High Five: UK
In today’s High Five from the UK, founding partner of Platform Justin Tindall shares five examples of creativity that came from different sources than you might expect.
“For a couple of years now I’ve had the distinct feeling that the best agency talent no longer works in agencies.
“It’s one of the reasons Kate Bosomworth and I left M&C Saatchi to set up Platform – to tap into that growing, gifted, free-thinking community.
“And, if evidence of my instinct were needed, not one of the five pieces of work I’d like to shine a light on has been created by an ad agency.”
A hand-painted pebble I picked up while (illegally) strolling on a Suffolk beach
How I wish that was true. I actually stumbled upon it while (legally) combing through David Kobulsz’ Twitter feed. It’s so good though. Even the shape of the stone is perfect - like a thoughtful little heart full of child-like love. Making the sucker-punch on the reverse all the more witty and powerful. Who knows who did it? But if you do know, please point them in my direction, I’ve got briefs that need cracking.
The Burberry Christmas Film
Yes, I know it’s a couple of months old but this film literally took my breath away. The best of the Christmas bunch by a country mile. In fact, it’s among the best brand films I have seen in years. Created by the in-house Burberry team and directed by Megaforce. If I had made this and died in a freak giant hailstorm I would have died, to quote Gene Kelly, with a smile on my face.
The Door of Number 10
This is a genuinely brilliant piece of thinking. So much is communicated with so little. Brilliantly timed too. Just as the Government are doing all they can to divert our eyes toward the numbers of people who have been vaccinated, this pops up brutally reminding us of the shameful number of fatalities and at whose door the responsibility so firmly lies.
Brewdog Buys a Scottish Estate
The single most impactful consequence of the digitally empowered consumer, for me at least, is the pressure that it has put on brands. At its most simple, it means that every single thing that a brand now does is an advert: Put a fraction more sugar in your burger bun – you’ll get toasted. Try to close a remote banking branch on the quiet – someone will shout about it. Few brands understand this better than Brewdog. Their latest act? To unload £7.5m on a very large country estate in Scotland (well known for its annual grouse ‘Aflockalypse’) solely for the purpose of planting trees across its thousands of hectares of land and, of course, leaving the grouse to live long and happy lives.
The BBC’s Lockdown Learning
I genuinely believe that the BBC is the most creative organisation on the planet. Its ability to live, innovate, empathise and create ‘in the now’ is mind-blowing. And its multimedia, multi-touchpoint, multi-access response to home-schooling is the perfect example: Celebrity Supply Teachers (Gary Lineker teaching Spanish being a personal fave), Bitesize Daily providing full curriculum learning through years one to nine, parent and teacher support across Twitter and Facebook and a constant stream of Insta and TikTok content for teens. All delivered with what felt like overnight speed. I don’t believe that any other organisation in the world – Amazon, Google, Apple - could have (or would have) delivered anything close.
