T
he APA (Advertising Practitioners
Association)
in
partnership
with International School of
Advertising (ISA) organized the creative
week as a precursor to the 2018 APA
Awards. The organizers, believing in the
Japanese mantra of ‘Kaizen’ (continuous
improvement), were looking to provide
a platform for the participating young
Creatives to share ideas, listen to industry
thought leaders through a series of
presentations, plenary discussions, debates
and even a workshop on the first day.
To test their learning, a live brief was given
to the Creatives to work on and given a
full week, in order to incorporate what
they had learnt, to come up with ideas.
Those that came up with the best ideas
were recognized. The overall objective of
the events was thus to enhance the level of
creativity in the advertising industry and
it was aptly titled ‘Go for Great’ with each
day having different activities and themes.
I attended the Thursday session titled ‘Go
for Great, Great insights’. The objective
of the day was to explore ways by which
the communication industry can generate
great ideas. It thus looked at the factors
that affect the quality of ideas and the
speakers were focused on answering to
this call.
The format comprised of a number of
presentations, panel discussions and an
evening debate. The speakers and debaters
spoke passionately and at length about the
need to raise the bar of the creative ideas
that are coming out of the communication
agencies. It would thus be a disservice to
the industry, and ISA for inviting me,
not to pen down the learnings I picked.
Focused on the speakers, this article will
explore some of the factors that go into
the development of great creative ideas
and the challenges that hinder the same.
The morning session was divided into two:
one session was on Great Insights and the
other on Great Relationships, both deemed
to have a profound effect on the quality of
communication ideas. The Great Insights
session had two presenters; Serah Katusia,
MD Mediacom East Africa Limited with
her presentation ‘The Use Of Research
For Better Targeting and Creative Results’
and Andrew Riungu Manager Consumer
Segment Research at Safaricom Limited
whose presentation was ‘How To Use Data
For Ideation Thinking and Campaign
Mapping’. The two thus focused on the
need to understand the consumer better -
60 MAL30/19 ISSUE
thus generating the much needed insights
as well as the tools that assist in coming
up with these insights.
Serah spoke on the importance of
employing research data to understand
how people feel. It is important that we are
able to mine insights from the data when
briefing the Creatives. Insights are the
‘heartbeat of how people feel and provide
the creative with a critical platform from
which they can generate great ideas. She
emphasized that great creative campaigns
are all about insights and the ability to
mine these insights is critical if we are to
raise the level of creativity in the industry.
Andrew, taking a cue from Serah’s
presentation spoke of how to understand
the research data by employing
behavioural economics. This will enable
the ideas to have a stronger meaning, be
more engaging, memorable, and relevant.
Though many Creatives may differ on
this, he spoke on the need to test the
idea beforehand, otherwise, it would
be like ‘walking across Mombasa Road
blind folded’. He elaborated by saying
that the need to test is not to reject the
idea outright but find ways to improve
it making it connect better with the
consumer.
The
mid-session
dubbed
‘Great
Relationships’ was based on the fact that
creating great ideas is a ‘community or
joint effort within the agency and with
the client. The session was kick started
by Maurice ‘Rizz’ Wangalachi - Creative
Director at Ogilvy Africa, with his
presentation titled ‘Resolving Creative
Tensions’. He spoke on the need for
resolving ‘creative tension’ as one way
of facilitating great creativity. In simple
terms this calls for having sessions with
the client, the client service and planning
departments of the agency to resolve
the ‘tension arising from the brief ’ as he
described it. The sessions need to be open
and transparent with the requisite push and
pull leading to tension. It is in resolving
this tension and coming to common point
that leads to better ideas.
This is a far cry from what happens in the
majority of cases where Creatives are kept
in a separate corner. This collaborative
effort results in better creative ideas all
other things being equal. From his vast
experience in the advertising creative space
he also spoke on some of the challenges
that stand in their way to better creativity
as unclear briefs (which leads to second
guessing), lack of data, restrictive brand
guidelines, and low budgets.
After the presentation there was a
panel discussion made up of Rizz, Betty
Kairo MD Right Here, Arnold Lakita
Creative Director Village Creative, and
Serah Katusia MD Mediacom. The
discussions came up with ways to enhance
relationships and these were: moving away
from working in silos, humanizing the
client by breaking barriers, mutual respect
(all must know their stuff, nuts and bolts
matter too), not taking things personally
(your work will be criticized) and its never
that serious.
The icing on the cake was the evening
debate titled ‘What The Fuck Happened:
Advertising In Kenya Today’. The debate
was based on the feeling that the creative
quality of the communication ideas
being generated from the industry today
compared to yester years is falling and
something needs to be done to get back
to the ‘good old days’. Those issuing the
rallying cry for improvement were Lenny
Nganga, CEO Saracen Group, Andrew
White, Director Village Creative, Caroline
Kendi, Head Of Marketing Safaricom
Limited, Judy Kairo, Marketing Capability
There is need for ‘healthy conflict’ between
the client and the agency where they are
‘comfortable with one another to allow for
disagreement’. They can, without fear, tell
one another ‘you are wrong’ but within con-
text. Relationships are a big factor in pro-
ducing exceptional work calling for the abil-
ity to integrate the different points of view
that each brings to the table. Carolyne Ken-
di, Safaricom Limited.