SCABs

The Bigger Picture – By @AliciaCliffe

Alicia Cliffe

By Alicia Cliffe

 

The Bigger Picture

 

Over the last few weeks the dynamic of the school has slightly changed.

 

Not only have we got our teeth stuck into advertising briefs and we’ve picked people we’d love to have as our partners, but we’ve also started to focus on strategy.

 

We had the pleasure of meeting Patrick Collister last week. He taught us about the triangle to having successful work and to focus on producing a great insight that we could execute simply to get the message to the audience.

 

Personally, I’m lovin’ it. No, not McDonalds, but our emphasis on this as an integral part of solving any creative brief.

 

I’ve always loved research. I admit, I’m a white hat enthusiast and I adore delving into something new to find out as much about it as I can. I’ve already started to focus my efforts on finding simple and strong insights into products that the brands haven’t focused on before.

 

It’s refreshing to see a room full of students working on the same briefs and producing work that has completely different propositions.

 

But I think the most important thing to remember is how we can use our ability to learn about these brands not simply to sell a product in a new way, but a way to uses it’s influences and connections with people, to create something bigger and better for the world.

 

It’s a shame that advertising is often just wasted noise. Brands have lost connections with people and aren’t using the medium in powerful ways. With such a unique ability to talk to their audience, at nearly any time in any place, why are brands wasting touch points on a poster campaign trying to make themselves appear ‘cool’?

 

In a world full of big problems, it seems strange to even question why influential brands aren’t doing anything different. Why aren’t they focusing on the bigger picture?

 

So long are the days in which advertising should just sell a product to sell a product.

 

This is a wonderful plus of the school. SCA gives us the chance to make big, brave work with complete freedom that we wouldn’t be able to produce in the real world. We should be using this opportunity to reposition brands as instigators, movement makers and the big game changers.

 

Recently, a third of us were set a brief for G-Shock. Rhiannon and I wanted to create a big idea. Research allowed us to focus on an insight and market no one else in the class had focused on.

 

We discovered that the brand promoted itself on its technological advances, but failed to portray this through any means of advertising towards female consumers.

 

We saw this as an opportunity to use the brands core values to position them as the brand that symbolises innovation within technology, with women as an integral part to the world of science and by supporting them into the industry. And although we didn’t win the brief, I felt like I had accomplished something more than just selling a watch.

 

Don’t get me wrong it’s easy to forget that there is a world outside our four, freshly painted walls. When you are faced with a brief and you want to show your classmates that your executions can quickly be associated with the current market for the brand. Especially when time is not on your side for a two day brief.

 

But I think that there is more to advertising than making a new print campaign that sells something in a different way.

 

We want to enter a business that has contact with billions of people at hundreds of times of the day. It’s down to us to use these opportunities to create movements that will truly make a positive impact.

 

 

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