The Idea Writers by @tiezzi

Great presentation at MIMA last night by Teressa Iezzi the editor of Advertising Ages Creativity magazine. She spoke on her experiences and what lead her to publish her new book "The Idea Writer: Copywriting in a New Media and Marketing Era."

As we all know in the past great advertising campaigns were typically built from television ideas and with great language driven by copywriters. However, today's copywriter must be multifaceted and create across many different platforms. I really loved her comparison that "copywriters are truly now inventors".

She spoke for a long time on how the Internet is not just a medium but rather it has been a behavior changing vehicle for brands.

The assumption that copywriters need to take today is that they need to create something that is useful, entertaining, beautiful or all of the above. It's all about connecting the brand that they are writing for with people. It's about freedom and that we can't hold back people from having a conversation with the brand.

I loved this platform of change that she spoke of: "We've gone from Big Ideas = Big Ad Campaigns" to "Big Ideas = Big business ideas that might not involve advertising at all".

And then she quoted Rei Inamoto "My equation is the idea = emotion x function. So I'm looking for partnerships between copywriters and UX designers." Yes it is a different world that we live in - the days of just art directors and copywriters creating things is in the past. It's onto the future with creative technologists, UX designers, and content curators and so on.

We all need to think of agencies as "developers" and what we can bring to help our clients solve their problems.

Guess what book I'm going to be buying this weekend?

Great Idea by Kodak

Kodak has done something extremely innovative on a very basic thing.

This morning I go the USA Today site to read a story about the Super Bowl ads. And I want to take it home to read over the weekend and I go to print it out.

And viola the screen shot to the left shows what popped up. A print screen with a Kodak brand printer on top - what smart placement. Something very simple yet very effective. I didn't even know that Kodak made printers but the next time I'm in the market for a printer I'll think about Kodak.

This is a great example of a brand finding an application that works to their benefit. Kodak makes printers and they are sponsoring printing on the USA Today site. Very, very smart and well done Kodak.

What I learned at #CATFOA on 1/31

This past Monday night the first Conversations about the future of advertising event (CATFOA) was held at the Fine Line Music Cafe in Minneapolis. Despite a snowy day a decent crowd awaited Ana Andjelic (@andjelicaaa) Planning Director at HUGE, Inc.

Ana's topic was "Do we need a new definition of creativity?" Ana is a native of Serbia and has received a PhD from Columbia University. She opened up by saying that the digital space is kind of like a kid's birthday party as you kind of never know what will really happen at the party.

"Creativity is the medium and not the channel." She mentioned the "neighborgoods" site as one that uses collaborative consumption. And "skyara" as a marketplace for experiences.

She closed with five guidelines/signposts for creativity:
1) There are NO shortcuts -
2) How do you frame the problem?
3) Choose your own adventure
4) Behaviors, not tools - the DonQ Rum brand as an example
5) Bricolage, not jigsaw - the chalkbot from Nike as a great example

A great quote that she used was "Be less wrong than yesterday" from Adam G. Message being learn from your mistakes and clearly that is critical as we try to move our clients businesses forward.

Her main theme was that briefing/planning has typically been focused on one person. She believes that "context maters more than a perception" and that we need to think broader from a planning perspective as we move forward.

Once again a great session at CATFOA and looking forward to the next event in February. Will you be there?
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