The recent Northern Design Festival D&AD creative brief-in event saw
presentations from key advertising and marketing players Ben Quigley, Don Smith
and Stephen Drummond.
The event held at Newcastle College on 18 October held a captivated
audience of students from surrounding establishments, keen to open their eyes
and ears and hear all about the prestigious annual D&AD New Blood
Competition. The 16 individually themed briefs are to be released and readily
downloadable at the end of the month.
Introduced and organised by D&AD's own Ella Schofield, Ben Quigley
quickly took to the stage to discuss the future of marketing. He said:
"The future of marketing services belongs as much
to mad men and women as it does maths men and women." Ben spoke about the
importance of truly engaging and understanding the consumer whilst exercising
the advancements in both technology and science. He went on to discuss big
data, following up with the familiar Cadbury's Gorilla Advert and then speaking
of the innovations of Natwest's Get Cash app.
The intertwining of science with
technology and the importance of a sustained relationship with the customer
became even more apparent in the discussion from Realise's Don Smith.
Starting with an inspiring Arthur Clarke quote; "any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Don spoke of the
vast advancements in technology's historical capabilities, highlighting Realise's own augmented reality app
'Beam Me Up,' in conjunction with the London Star Trek convention, which has
been endorsed by CBS.
Technology was further discussed in relation to Leap Motion, subvocal recognition,
interactive holograms and virtual reality. He ended aptly on his own
interpretation of the previous quote, challenging the enraptured audience; "your
work will need to be indistinguishable from magic."
Last up was Stephen Drummond, creative director at Drummond Central.
Stephen spoke with humour, giving an insight into one of Drummond’s most successful
campaigns with client bet365. Drummond managed to change bet365’s face of advertising
through the means of television and Internet portals. He discussed the methods
used and their unstoppable determination, which made the impossible possible,
ending the whole briefing with the inspired "someone's got to do it, why
shouldn't it be me?"
We spoke with D&AD’s event organizer Ella Schofield who told us
about the New Blood Awards and about the company’s involvement with Northern
Design Festival.
How do you feel about being part of the Northern
Design Festival?
We do these kind of events
every year and we’re making more of a conscious effort to latch onto things
that are happening, we’re here as part of the Northern Design Festival, our
Manchester event is part of Design Manchester and an event in Cardiff as part
of Cardiff Design Festival. It’s really nice to be part of something big.
How is to be in Newcastle?
Great. It seems to all have
gone really well so far; the speakers were fantastic, a really nice range of
presentations. We have a workshop this afternoon that will be an opportunity
for people to get their hands dirty and get into the brief.
What are D&AD hoping for from students this year?
For us, it’s about getting
an amazing crop of talent through. The exciting thing for us now that the
briefs are launched is seeing the responses come in and we get a real sense of
quality of the next generation of talent. We sometimes come across real gems
and then seeing their journey as they go into industry.
by Melissa Smith
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