Tag Archive for creativity

Blatant plug for AQR’s Bring It!

April 22, 2012 AQR, Networking, Qualitative Research No comments

Booking now open for AQR’s ‘Bring It’

How do YOU enter a room? Do you ever find yourself watching other people present and wish YOU could swagger around the stage like you own it? Do you know what first impression you make? Find out how to be more confident, charismatic and memorable with performance coach Charlotte Austin.
I know you think you can’t draw. But you can. And not only can you draw but you can get better, quicker and more concise in your ability to distil a single thought into just that great one-liner. Learn how with marketing cartoonist Jake Goretzki.
Co-Founder of the London Comedy Film Festival (LoCo) and screenplay writer Jonathan Wakeham will get us thinking about how we tell stories and how we can tell them better by following some simple rules of genre, character, plot and action. Debrief as Spaghetti Western? You got it.
Even the term cliché is a cliché. Nick Southgate’s bag of tricks will help us unleash our inner creative beasts and think outside our boxes as we turn idea into insight. Feel the fear and do it anyway. What goes around comes around and you’ll never take language for granted again.
Finally, Datch Datchens (really), copy-writer at Saatchi & Saatchi will pit us against the clock to create memorable, snappy, meaningful descriptions of brands. You think they just sit and drink martinis all day. Well, maybe they do, but we can all sip with them.
During Bring It we’ll all be challenged to make weird noises, weird shapes and use words we tend to forget when we write our debriefs. It’ll get us thinking harder, being more confident and ultimately, remembering that we do is a lot more creative than sometimes we give it credit for. It’s not often we get to spend a day with such inspiring, charismatic and clever people…and that includes you…so come along.

Friday 18th May, 9:00pm – 6:00pm
Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre
108 Stamford St, SE1 9HN (a few minutes walk from Waterloo)

£210+VAT for AQR members and £350+VAT for non-AQR members (includes 1 year of membership)

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Session leaders include:
Charlotte Austin is a Performance and Development Consultant to some very swanky people indeed, including creative agency AKQA, the BBC and the Ministry of Justice.
If she can get chap from the Ministry miming ‘climbing the stairs’ and ‘opening the gate’ (with sound effects), then she can do anything. Seriously though, her expertise lies in helping you do things, say things and BE things you didn’t know you could be.

Jonathan Wakeham is the co-founder of LoCo and the London Comedy FIlm Festival at BFI Southbank. He was an advertising planner in a past life (AMV, St Lukes)
and has worked with entertainment companies including Disney, Discovery, the BBC, ITV and Random House, and is a director of Arts Emergency and Camden People’s Theatre. His screenplay The Nile will be directed by Susanna White. He’s still trying to work out whether he’s a man or a Muppet.

Nick Southgate is the IPA’s very special advisor when it comes to all things Behavioural Economics. But fear not (or I’m sorry), we’re going to be borrowing his skills as a ‘thinker’ for this course.
He’s a philosopher, a planner, a lover of art. And he teaches people ‘how to be cool’ at the School of Life.
You never know, if we stand close enough, some of it might just rub off on us.

Datch is an enigma. A man for whom only one name is sufficient. And whose surname is Datchens. Proof that some traditions in ad agencies are still upheld, he is a copywriter
who has worked alongside his art director partner (Reuben) since before they got their first ‘creative pair’ job at RPM (they’re now the hot stuff at Saatchi’s).

Jake Goretzki is a freelance researcher and consultant but that’s not why he’s Bringing It with us. He’s also a satirical cartoonist and illustrator, specialising in cartoons that lampoon,
reflect, challenge our marketing ways. Can’t think where he gets his inspiration from.

To Book: complete and return attached form or book online at http://www.aqr.org.uk/calendar/info.shtml?event=TC12BI

Welcome to The Breakfast Club

March 1, 2012 Breakfast Club, chat, General, Networking 2 comments

So I was thinking. So shoot me. Or rather, scramble me. I was thinking about starting a new thing – The Breakfast Club. I wondered who might pitch up if I said something along the lines of:

Come to the Waterloo Bar and Grill at 8:30 one morning. My ‘third office’. The first being right upstairs in the Waterloo Business Centre, the second being my own private smoking balcony and the Bar and Grill being my third.

Open to anyone really – though given that pretty much all my friends are researchers, I was thinking that would be the gist of the thing.

We have breakfast, we chat about stuff, we have those coffees and conversations we mean to have and sometimes don’t quite get around to.

If it works, we can think of a broad ‘topic’ to chat about each time. If it doesn’t, it’ll just be me and my eggs.

What do you reckon?

Let’s set a date – Thursday 5th April. If you wanna come, come. I can stop emailing you if you want me to just bog off. If you DO wanna come, let me know and I’ll just send a reminder nearer the time.

There’s a Facebook event in case anyone wants to come along and it’s on the Razor blog too if you want to forward the link.

I reckon it will be fun. But I’m a geek. And I like breakfast.

Oh, and check out the swanky logo I had designed especially – another great creation courtesy of Maria at Tigerlilly Designs…only you can’t poach her. Geddit.

Cx

PS. Feel free to forward to anyone I forgot…

Summer in September?

September 17, 2011 Qualitative Research, research method No comments

We get great briefs ALL the time at Razor.  But every so often along comes a brief that gives us the opportunity to be extra-creative, extra-imaginative and spend extra on eBay and Amazon.

The project’s objectives will have to remain a secret but the point was the challenge we set ourselves for the debrief – to bring summer alive for the clients and ad agency.

1 bag of real sand + 5 beach balls + 3 beach towels + 1 swimsuit + 1 wetsuit + 1 inflatable palm three + 4 buckets and spades + 1 picnic cooler + 2 collapsible cake stands + 3 pairs of giant sunglasses + 15 summerific goody bags = a bunch of happy clients.

So yes, we did carry sand to Nottingham.

We couldn’t have done it without the flexibility and patience of dear Alan and Sue from Talkback – I know they don’t let just anyone in their immaculate kitchen.  It’s not often that they get requests to set up a beach scene in their reception…and judging by the number of summer sequins I was picking up from the carpet as I left, they may not again!

Sure, it was a load of fun.  But there WAS a point to it and I’m pretty sure that point was made.  I hope it was memorable, I hope it created a context in which to listen to a lively presentation.  And I hope that every time they look at their buckets, spades, sunglasses on their desks – they remember that little bit of summer in September.

Chloe