Testing your mettle

A great way to get noticed and test your advertising skills is to enter open briefs. D&AD runs open student briefs for campaigns and there are others.

http://www.dandad.org/awards/student/2009/categories/25/open-brief-1
http://www.bootb.com/en/all-briefs/

This is an excellent way to get onto advertising courses by standing out. It will help you to develop a portfolio and to get the juices flowing. Its great to have the knowledge and theory provided by books; but taking it to the next level and forging a campaign idea is just so much more fun.

You don't even need to enter these, you can keep the ideas to self , it's just nice to see the kind of briefs set.

This Is Advertising - Book Reccomendation

Eliza Williams’ book is different from other advertising books; it offers a great overview of some of the best and most memorable ad campaigns worldwide. It covers all different types of advertising and has lush glossy full colour pictures of all the campaigns. The really nice thing about this book is its simplicity; it gives you the adverts in all their forms and gives you an outline of the objectives and implementations.

It’s interesting to see the different ways in which advertising agencies tackle different audiences or briefs and the details give you a chance to see which advertising agency has published what (it’s good to know who’s done what when looking for advertising careers as everyone loves an ego massage once in a while!)

I’d personally recommend this book for anyone partaking in advertising degrees or advertising courses looking for some inspiration, or just a nice talking-point book that has some genuine cultural milestones in.
You can pick it up from Amazon for about a tenner; check out our bookshelf!

What in gods name is a creative?

What does a Creative do?

 “Creates ideas, ideas, ideas!”

The creative department of an agency is where the campaign comes together. It’s where that great idea or stunning visual is dreamt up. They take the client brief and work with it to invent ideas to address the brand’s business problems. From here, they work with media planners/buyers and the production department in order to make those ideas, that have been approved by the client, into a reality.

How does a Creative Team work?

Traditionally a ‘Creative Team’ is made up of an Art Director and Copy Writer. This essentially means one ‘visual’ and one ‘words’ person.  However most creative partnerships are far more fluid and collaborative than this: in other words while Creatives may perhaps be stronger in say copy writing than art direction they may both act as Art and Copy Director within the team. Creatives often find partnerships of this kind work very well as they can inspire and refine each other’s ideas. Creatives work to client briefs set by the agency.

This said not all Creatives come in pairs and individuals may be called upon to work in conjunction with another team or on their own projects. As long as you have a strong portfolio (‘Book’) demonstrating strong art and copy direction there is nothing to say you have to part of a creative duo to get a job. (Source:IPA.com)

Mobile Advertising News - Apps World

Mobile advertising is growing and apps are a massive part of this. Apps world is an event to be held 30th Novemeber and 1st December for App developers, vendors, operators etc. Read more about some of the best new Apps and Mobile advertising at 4th Screen Advertising - www.4th-screen.com/creativegallery

For further information on app-world visit - www.apps-world.net

Transcreation

Advertising campaigns often need to be moved into other markets…this is where Transcreation is often mistaken for simple translation – however the difference is great. Simple translation can end up with mistakes like when Pepsi’s Taiwanese execution of “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation”, literally translated as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the grave”…needless to say, it doesn’t! This is where you need transcreation.

Transcreation requires the work of professional copywriters that must have cultural knowledge and a good understanding of the local market. Every language has it’s own charm like cockney rhyming slang - so local copywriters are needed in foreign markets.

Redworks is an up and growing transcreation and translation company which understands the need to adapt marketing materials for individual markets. Having a team of worldwide copywriters enables them to be able to address new markets successfully.