The peak of creative excellence

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From Big Foot to the worst loo in the world and vampire fish, Ogilvy Johannesburg executive creative director Gerry Human used a ‘mountain' analogy to talk about the best advertising in the world – that peak of excellence, the weird and the wonderful, this morning, Friday, 29 February 2008, at this, the final day of the 11th annual Design Indaba.

Showing examples of award winning campaigns to illustrate his point, here's what he thinks of global advertising...

Americans do ‘funny' better than anyone else, excluding the joke they have for a president (his words).
The Europeans are doing ‘craft' better than anyone else, with elegant, intricate advertising.
South America is known for its visual drama.
Australians are champions of brutal, in your face, honesty that hits you in the gut with its message.
Asia is home to simplicity, the strong message often delivered in one word or a sentence.

So what does our home continent, Africa offer?

Says Human, “Unless your message has some kind of local relevance, no one is going to listen. African advertising has taken some time to come into its own, but I think it has. And we have our own distinct local flavour.”

Scaling the highest peak

click to enlarge

Staying with scaling the highest peak in creative work and all that, he turned to Antarctica – the continent which defies our idea of what a continent should be – to illustrate how advertising that is completely unexpected is the advertising that makes a significant impact. “The bottom of the world is a bit of an upside down kind of place, but is home to the kind of advertising that defies what advertising should be. The unexpected.”

From our continent, Africa, for example, came the award-winning Nedbank ad with the world's first solar powered billboard that generated solar power for the entire school on whose ground it was placed, supplying hot dinners to learners and lighting the classrooms.

Getting to the summit of all these advertising styles is the challenge for all creative folk, Human says.

A formula

Advertising allows us to do all kinds of things. Here's his great advertising formula in a nutshell...

Humour
Craft
Visual Drama
Honesty
Simplicity
Unexpected

There you have it. Go scale your own creative mountain already.

For more:

[Design Indaba] The disease of marketing-driven design [blog post]
[Design Indaba: Food, glorious food [blog post]
[Design Indaba]: See Louise run. See Louise type [blog post]
Design Indaba galleries

More by Louise Marsland

Gaining control over your brand - 12 May 2008
Understanding the new youth intelligence - 23 Apr 2008
Bullard builds an Empire - 16 Apr 2008
Reaching the ‘always-on' consumer - 15 Apr 2008
Sunday Times fires David Bullard - 11 Apr 2008

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Louise Marsland is editor and editorial director of Bizcommunity.com. She has worked as a journalist and editor in South Africa for the past 19 years across newspapers, magazines, online and in media / communications strategy, notably: The Star; Saturday Star; Progressive Retailing (editor); Retailing Africa (managing editor); Executive Business Brief (editor); Decorex Cape (editor & publisher); FMCG Files ezine (editor); Communicate ezine (editor); and Marketing Mix (editor & business manager), including the Marketer's Guide to Africa and the annual Media Owners' Marketing Awards (MOMA). She is currently in the third year of her M Com: Strategy & Organisational Dynamics. Contact her on: .

[29 Feb 2008 10:30]