JUL 2007 - Axis Adschool Direct Marketing Initiative
Interim report
By David Bell, Course Leader, AXIS Adschool
Background
Andrew Mitchell (Connect Communications and Marketing Association Agency Council Executive member) approached me last year to set the foundations for a new dedicated DM module as part of the course. Over the months we developed a loose plan and Andrew cajoled various top DM and interactive specialists to join in. With the increased emphasis on Digital Interactive, I have also incorporated more digital awareness and simple skills into the course, with a Media Design School Digital Tutor taking the students through various aspects of Digital communications - web, podcasts, blog, RSS etc.
I also did the ‘normal’ AXIS Adschool induction to Direct. The stage was thus set to go into more detail:
Day 1
David King and Matthew Hampton (AIM Proximity) and Wayne Pick (TEQUILA) came in to inspire the students with examples of great Direct work, and to make suggestions about how to make the best impression when looking for a job ….and how to keep it. Both local and international exemplars were used, and detailed case studies were given. As one of the few graduates of Adschool to have actively pursued Direct as a career and to be doing so well, Matt Hampton’s perspective was particularly useful.
This was a brilliant start to the module. At least half the students were really excited by Direct, seeing all sorts of potential for more hands-on ideas and general ‘doing’. I got the impression that what attracted them was the obvious lack of pretentiousness of our guest speakers.
Days 2 and 3
Andrew Mitchell made a neat presentation centred round various criteria for judging work specific to DM. He then handed out some local pieces of DM to critique, plus we asked the students to select work from the recently-awarded Cannes Direct section. Andrew came in the next day, and the students all did a pretty good job at applying the criteria and assessing the work accordingly. It was fantastic to see this degree of rigour and professionalism being applied, and I have incorporated (i.e. stolen!) the criteria into several subsequent projects.
Day 4
Vaughn Davis (Y&R) gave a very entertaining, but compelling, case study presentation on a Kiwi Bacon Direct Mailer. Vaughn is a ruthlessly entertaining presenter - his arguments against the ‘wankery’ of some awards-obsessed brand activity are hard to shoot down. He also makes a very good point about there being more job opportunities for creatives in Direct (and Retail) because that’s increasingly where clients are spending more money. He also cooked the students some bacon. I have stolen some of his presentation techniques and will pass them off as my own.
Day 5
Adam Oliveira (Saatchi Interactive) took the students through some of the right-here-right-now innovations that are happening here and abroad. Saatchi’s emphasis on emerging technologies is very encouraging, if a little scary. But it’s pointed me very firmly in the direction of encouraging real ‘what if’ thinking, as I think that it’s a way to help the students leapfrog traditional thinking to get somewhere really innovative. By the time they get established in agencies (around 2- 3 years), a lot of the seemingly bizarre technologies will have become commonplace, so this ‘around the corner’ thinking is very important for everyone’s future. I was particularly taken with the notion that creatives should really become new product developers for clients - to be more pro-actively generalist in their careers.
Adam then set the students a very expansive, speculative brief to get people to sign up to be a part of a ‘City Ship’ concept; to market it from teaser campaign, through to sign up, and from then to make people become evangelical citizens of this audacious concept. The brief was somewhat bigger than I expected, so I gave everyone a couple of extra days to get stuck in. All ideas were uploaded onto a special Blog site that Adam has set up for the project. Feedback is being given via the blog - very exciting! I have stolen this brief to make it a scholarship brief for new students.
Lee Parkinson (TOUCH/CAST/next) followed Adam and showed all sorts of mobile and Web-based activities he’s been working on. Lee is another charismatic presenter, and blew the students away. There were a couple of technical problems which meant the day ended a bit scrambled, but the message certainly got through. Lee had a brief for us, but Adam Oliveira’s swamped the moment - I’ll pick up on this for a later project.
Whilst we were waiting for Adam’s initial feedback, I set the students the brief to develop Xmas Cards for the clients of Ad agencies. The clever bit, however, was that they then had to send their concepts to the Creative Directors of those agencies, with a covering letter inviting criticism - thereby making it a measurable response DM project. One student, Katrin Stamm, jumped the gun on sending her idea out to Wayne Pick at TEQUILA and has scored the first placement of the year! The rest of the students will be pushed to finish this project, as it works on so many levels - so expect stuff in the post.
Adam Oliveira follow-up: The students’ work wasn’t quite as complete as it should have been. I suspect everyone got too hung up with the tease aspect of the opening of the campaign, and so didn’t do enough work on actually acquiring punters. This is perhaps a problem about being too speculative and encouraging of ‘around the corner’ thinking. Both Adam and I, and our copy Tutor, Kate Humphries, took pains to remind everyone that they have to be professional, and I have extended the deadline so that everyone does it properly. It must be pointed out however that we ARE in speculative learning territory, so no-one’s really quite sure what the outcome should be. But even if the students didn’t deliver the goods first time round, we’ve all certainly learned a lot!
What’s yet to happen?
Patrick Murphy (AIM Proximity) and Chris Hunter (Rivet) intend to talk about ther 10 golden rules for DM Art Directors and Copywriters and set simple briefs to test whether it’s sunk in. As mentioned, students are resubmitting more complete ideas to Adam Oliveira for his feedback. We’ll hopefully be able to show you some of the work that eventuates on this at a later date.
The final part of the Direct Module will be to set a real-world brief for the students to develop a Direct Response campaign to get the industry to attend their end of year show. This brief will come in about four weeks’ time, to run from the beginning of October. There was talk of the winning team or individual being offered a placement by way of a reward - this has yet to be confirmed. Initial ideas will be presented to a panel of as many of the original DM speakers as are available, with 2 levels of assessment and response to identify the winner/s. Although it’s a ‘small’ project, as a test of DM sensibilities and creativity, I’m very excited. We shall see if the two can be married well enough to convince our toughest market. And despite it being a zero budget affair, we see no reason why, with digital technology, it shouldn’t be very effective and highly creative.
Conclusions
Andrew Mitchell’s idea has been a welcome and much needed addition to the course. It has already served its primary functions, which were to inspire new creatives to consider going into the DM field and to give them some of the tools they need to make sure they can hack it. The swell of interest is VERY marked. The module has also given me a better idea of how to go forward in future - to make the module bigger and allow for more work to be done as part of it.
On a personal level, although historically AXIS Adschool has been much closer to the big agencies and delivered young creatives to their requirements, it’s no secret to our students that I am sceptical (even cynical) about some current brand advertising practices, as I sometimes think too many of its creative practitioners don’t put enough emphasis on their ideas really changing behaviour. On a bad day, I also think that some are too awards-focused, and thus neglecting their main responsibilities to their clients. This is patently bad for brand.
So I have increasingly come to see DM as the future and salvation of brand advertising. The digital communications world - Web, SMS, touch-screens etc - is so accountable and such a genuinely interactive medium that I see the existing disciplines of Direct as a perfect marriage. Direct has adopted the digital media early as a powerful advertising tool and has a better understanding of how consumers really do interact. In comparison to brand, it’s ‘already there’. So Brand has a lot to learn from Direct - more, possibly, than Direct can learn from Brand.
At the end of the day, however, it’s the quality of our insights and ideas and strategic creative thinking that will define whether we are any good, and these are not disciplines confined to either Direct or Brand. All the DM speakers we’ve heard from have emphasised this point. So rather than this module being a shift away from Brand to Direct, I see it more as a joining of the disciplines for the better of both - real integration. That my students might be at the beginning of something really special is very, very exciting, and I feel privileged to have been here when it happened.
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