Vicky and I were united again this week to visit and revisit a few agencies. We were fairly confident about our book this time because it had earned us a placement at Muirhoward. However, as always, people had very different opinions to each other. In one agency a campaign was our best work and in another, it had to be taken out of our book.
Its nice to go back and see familiar faces in an agency, especially when the team you're meeting are some sort of comedy double act. Unfortunately it also makes it even more frustrating when you know for sure that you'd really like to work in a place...
We also took some time out to see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. It was possibly the oddest film I've ever seen. Is it a computer game turned into a film? Or a film turned into a computer game? Although it was weird, it was enjoyable and even funny in places. For those Lincolnites who see it - check out the young Gyles Lingwood playing Gideon (the villain).
A highlight of our London excursions has to be the discovery of Ben's Cookies. If you haven't been I suggest you get down there ASAP. They look so hard and crispy but they literally melt in your mouth. I had a white chocolate and macadamia nut beauty, there are no words to describe.....
Last week Vicky visited St Albans again for a few days so we could go through our book, compare the work we'd done and go to a couple of book crits in London.
I thought it would be a lot more difficult to work seperately and talk over the phone but I think we're coping quite well. Obviously it would be much easier if we could meet up every week, but neither of us has any money booooooooo.
When Vicky arrives we always have a little show and tell, showing all the drawn up ideas we've been emaiing, texting and calling about for weeks and telling each other what we think. It's a tight squeeze to sleep two people in my bedroom, and probably a fairly boring trip for Vicky (I don't have a T.V. signal in my room), but the hard work and sacrifice will pay off eventually.
Last week we spent day one on Tottenham Court Road, firstly going to see the new Twilight film - Eclipse. I am an unashamed fan of the books and I have to say the film was OK, and probably good for the people who don't read the books. Personally I think it lacked some of the humour that was in the book, for those who know them well, I'm referring to that tent scene.
Later on we dropped into Saatchi & Saatchi to see a team. We had our book crit out in the large reception area. I've always dreaded having such an exposed crit but it was actually a lot more relaxed and gave us a lot more to look at while they were going through our work. We had some really constructive comments as always and got feedback along the lines of "your ideas are great but you're just not pushing them far enough". We shall be revisiting Saatchi's (hopefully) in about a month, so until then we will be "pushing" everything as far as we can go.
The next day we went to see our mate Brittony - Check out her blog she has moved into a house in Tottenham with some of the Dutch guys from our course. We were pleasantly suprised by the house and the area, in fact we were probably a little bit jealous of all their Ikea goodies.
Later on we went to Farringdon to visit an agency called Muirhoward, who are a relatively small agency that are responsible for those great HSBC "world's bank" ads:
We saw the creative director who was a really inspiring guy and obviously lives for advertising. He seemed really enthusiatic about all our work and offered some great ideas of his own. After showing him the portfolio he went and brought us some of the work he had worked on and we had an interesting chat about Crystal Palace and Ikea. Vicky and I both feel like he was on the same 'wavelength' as us and would love to get offered some work there! He said he'd get back to us so fingers crossed.
A lovely and local marketing and communications agency has let me man their reception for a few weeks. They're called The Big Kick (www.thebigkick.com) and they produce lots of promotional marketing for brands like Walkers crisps, Nestle, Branstons etc...
They also have a very picturesque location - in the grounds of Hatfield House. This is the view if you drive in:
It is only temporary, but everyone is really friendly and it sort of gives me some industry experience. They're also really flexible about me going off for book crits, some of which took place this week (blog post to follow). My main duties include, answering the phones and responding to emails, but I also get to do a bit of PA type things, like booking people train tickets (exciting, I know). I'm hoping that someone will run in to reception saying something like "Help, this pitch is tomorrow and we just don't have any good ideas yet, oh where can we find a great creative at such short notice?!?!"...I think you can see where this is going. I imagine myself to be somewhat of a Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting character, or like those shoe-elves that come in during the night, etc...
It was good fun while it lasted. We also managed to squeeze in a workshop at a digital agency called R/GA. They set us a brief to advertise a new bubbly chocolate bar called 'Mars Bubbles' and find an idea that could be used across all media. T'was really informative so we'll probably pop back for a book crit. Was also really interesting to see work from other teams in the same position we are.
We also fitted in book crits with Adam & Eve, Dare and Ogilvy. The consensus seemed to be that there are no placements left in London this summer, but we will keep trying! They all gave us some great feedback and were really encouraging about the future.
Vicky and I have now parted for a few weeks to get some more work done, and hopefully earn a bit of money as I am currently the poorest I have ever been, ever. I would ideally love a bit of work at a local agency to tide me over and get some experience. But for now I am unemployed and in and out of the local job centre, how lovely.
The last day of our London visits began with a trip to VCCP. We met with Tony, who is part of a senior team there. He was a lot more critical than anyone we'd seen before, but as Dave Morris once said, that is probably a good thing.
Our next stop was to Adam & Eve (loving the new John Lewis ad) for our second visit. We seemed to be taken a bit more seriously this time and were told that our book had improved, hooray! The comments were really helpful and we will be going back to pester them a bit more.
After a spot of Pizza Hut Buffet we made our way to Ogilvy.
We saw a different lady this time as our usual team was away on holiday. Kristal was really friendly and seemed to really understand all our work. I don't know whether it's because we've been there so many times or something but we're really starting to feel at home in Ogilvy! They're always so laid back and unpretentious towards us. No doubt we'll be going back again on our next trip.
The last book crit of the week was to Work Club...
We saw their famous 'Bart Simpson Wall' -
Although it was a fairly quick book crit, Greg gave us a lot to think about.
Why can't agencies all have the same opinions? We've never had so many book crits in one lot so it was really interesting to see that some people loved things that other people seemed to hate. I have a feeling we're going to end up with a few different books for different places if we listen to everyone's advice!
Sorry about the lack of posts but I have been at home for the last two weeks. The first of these weeks Vicky joined me for our next round of book crits...
We gave in our degree work a whole day early in order to go straight down to London and meet with Lol and Nat. They have a great blog on the Campaign website and work at Glue. After discovering The Breakfast Club 80s themed cafe we got well and truly lost in Hoxton looking for the illusive Tea Building. Despite recently acquiring a wonderful new iPhone, Google Maps just did not want to co-operate! We luckily got there bang on 1pm after going in a few strange buildings and making a panicky call to Lol. They were really nice and down to earth so we'll definately go back to see them again (it should be easier to find a second time round).
Next up we visited the headquarters of Barry M cosmetics. Vicky and I had a few good ideas for their brand so we contacted them directly to show them what we'd thought of.
They really liked our iPhone app idea and said that if they hadn't already got an app they would of probably made it, as they're so expensive to produce. How annoying! However, they did say that it might be worth taking our ideas to another make-up brand as our ideas definately had potential, so we'll see what happens...
The next day we started off by visiting BBH to meet with one half of the team that handles the Audi account. He was a really friendly and helpful guy and said that although all our ideas are ads that could run tomorrow, we should be going a bit more crazy. Basically, we need to stand out more.
Next up was Dare the digital agency. We thought we would be seeing a friend of a friend called Luke who is a designer there but he ended setting us up with two creative directors! What a legend. They both went through all our work giving us advice and telling us what to change. We both really like the laid-back atmosphere in Dare and the people we saw made us feel really welcome - another one we'll have to revisit!
Last of the day was a team at DDB that produced the Marmite ads (the ones I wrote about before).
They seemed to know what they were talking about and gave us similar comments to Kevin at BBH. We definately think that we could learn a lot from them so we'll be going back again to show them what we've changed...
I shall write about the rest of our meetings in my next post as I think that's enough reading for one day.
On Monday and Tuesday we spent some more time daaahhnn in Landan for a few book crits. We began the week with a meeting at CHI & Partners. Although they don't offer placements the guys we saw were really positive about our book and gave us some great ideas to push our work further. The meeting was slightly tarred by the fact that I ordered a 'Cup of tea' from their coffee shop, only to receive a cappuccino. I was too embarrassed to say anything and proceeded to sip disgusting coffee throughout the book crit (silly me).
We then made our way to Farringdon to meet with the CEO of a start-up agency called London Advertising - www.londonadvertising.com. He seemed to like our ideas but picked us up a few times on presentation, which was odd as CHI had said: "wow, your book is so much neater than mine was". However, he did say he would like to see us again and that he found our book interesting.
After a short trip to Spaghetti House (yum), Vicky and I made our way to Saatchi & Saatchi. Through some very posh steel doors where we were told to wait in the very clean reception area, we were given clip on name badges, which we attached while looking at a wall stacked with yellow and black pencils.
We were taken upstairs to the creative department by Jonathan (his partner was away). He took a long time going through our book and getting us to talk about our work, while giving us some very useful tips and advice on how to get more from our ideas. He seemed to pick up on some obvious ideas that we hadn't ever thought of and gave us a very long to-do list to complete for next time. He said he'd love to see us again as he thought our ideas were great and he wanted to help us get better !
The next day we visited our first all-digital agency, AKQA. We were taken into the canteen for our book crit and had a really funny chat with the team. They went through every campaign, even though not all of them were digital and told us it would be great if we could come up with something digital for all our briefs. This all took place while about 20 people were singing happy birthday to a colleague next to us.
They gave us ways to improve and some really interesting thoughts on digital. When you should use certian social networking sites, how you should use them, getting the right tone of voice, etc... They were so friendly that they actually thanked us for finding the time to see them! We'll definately be going back to see them.
Last Thursday Vicky and I made our way to London town to see a couple of agencies. Our first visit was to Adam & Eve in Covent Garden, where we showed our portfolio to a creative team. They were really helpful and went through each campaign telling us what they liked and what they thought we should change. They also gave us the great advice that it is OK to stalk creatives for book crits as they would've had to do it too at some stage. So watch out creatives, we're going to harass you until you give us a restraining order, or a book crit.
Next our journey took us to Canary Wharf to meet a female creative team at Ogilvy. They were both really friendly and positive and probably the most helpful people we will ever meet. Also, they said that we could come back the next day as we were visiting Ogilvy again anyway for our course. So we left extremely happy about the day's events and with plenty of ideas about re-doing some ads.
Friday came and we met up with some people from our course to go to a proper crit at Ogilvy. We met a team called Serge and Steve who seemed to have worked at just about every advertising agency going. They went through all our work and gave us feedback and definately didn't hold back. Its always good to get an honest opinion! They also suggested that the future for us graduates may not be that bleak. Agencies will undoubtedly be looking for cheaper employees - and what comes cheaper than a work placement team at £80 a week?
Once our crit was finished we went back down to the creative department at Ogilvy 1 to see our best mates in the world. We were shocked to discover that they required another look at our portfolio, which we had not brought with us! A journey to my home in St Albans and back (with book) ensued. Finally managed to sort out a photocopied portfolio for them (scary shit), and we should hopefully get some more feedback this week, hurray!
So all in all a very successful trip. We're already planning to visit both agencies again in Easter and hopefully a few more, if we can do enough stalking!
