As an account person who has worked with a large range of creative folks who have varying degrees of passion, I have learned that the best work comes from a creative team that cares. And by care, I mean a team that is inspired to produce the best work for the client. Sure, everyone wants to make work that they personally love, but wanting that AND having a client centric focus is the key to long-term success for both the agency and client.
As a client, you should be asking your agency how the creative team seeks inspiration and what motivates them. We often focus on day-to-day deliverables, budgets, scopes and deadlines. But at the end of the day, what separates one agency from another is the level of passion that the creative team has for your brand. An inspired team will create work that gets attention, gets talked about and gets remembered. An inspired agency team will lead to a stronger return on your investment. After all, you’re not investing all your time and budget for the sake of making your brand more wallpaper in the attention-deficit-disorder consumer’s mind.
Of course, inspiration can come from many places, and often times from some of the amazing work our peers do. Seed Factory recently hosted the British Arrows for the first time in Atlanta. After watching 75 minutes of the award winning, best of British TV commercials, I’m proud we brought this “short film festival of brands” to Atlanta. Hopefully it has helped spark creativity for agencies and brands alike.
Before this year, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis had been the only U.S. city showing these “brand film shorts”. In fact, this has been a Minneapolis tradition for over 30-years and has amassed an annual attendance of over 25,000. If you know your Advertising and Communications cities, you’ll also know Minneapolis is/was a hotbed of creativity for decades. British commercials are often strong on storylines and character development just like short films, making it pretty hard to leave the theater anything but inspired and excited to put that energy to good use (for our clients, of course).
We were happy to host the inaugural Atlanta British Arrows 2017 to inspire marketing directors, creative teams, strategists and agency account managers in our home of Atlanta. We also look forward to bringing it to Atlanta every year to come – to connect, laugh and be motivated by thoughtful and timeless story telling.
In the meantime, does your brand want to work with us and one of these fantastic British production companies? We have experience concepting award-winning work and collaborating with some of the best directors nationally and internationally.
Check out some of our favorite spots.
Cancer Research UK: Cancer is Happening Right Now: Adyan Sings
John Lewis, Interactive Christmas VR Experience: Buster The Boxer
Sport England, This Girl Can: Phenomenal Women
