The 10 Principles of Advertising To Help You Survive The Future Elspeth Lynn, Executive Creative Director, M&C Saatchi UK

The first thing to say is that the future of advertising is going to be about ideas. The people who are going to have these ideas, though, are not just those who have ‘creative’ beside their title. Everyone in our business needs to be able to come up with ideas. The creative people may execute them but everyone else in the agency is employed to think. In terms of this talk, I wondered how I can give practical help. How can we all go tomorrow and start doing things that will help us in the future? So I have put together ten principles, things we need to be doing right now to create ideas that are modern and relevant. terms of this talk how can I help. How can we all go to work tomorrow and do some things that we are not doing yet that we can keep in mind? That may not be a guarantee for a Cannes gold, I don’t know. They are definitely things we need to be doing right now to create modern, relevant ideas so no matter what the future holds I believe you need to do these ten things at the very least. Principle number one. Figure out what the brand stands for, what it believes and how it Behaves. It’s not just what it says.

I believe a lot of brands have a very superficial view of the world because all they thought they had to do was a TV spot. So the agency would come up with a script but what’s the brand about? What’s its DNA? What is its purpose? I think that it is really important we know what the brand is all about if we are to produce multi-channel communications or else there is nothing to work with, there is no heart, there is no substance. Maybe you have to go back to the start. Maybe you have to re-invent the brand? A lot of clients at M&C have been there a long time so how can we help them move forward? Chipotle in the States is a very good example of a company that realized that what they were doing would not take them into the future. So they took a step back and reinvented themselves with a content-driven platform called “Cultivate a better world”, designed to emotionally engage customers in Chipotle’s journey to create a more sustainable future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMfSGt6rHos What they ended up with is a wonderfully rich heart to a brand, whichwe, as agencies, can all work with. The incredible thing is how few companies have done this. Gone back to the heart of what they are all about. Principle number two – Create the core ingredients of a brand so they can be used in any channel.

When we talk about integrated, we have gone beyond the whole matching luggage notion. Integration is making sure that whatever channels we are in, everything works together without duplication but in translation from one medium to another. Things like tone of voice, colour, language, brand representatives, typography, ownable graphics/symbols, visuals/photography, sound, philosophy are all for me the deconstructed elements that make up of the brand. You think of 02 for example, you think of the blue, of the bubbles, the roundness of the O, you might think of the arena, you start to think of properties. We need to identify those ingredients so whether it’s a TV spot or a radio ad or a digital campaign, all those elements are at the core of what you are doing. This is an example of what I mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE “Look down, back up to me, where are you? You are on a boat with the man your man could smell like. What’s in your hand? Back at me. It’s an oyster with two tickets to that thing you love. Look again, the tickets are now diamonds. Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice, not a lady. I am on a horse.” When they reinvented the brand, at the core of it they had this notion of a Messiah, the man who knows all, the perfect man. It’s about decadent romance, not about having a

nice candlelit dinner.

When you take all those plus the art direction and the beautiful language that was created around it, you get the core brand ingredients. So, no matter what channel you are in, you can be consistent. As they were with the “Responses” campaign. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD1WqPGn5Ag Principle number three – Let consumers do some of the work for you.

I think agencies have become control freaks – actually, I’m a control freak myself – but I think we do sometimes have to let go and let others participate in our ideas. This “Curators of Sweden” is a great example of what I mean. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3e7_NJznNY

I think it’s okay to create something and then let it go and let other people participate. If it is interesting enough, they will.

Principle number four – Do less ads, more ideas

I think this is really important. It’s not about doing ads as finding new places and new ways to engage with people. This idea from TRY, Oslo, for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOqS2OOrZs

What a wonderful idea. Somebody said, how can we re-invent one of the most important consumer touch points, someone doing their telephone banking? How can we make it an enjoyable experience? How can we actually make people want to call and feel something? Principle number five – Make it then make it famous

One of the things that’s happened as a result of the internet is, you only have to have two hundred people actually experience an event but make sure the rest of the world can also get to see it. “Push to add drama”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=316AzLYfAzw

Principle number six – Do some good Again going back to the Chipotle example, I think it is really important for brands to have a sense of altruism about what they do and what they stand for. I think people are looking for the brands that have values and substance, that have heart, that have purpose. Levis “Go Forth” campaign that was centred on Braddock, Pennsylvania, was a wonderful example of going back to what the heart of Levis was about and doing some good at the same time. “Levis agreed to help with the renovation of the Braddock Community Centre, the doubling in size of the Braddock Urban Farm and the safeguarding of the nation’s first Carnegie library. Levis then shot all of its communication around its work wear collection in Braddock with the workers of Braddock.”

Doing some good is not a nice to do, it is a must do now. Every organisation, every company has to think about how can they make the world a better place? Principle number seven – The more you try the digital and social spaces, the easier it will be to come up with ideas that include them or at the very least be able to have a conversation about them.

There is somebody I work with. We were in a meeting and he said, “Elspeth can you turn on Facebook so you can show that idea to our client.” Turn on Facebook? Whatever! My philosophy is you are never too old and it is never too late. I think even if you decide that Pinterest isn’t for you, it’s a really good idea to go experience it, see what it is like. You may even enjoy it.

I think it behoves us all to give it a chance even if you decide after today, I am not doing it again. The point is, one-day it may well provide you with a really good idea for the client you are working for.

Principle number eight – Think of a memorable title, it improves instant recall by up to eighty percent.

Okay, I made up that statistic but, actually, it could well be true. When we used to think up titles for a TV script, we used to try to come up with something fun. But it’s more important than that now and you’ll know that by just thinking of some of the best ideas over the last number of years. They’ve all had a really great title, a handle that makes me remember it, that kind of illustrates what the idea is about – UniQlock – a combination of UniQlo and a clock. From a search perspective, you need to have those unique terms. Rather than going to Google for an idea about Burger King and defriending people, you just put Whopper Sacrifice in the search engine and it automatically comes up with the campaign. Titles are really important.

I say that to the creatives all the time at M&C, you’ve got to have a handle, to make your idea that much more memorable. Principle number nine – Be inspired by what people actually watch on Youtube. It would suggest that advertising should be more fun.

I think that when you look at what people are actually looking at and whether you hate or love Psy or enjoyed the ultimate dog tease or autotune – the latest one with Nick Clegg was hilarious - it is about realising what people actually enjoy. This has been the wonderful thing in the last few years. The data, the number of views shows us what people are responding to the most. It allows me to say to my clients, have more fun, people are up for silly engaging things.

Principle number ten – We should never ever forget that it starts with a simple, insightful idea. So for me, no matter how tecchy and complex the world gets (which, by the way, I think is wonderful), the opportunities we now have to express our creativity, begins and ends with the idea. And we are all capable of having ideas. Thank you very much.