By Dennis Engel

How I built a 900k retail start-up in the age of nineteen

Wow! How did he become such a prodigy in the age of nineteen already? He must have an amazing story to tell! – These are probably some of the first thoughts you had in mind while reading the headline and clicking on the link.  But your are absolutely wrong! Do you really believe I would study at the SCA when I would have had an 900k idea in such a young age already? Of course not! I probably would retire in the age of 27 while enjoying the ocean view of my California based 5-bedroom appartment. So here is the first thing I learned in my first week:

I learned the importance of grabbing someones attention. 90% of the ad campaigns that are out there in the big concrete jungle will die as lonely, unrecognized pieces of miscommunication. Communication needs a transmitter and a receiver.  Without a receiver even the worlds most creative campaign is absolutly powerless. So I simply thought about how I can make this SCAB not vanishing unrecognized in the data universe of the the internet. I grabbed your attention. Even though I can’t be sure that you wouldn’t have ended up at my SCAB anyways. 

The second rule I already learned:

We always keep the monkey alive! Be honest! — Did my headline grabbed your attention? If yes… —Good for me! Bad for you! This means that you already forgot the important essence of Buddha Ben’s lesson. My headline guided you towards a story that kept your monkey alive. Who doesn’t dream of becoming the next rockstar creative with the next big idea of the century. But that thought isn’t the story that I created in your mind. I simply guided you towards this line of thoughts. You forgot to keep your monkey under control. Therefor it is really important to never forget to ask questions. Solving problems and giving  the right answers at the right time can make the difference between good and bad communication. 

Where we reach my third and last lesson from this week:

We can’t implant ideas in other peoples minds. The only option we have is to guide them towards an idea. Everybody has it’s own opinion. As I already mentioned before advertising doesn’t trick people. We always trick ourselves. Advertising is just as powerful as the believe of it’s audience. If we are able to create an audience that believes in our messages,  we will succeed. 

Luckily I already had a really good impression on how good communication & advertising works while visiting the two agencies Albion & Proximity. Like most of us I also experienced an absolutly fantastic day with Nick Darken (creative partner Albion) and John Treacy (ECD Proximity). I think the biggest part that we learned is on how diverse communication can be used to solve different types of problems (Albion: business development, business reinvention, innovation, startup) (Proximity: Branding, direct marketing, event marketing etc.).