THE POWER OF A GREAT IDEA
Warren Brown
Creative Founder , BMF
“ Creating great Out-of-Home teaches you to let things go . Knowing what ’ s important is the key to creative success and without a doubt the best training ground for achieving that success is Out-of-Home .”
There ’ s definitely something magical about a great poster . A great poster or Out-of-Home ( OOH ) idea embodies a unique advertising alchemy – a combination of elements that capture the essence of a brand , impart a potent nugget of information and make you feel an emotion that will stick to your soul for years , if not forever . And it does all this in the blink of an eye . No other medium can do that . This is why OOH remains as relevant and powerful as ever .
I owe my career to a poster . Back in 1979 , while still a student , I created a wall poster that featured a loudly dressed and demented-looking loony with wild rainbow-coloured hair and a speech bubble that said , “ Suppose I ’ m fairly conservative really .” It was silly . But I managed to sell it to the greeting card company , Valentine International , for enough money to buy a one-way ticket to London where I figured the best work was being done . And I wasn ’ t wrong . London was nirvana for OOH . The amount of real estate dedicated to advertising was mind boggling , as was the standard of creativity . Wonderfully surreal images without words , words combining seamlessly with brilliantly crafted images and special builds adorned the city – like a car stuck to a poster hoarding . Getting your hands on a poster brief was an opportunity to mix it with the creative gods of the time and the best training you could get to hone your skills for coming up with ideas that were fast and memorable .
As a junior creative I managed to get a poster brief for a new beer brand launching in the UK . That brand was Foster ’ s . Not new to me of course , but getting the Poms to drink an Aussie beer was always going to be a challenge . I borrowed an idea from an Australian political cartoonist who ’ d drawn an eye and ear on a map of Australia with the Gulf of Carpentaria as its mouth . All I did was have a pint of Foster ’ s pouring into it with the tagline , ‘ Foster ’ s , the Australian for lager ’.
The poster went on to win Poster of the Year at the Campaign Poster Awards , along with several category awards . It was the true beginning of my love affair with posters and putting into practise the creative discipline required for OOH ideas – that is – if you ’ re going to cut through the crap , it ’ s fundamental that you start with a singleminded idea .
A couple of years later I had the opportunity to work on a campaign for Swan Vestas matches with advertising legend Bruce Crouch . Swan Vestas had been part of English popular culture since Victorian times and had a great advertising poster pedigree , so there was already something to work with . After only a couple of days , we hit on the idea of Britain ’ s favourite old flame , featuring black and white photographs of movie stars from the golden era of Hollywood . From a library of several thousand original images held in the famous Kobal Collection , I chose a select few and retouched the subjects ’ hands so they were holding Swan Vestas ’ iconic red , green and yellow box . It looked striking against the black and white . The posters brought some old-school glamour to the streets of London and were liked well enough to win a heap of awards including D & AD Yellow Pencils for best poster and poster campaign . They were also included in D & AD ’ s book , The best of 40 years .
Many years down the track , I still employ the same single-minded approach to solving creative problems . You have to know which bit will stick to your audience long enough to communicate your idea . Once that essence , or nugget , has been created , what you then do with it will determine how memorable it becomes . It ’ s amazing how much you can change the execution of an idea without ruining the idea itself . Great ideas have a way of surviving all manner of interference , but to ensure people see them at their best they need a champion , particularly when it comes to OOH – a media channel where there is nowhere to hide .
Applying a poster and OOH mentality to any creative task forces you to resist the urge to decorate or dilute your idea , whatever the intended channel . OOH trains you to constantly ask yourself , “ What can I take out ?” It ’ s what you leave out rather than put in that will make an idea great .
I love the iPhone 6 poster campaign that is simply a stunning shot with the words , ‘ Shot on iPhone 6 ’ ( p . 10 – 19 ). Nothing about hitech features , battery life etc .; just a reminder that the thingy that connects you to the world and contains most of your life is also brilliant at capturing emotions and the beauty of the world we live in . Who ’ s not going to love that ?
An idea isn ’ t an opportunity to show off by smothering your creative nugget with your own – or worse , someone else ’ s – style . For me , it ’ s best not to have a personal style to fall back on . That ’ s a lazy approach . What is critically important though is having a standard . And the best way to achieve that standard is to understand the importance of the word EDIT – which to me also means Every Detail Is Tested .
If something is not empowering your idea , chuck it out , no matter how much love you may have lavished upon it . Creating great OOH teaches you to let things go . Knowing what ’ s important is the key to creative success and , without a doubt the best training ground for achieving that success is OOH .
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