At the recent Clio Festival in Miami, agencies did Singapore proud as they were saluted with a total of 21 awards. JWT Singapore – 4 Bronze; Kinetic Singapore – 1 Silver; Ogilvy & Mather Singapore – 1 Silver, 6 Bronze; Saatchi & Saatchi – 2 Silver, 7 Bronze.
At the Festival, Clio Awards held a global competition, Future Gold | Young Creatives Program, in support of the next generation of advertising creatives. This competition calls for a dozen creatives under 30 years old from around the world to respond to a creative brief within 24-hours.
Andrew McKechnie , copywriter of JWT Singapore, was amongst the selected 12 young finalists. He shares with us his experience at the Clio Festival and how he held out the 24-hour challenge.
By: Andrew McKechnie
If you've ever been to Miami , you'd know work is the last thing on your mind. But here I was competing in the Clio Future Gold competition attempting to do just that. At least I had eleven other young creatives from around the world along for the ride.
The majority of us landed in Miami the day before the competition. We sussed each other out and after some niceties, we went our separate ways for the rest of the day. I hit the beach.
The next day we got the brief from Adobe and split up into six teams. I got teamed up with one of the local Miami boys, Gabriel Reyes.
The brief was to create a public service campaign encouraging businesses to go green. Not the most exciting brief but at least it was clear. We were given 24 hours to conceptualize and execute. We also had the pleasure of a film crew documenting our every move.
Our next step was to come up with a game plan. Do we go safe or do we go all out? When do we stop conceptualizing and start executing? How finished should the work be? With our plan in hand, we went to work.
One challenge was finding a quiet place to think. Miami is just full of distractions. There also seems to be clothes shortage in this place.
Most of the day was spent developing various angles and killing off the crap ideas. By 9pm we decided on a route and started executing. I really thought that this would be enough time but at 9am the next morning we were still at it. With no sleep, far too many red bulls, bad food and a camera crew sitting in the corner of our hotel room, we were left with one hour before the presentation. We decided to kill the weak executions and went in with a solid print campaign and some ambient ideas.
Each team presented to a jury of three people. Unfortunately not the hotshot Creative Directors we were expecting. The teams that got selected for the client presentation, in my opinion, were too safe. Hence to say, we were out.
As much as we were disappointed in not winning, it didn't seem so bad. We went with an idea that we thought was interesting and fresh. And most importantly, we had a great time creating it.
After the presentation was over, we slept for the rest of the day. At least now we could concentrate on seeing some of the real Miami sights without any distractions of the work type.
Related Links:
