When I started out as total newbie (I hadn’t even heard of Award School until January of this year) I really didn’t know much about it at all. Other than it’s awesome, it’s well-regarded and it’s fucking hard. With a tagline of “The best worst weeks of my life” you get some sense of what you’re in for.
My background:
I was one of The Soubrettes. I’m on the left. Partner in crime is now a judge. Don’t judge her.
I have a background in theatre, particularly satirical satire, and I love cabaret. Like real cabaret (I’m a cabaret fundamentalist), not the someone-sings-Minnelli type. That’s the muzac of cabaret in my opinion. I’m talking original, political, satirical cabaret. Kleinkunst, the art of small forms, is the German word for cabaret and it captures my feelings about advertising precisely. Small forms. Little tidbits. Snippets. Moments to capture your audience. Engage them and by god, my favourite thing of all, entertain them! Move them, poke them, nudge them. Make them laugh or sigh. Make them FEEL something. Well why not? It’s a platform with far reach. And I love a platform. And far reach.
I watch ads as though they are works of art. And I crticise them through that lense. ‘Why did that character say that at the end? It undermines the narrative!’ Much to my partner’s dismay, I rewind ads to see how I can tweak them to improve them. I want to contribute to that world. And frankly me tweaking ads in my own mind isn’t quite cutting it. So I applied.
Dos and Do nots:
Warning: take all my words with many grains of salt, stacks of pepper and apple cider vinegar with the mother in it. I was ignorant to start with yep, and I’m ignorant now. Things I think I leant and not in order:
Award School doesn’t discriminate and neither should you!
Yep. Your work might be shit. Like really shit. Maybe more shit than you think. But don’t worry about that now. Worry about it after Award School has finished. Worrying about it won’t improve your work now. It’ll just make you stop and do nothing but worry about how shit you are.
Let your tutors tell you how shit you are. Let the assessors tell you how shit you are. You don’t need to tell yourself how shit you are.
So get back on that horse and keep working. You might find out you weren’t so shit after all.
Also, here’s the secret, no-one will tell you how shit you are, because you aren’t. You are a student, and you’re learning. You’re not expected to write that symphony yet. You’re just learning how the orchestra works. And what dots on a sheet mean. And it’s the learning that’s most important. Remember… you’re a student… not the master… a student.
Yes. The competition bit is weird. Coming from a theatre background I find it strange. Reviews and audiences are your feedback in that word. I still don’t know how I feel about it. But it’s probably best to pretend it’s not a competition. Do the best work YOU can for YOU. Learn what you can for YOU.
Learn what an insight is
Yup. I didn’t really understand this until week six. Well, what is it then? I’m still not sure, but my internal working definition is that’s it’s something true about the product and/or the consumer.
A good insight is something altogether different to a regular insight though. A good insight is an insight that we all know to be true but don’t think about consciously. Comedians are great at coming up with good insights. You laugh because you get it. But you didn’t know you got it until you heard the truth, and the comedian attacked that truth sideways. If it wasn’t a good insight that snuck up on you and surprised you, then I’m guessing you didn’t laugh, the joke fell flat, or the comedian didn’t come at it from an unexpected angle.
I had a few people tell me that it’s a “human truth”. I don’t think it is. I think a human truth is a category of awesome insights but not the only category. The highly successful Tide ads (look it up), i would say, carried a truth about ads and Tide. Not a human truth per se.
Learn how to rewrite the proposition
I really struggled with this one. I still struggle to this day. I know I don’t get it. So I’m not going to share any false leads on this one. If you can explain it to me, please let me know!
If you get that thrill or rush of ‘I think I nailed it’! You might have. Remember the rush. Take it seriously.
You might have nailed it from your point of view anyway. It might not end up on the wall. But it’s important to trust your own instincts and your own taste. Two of my pieces that I liked for Volkswagen and the Vaccination brief did not end up on the wall. I still think they’re good. Two pieces I just wasn’t sure about my Rexona and UberEats briefs did end up on the wall. I trusted my tutors on those two and they ended up on the wall! I’m more than ok with that. And the ones that didn’t end up on the wall - well, quite simply - I agree, they weren’t as good as the ones that did end up on the wall.
Some briefs that my tute group delivered were (in my opinion) more awesome than some that ended up on the wall, and that’s just the way the cookie crumbles - it’s not science. There’s no right or wrong. It’s just people’s opinions at a given time. Listen. Learn. And trust your own taste too.
Don’t take compliments or criticism to heart
So I got a great compliment for some ideas I presented in my tute group for our mobile brief. I was told ‘this is your thing’. A great compliment. But then I sat on my laurels. Stopped working on that brief and put more effort into the other briefs because ‘they weren’t my thing’. When the time came to present the media brief, I realised I had too many conflicting ideas that were hard to express on paper, and my idea was a mess of an idea and not a really an idea at all. And then time was running out… and I can’t draw… and fuck this is the live brief… Egad. In the end I was extremely unhappy with my mobile brief. I hadn’t done the work required to sharpen that idea EARLY ON - WHEN I HAD MORE TIME. I didn’t simplify it and it was a muddle.
As for criticism from your tutors. If you agree with them, take the criticism as bloody helpful advice. Ditch your idea. And move on. They want you to do as well as you do. Or if you are really attached to it. Hone it. Sharpen it. Improve it. If it’s important to you, try to change their mind with your new and improved version. Or just move on and generate more ideas. You are in the idea business right? Have faith you’ll have more ideas!
If you can’t draw it up or explain it in one sentence you don’t have an idea
What you do have is either an idea of an idea, which is not an idea, or too many ideas which is too many ideas competing for air.
In the first instance if it’s not gettable in a sentence or within 3 seconds, well it probably won’t get on the wall. By all means, hold onto it for dear life, but don’t expect it up on the wall. Either find the pearl and chuck out the shell or throw out the whole thing and move on, and quickly.
Don’t blend two ideas. (I did this a lot). Make a cake or make an omelette. Don’t make a flat cake or a sweet omelette. Neither are tasty. And don’t mix your visual metaphors. I did this too. Much like how I’m introducing too many metaphors in this section. See how annoying it is?
Don’t be stingy with your ideas
Why? Because, even though it’s a competition, generosity is nice. It makes you feel good, and others. It also tells you something. If you’re stingy, you’re telling yourself that you don’t have many ideas to share. And if you don’t have many ideas to share, well then you don’t have many ideas, and this is not the business for you, right? So share because you KNOW you have plenty more where that came from.
If you can’t draw…
That’s ok. I can’t. Just work out what your plan will be for your final folio and how bloody long it will take if you can’t draw. I traced all of my work and that took me forever! If you can get your idea across with stick drawings, then good for you. (I couldn’t. I really couldn’t). So I learnt how to use a digital tracing tool early on. I can’t imagine learning that in the late stages so I’m glad I learnt how to use Procreate on an iPad in my first week. If i could go back in time, I’d master that before my course started. My fellow students who were good at drawing could whip things up in a jiffy. I was a little jealous of their labour-saving skills and talent. In fact, I didn’t submit a superior idea, for one of my breifs because I couldn’t draw the idea with the right perspective and it looked shit. Looking back, that was the WRONG choice. Don’t do that. Submit your best idea, not your prettiest.
Learn what works for you
Some people come up with ideas by walking or showering or talking. I’m a little strange, I come up with them by sitting at a desk! WTF??? I know, right. I’m unconventional like that. I tried the other stuff but it doesn’t work for me when I’m trying to solve more than one brief at a time, in my head. My brain just basically goes duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, until I remember where I am, and what I’m doing and that I’m meant to be coming up with ideas.
What worked for me
Doing sort of related but not entirely related delving. And keeping off your own back. So if i’m doing a brief on say Arnott’s vovos. I’d reasearch them. Follow them on Instagram. Read tweets and comments. Check out their website. Look at the best competitors and their advertising. Look at the worst competitors and their advertising. Sometimes in the midst of this, ideas will come to you. Jot them down. Or draw them.
When it was time to show things to my tutors and I still didn’t have any ideas that’s when I checked out idea generation sites. There are heaps on the interwebs. Find them. These sometimes helped and sometimes distracted. So sometimes it’s good to timebox this assymptopic exploration. I looked at other options for say 20 minutes, then went back to idea generation.
Be easily distractable
I am very very easily distracted. But usually that happens because I go off and as I call it (nobody uses this non-existent word) I imaginate. I imagine the ‘what ifs’ of things. Yes, it’s procrastinating from one perspective, but it’s also the kind of mind one needs to explore ideas right? Go lateral. Go literal. Visit the fairies. Be distractible. But then pull that distracted mind back in to focus when you need to.
Don’t overcomplicate things
If you look at my weakest briefs, you’ll see that that’s entirely what they are. They are too complicated. And not in a good way.
So if you had to describe a marathon to someone familiar with a 100 m race. What would you say? Do you tell them about the training, the chaffing, the ins and outs of each phase, heart rate monitoring and what to eat the night before? No. You tell them it’s a 42km race. That’s it. do that. Note to self. Do that! Seriously, don’t just write it in this blog,
Show your appreciation
To your tutors, the lecturers and the Award School heads. They are all volunteers. And they are volunteering bucketloads of time. And they care. They want you to do well. And they are awesome. And wise. And most dress well. (Irrelevent observation).
Follow up leads before grad night
Most lecturers are happy for you to contact them. If they offer their email address. Connect with them. Don’t call them or hassle them. I didn’t do this much. But for those i did, it was much easier to re-approach them again.
Team up
I haven’t done this. But I think it’s a good idea. If you bond with someone and think you can work together. Teams are wanted. Find a partner. Creatively date someone.
I invented him during one of my briefs.