get to see the whole agency's handywork in April when the TV spots air.
'Just before Christmas Ruud and I – with another creative called Tom – were given the opportunity to go work at Creature's American office in Seattle for 6 weeks. With only a week's notice we packed our bags and flew out on the 2nd January.
'We created a blog for the time we were out there, so go and check it out in more detail (if you want).
'We're now back in London and have just completed another pitch, so fingers crossed we get this one too!"
Well, that's me jealous then. What a great adventure!
A great example of where the Lincoln's Creative Advertising programme can take you.
An ongoing project created by one of the Creative Advertising's graduates is spreading across on the Web rather rapidly.
Created by Stefan van Zoggel who graduated in 2010, the posters have been featured on sites such as Mashable and Laughing Squid.
Stefan says: 'I took the context of usually short lived internet memes and virals and translated that to simple film poster designs. Based on exactly the same stories and content, but treating them as a full length movie posters for everyone's favourite movie company, YouTube.'
The full collection of 29 posters can be seen here. But here are three of our favourites:
As I'm sure you'll agree: beautiful, intelligent, witty work.
Love your work, Stefan!
Well, would you look at that!
The University of Lincoln's very own Creative Advertising lecturer, Justin Tagg, is featured in this weeks' Young Creative Council's Weekly Score.
Read the YCC Weekly Score post to see what this is all about...!
This very interesting article is all about Justin, his influences, his views and the driving forces in his ongoing film making practice.
Justin's current project 'Mouse' is in the final month of crowd-sourcing its funding.
Tom Smith and Darren Urquhart graduated from the University of Lincoln's Creative Advertising programme in 2008 and work as a creative team at Ogilvy. Last year they created a very high profile campaign for BP. You will have certainly seen the TV ad over the past few months.
Here's Tom to tell you more:
'BP wanted to announce their commitment to the Olympics, from supporting British hopefuls to offsetting the carbon footprint of spectators.
'So we created a TV, print and online campaign that took you on a journey with British athletes to see what BP are doing for London 2012. Focusing on six Olympic and Paralympic athletes from Team GB, we wanted to capture the energy and excitement of the journey to the Olympics.
'Shooting in locations ranging from the British Museum to a beach in Margate was at times a logistical nightmare but it was also a lot of fun, especially when trying to get the fast paced and energetic shots we wanted.
'We used everything possible to shoot the campaign, including a helicopter, a boat, a beach buggy, a crane, a cameraman on rollerskates and even a remote control car with a camera mounted on top.
'Overall, it was an incredible experience and we even got a signed shirt from all the athletes out of it.'
Here is a fascinating 'behind-the-scenes' video of the making of the TV ad that shows how much work was involved in its production:
Behind the scenes making of the TV ad
And here's the final TV ad:
The final TV ad
One of the 96-sheet billboards featuring Stef Ried
One of the double page press ads featuring Jessica Ennis
Another of the double page press ads featuring Lizzie Armitstead
One of the benefits of working in advertising: freebies – a signed shirt from all the athletes involved
Another great example of high profile, national campaign, effectively executed by a Lincoln Creative Advertising alumni team. Well done Tom and Darren.
Sophie Yeoman graduated from the Creative Advertising programme in 2010 and now works as a Production Assistant at FOAM Agency. Here's how she describes her role:
'I am currently a Production Assistant at FOAM Agency, an in-house creative agency for Sony Music Entertainment Ltd.
'Basically, I make stuff for a living – all the weird and wonderful ideas that my Creative Directors Steve Milbourne & Phil Clandillon come up with, get passed onto me to bring to life, whether its building circuit boards, painting tins, building worlds or programming games, they need it done. I figure out a way to do it. Work feels like play school and I get to go to free gigs too!
'I've recently completed a number of projects including Live Football Gaming with Kasabian and Darren Bent (recently featured on Sky's Soccer AM) where my role was to built all the tech. I stitched all the 'light up' headbands by hand, I build and soldered the Arduino electronic kits from scratch and helped program all the kits to respond to the guys playing the game.'
Sophie carrying out live repairs
Kasabian's Tom Meighan and England's Darren Bent control the action
The match taking place
The match itself
Behind the scenes of the experiment
Sophie has also been Production Assistant on recent videos for Tanya Lacey andEMiL.
This all sounds really exiting, Sophie – many thanks for the update.
A great example of the wide range of creative jobs that the graduates from the Creative Advertising programme land.
'Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.' Leo Burnett
The course's Cabinet of Curiosities has changed its display again.
This time it's level three student Jemma Gower's fascinating collection of pin badges.
I wonder what's next...?
It truly is a wonderful sight to see all of that work up on the walls of the CA Studio... and so neat, so, so neat. At least until the assessment begins!
We are at the mid-point in the year (and the whole course, actually) for our 2nd Year students where we can review their progress and point them in the right direction for the rest of the Term.
It is also a really useful opportunity for each of them to look at one another's work, decide who they want to try working with during the next few months and whose work really makes them jealous!
Then, when it's all done and cleared away we can begin with Term 2 and the run in to the end of the year...
Here's yet another update on a past University of Lincoln Creative Advertising graduate.
Lu outside the YCN office in fashionable Shoreditch
Lucy Kenyon graduated in 2009 and now works at YCN.
This is what she says about her job:-
'Having graduated in 2009, I have spent my earlier working life as a designer, but have now become part of the YCN team as a Project Manager. I work alongside designers, creatives, illustrators and other project managers in a small but fast paced studio.'
'My main responsibilities lie with ensuring the Awards continue to go from strength to strength, as well as project and accounts support. Another exciting and ever growing task is new business, which is where my focus will lie in 2012. As well all this I maintain the YCN shop and library, buying new and exciting items as well as project managing the development of new products which use the talents of the YCN creative roster.'
Phone, laptop and lights. What more do you need at work?
Thanks for the update, Lu! Sounds like things are going really well. Keep in touch!
