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Sandra Loibl

Camel Power Meets Girl Power at Dubai Lynx

Sandra Loibl, Executive Creative Director at Serviceplan Campaign in Munich, talks about being on the Dubai Lynx Jury for Promo & Activation, Outdoor, Interactive and Mobile category. Serviceplan Group Middle East are an official sponsor of Dubai Lynx, the biggest festival in the Middle East and North Africa region for the creative communications industry. She also gives some interesting insights into the empowerment of women in the region.

Whoever’s been on a trip to the Middle East, instantly has a pretty solid idea in mind hearing these two words together. You too, right?

Anybody, who has the chance to visit Dubai and the other Emirates nowadays, can immediately kiss this antiquated notion goodbye. That’s because the model of femininity is subject to constant change in this region – which is certainly a good thing.

The same goes for camels. They represent – more by coincidence than by definition – the creative change. As a member of the jury, I couldn’t ignore the “camelpower” idea by Nissan. Pure genius. Just to give you a little heads up: Camelpower became the creative power of the Middle East. Nissan simply developed a new measuring unit or rather activity unit for off-road vehicles. Not outdated horse power but C-A-M-E-L-P-O-W-E-R. Who might have a use for horses in the desert anyway? Together with National Geographic, Nissan took a highly scientific approach to develop the “camel-power-unit”. An idea, which could have only originated in this region and yet is so simple, that one can understand it anywhere in the world.

Even I, being a woman who doesn’t have a clue about cars, gets it! Didn’t we say, we’d stop using prejudices? It seems a lot has changed in the Middle East. At the Dubai Lynx Festival, there were a lot of brilliant ideas concerning the empowerment of women in this region. And again, I have to mention Nissan. #shedrives is a wonderful idea, about the fact that “women are finally allowed to drive”. Emotional, relevant and really well executed. “Bridal uniform” is an idea devoted to the terrible topic of forced marriage among under aged girls in Pakistan – with a fashion show. A supermarket chain even changed its former male dominated branding into a female one. Ladies and gentlemen, raise your hats.

Making a long story short: the creative ideas from this region make a strong and believable statement for equality. Ideas not only for NGOs but for real brands. I think this is really great and mind changing. Even Coke celebrates the fact that women are allowed to go to concerts. with a brilliantly crafted print ad. All this using their very own brand claim “taste the feeling”. Feels fantastic!

Thanks, Dubai. Thanks, Middle East. For ideas, that can truly make a difference. And also, for a great jury with exceptionally gifted creatives from all around the world who communicate, discuss, convince and allow themselves to be convinced. I’m having tons of funs being part of this the creative process, which is also a process of awakening for us western thinkers – male and female.

 

This article was first published on lbbonline.com.

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Markus Maczey

How marketing automation and creation fit together

When it comes to programmatic advertising or marketing automation in general, media or technology experts usually lead the discussion, while creation often remains sidelined. However, in a world of advertising where computers are increasingly performing control-based processes, creation is an important criterion of differentiation for brands and businesses and should not be considered as separate to the technical implementation.

In the key discussion regarding programmatic advertising and marketing automation, the market is driven exclusively by technology and media experts. So far it simply hasn’t been necessary in creation to speak about technological solutions.

However, avoiding the modern opportunities for advertising certainly isn’t a solution with a future. Creative minds should know and use the possibilities for involving new technologies such as programmatic advertising – even if it isn’t their main task to promote the standardisation of advertising media or the measurement methodology of online videos on Facebook or to discuss interface problems between DSPs and SSPs. But they do need to develop an idea at the beginning of the process that will surprise the market and that isn’t expected. Only once this umbrella idea for a brand or product has been developed is it possible to meaningfully engage automation in marketing.

The greatest hurdles for programmatic creation lie in everyday work. This is because advertisers’ briefings for media and creation are unfortunately rarely coordinated with each other. Completely different objectives are frequently formulated for the two areas – depending on whether the aim is to achieve something for the brand or for sales. Furthermore, media and creation are usually different departments (both for the customer and the agency) that don’t always communicate with each other. How exactly the creative process works in an agency and in cooperation with the advertisers strongly depends on how the campaign planning is organised. The areas of strategy, media and creation are usually involved. If one of these areas starts the work on its own or dominates the planning process (which is usually the case) then at least one department is often dissatisfied.

Anyone wanting to advertise successfully in the programmatic age should try to engage all those involved at an early stage and incorporate all their perspectives. Creative minds need to understand how algorithms work and how media people tick. While media needs to realise that creative individuals have an emotional connection with “their” motif and that it isn’t just any old piece of cargo. Only in the symbiosis, in the understanding that the other group also has a very important contribution to make, do we get an end result with added value and a meaningful strategy. The foundation for this approach in the future should be for creation and media to have a shared budget. If, for example, creation addresses users with more target-group-specific advertising and varying motifs (and requires more time and money to do so), this money can then be saved from the advertising effect and the media budget can be lower.

As a first step towards finding a common solution, advertisers should precisely define what they expect from their communication or campaign. Ideally, marketing, media, sales and other stakeholders should get together for this and formulate clear targets for creation, strategy and media. After all, only once a good strategy has been decided upon and a compelling creation developed can programmatic advertising and automation demonstrate their strengths.

This article was published at Arabian Marketer.

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Moe Jawhar

You won’t need a turtleneck to be creative

We often ask our self the question, where do good ideas come from? and we seem to be sure that a great idea is born in a single incident, Eureka! .. like Newton’s apple.

Moreover, we think creative ideas come from the selected few, guys with turtleneck sweaters and rounded glasses, or it has to be written somewhere in their title, they also have to work in a special place, preferably with a lot of colors and bean bags .. and the occasional pool table.

The first truth is, ideas take time to be form, it’s usually the collection of everything we face in our lives, the problems, the challenges, the stuff we read online, a story our mom told us at a certain point, and although you may not know it, your brain files all these information for later use.

Ideas are created in our daily lives, in the cultures we live in, so if you are a creative person, an accountant, a photographer or a cook, you can find inspiration everywhere, and if you remember that ideas come from creative collaboration and the impact of and the role of users and consumers in creating your ideas are guaranteed to elevate to an upper level.

The second truth is, ideas are more likely to come from the combination of different thoughts that clash together, you see why workshops are important, for an idea to be born it needs a collision, a friction if you may, that challenges the single thought in a purpose of improving it or creating something completely new out of it.

Best examples of innovations around the world we created or only find its true purpose by customers, end-users, people who created beautiful things that would not have been created by big corporations because they couldn’t see the need, the opportunity: they didn’t have the incentive to innovate.

This is a huge challenge to the way we think creativity comes about. The traditional view still follows in much the way with think about creativity – in silos.

Ideas are problem-solving, seizing opportunities, creating a change but ultimately selling a product. And if an idea doesn’t deliver on any of those goals, then it’s a waste.

Sadly, you see a lot of “waste” around us, beautiful execution and products that cost a lot of money and the most expensive media touch points, but no results, no sales, no test drives, no interest.

We need to have a mindset that allows everyone to contribute, under one roof or many, from any department, client or agency, small business or big… trust me it makes a difference.

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Serviceplan Group

Let’s talk! – Programmatic Creation

Do creatives have zero desire for the new fascinating possibilities of programmatic advertising? Do media planners even understand how creation is made on and offline? Or are creation and media two such different poles that they are by nature hard to bring together? Under the motto “Let’s Talk”, mediascale Managing Director Wolfgang Bscheid and Markus Maczey, Chief Creative Officer of the Plan.Net Group, sat down and talked openly about advantages and disadvantages, opportunities and difficulties. They talked about marketing automation, creation and the future collaboration between advertisers and agencies.

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Matthias Harbeck

The meaning of ‘creative’

,

What does creative mean?
What a question.
Ideally, creative is something one just is, without any lengthy discussion.
However, if I must.
Here goes:

Creative is new, unpredictable, capricious.
A smartass take on this is that being creative is a paradox. It is the meaningful combination of things which do not belong together.
And then you suddenly just get it.

The word “meaningful” is important. Randomly combining thoughts, feelings and forms usually ends in confusion. Creative combinations on the other hand must make sense – but ideally not until they are in the mind of the consumer. If he or she completes the chain of thought, decodes the ultimate meaning of a film or a picture then, test institutes please take note, the effect is much stronger than when everything is pre-digested.

Actually, “consumer” is a word that I don’t really like to use. Yes, ultimately, advertising is concerned with selling, but the more messages rain down upon us “consumers” the more we only take heed of the relevant ones. That can be the much-quoted “right product at the right time in the right medium”. Programmatic is the key word here. However, the crucial factor is that the better a message is packaged, the stronger – again – the effect. I prefer to side with “Saint” Sir John Hegarty, and refer to “the public” rather than to “consumers”. We want to sell to consumers. We want to entertain the public. What is good is that a well-entertained public buys more than a well-informed public. After all, we speak of a “buying mood”.

What is good entertainment in a creative form? It’s more than just fun. It’s a new, stimulating thought, for example. A new perspective on life, giving rise to the observation, “Wow, I’ve never really looked at that in that way before”. That is what we remember, that’s what we like to tell other people about.

Good creation thrives on strong feelings. Being enthused, touched, unsettled, buoyed up, amused, everything that moves you. Tedious lists of information do not move me. I am moved by good stories which end with a surprise. Human stories which turn my prejudices and my neatly ordered thoughts inside out and upside down, which develop a dynamic of their own, never to serve their own purpose but that of the brand. This is easy to say, but damn difficult to realise every day.

Of course, creative also means unyielding, untiring and tough. Here’s a good thought: it is not ideas which set good creatives apart from bad ones but their refusal to give up.

P.S. I’m quite proud that I didn’t use the current buzzwords “disruptive”, “diversity” and “digital transformation” a single time in this text. But if you need to, my dear public, just add them mentally where appropriate and then you too will get it. 😉

This article was published in German at W&V.

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