Love Our Work: Jon Austin on the Warmth That Sits at the Heart of BMEOF’s Newest Campaign
Bear Meets Eagle On Fire has never failed to impress the advertising community. They are consistent in producing work that transcends past commercial creativity and into something much more.
With the support of the Love Our Work organisation and LBB, Supermassive co-founder Jon Austin has recognised this heart and warmth within BMEOF’s work.
He spoke to LBB’s Casey Martin about what makes it stand out from the rest.
LBB> Firstly, why do you like this particular piece of work? Does it solve a problem in a creative way? Does it make you jealous? I want your professional and personal opinion on why the work is great!
Jon> Much like the rest of the world, I’m madly in love with Telstra and +61’s ‘Better on a better network’ campaign.
LBB> In your opinion, what makes work great?
Jon> What I love most about it, other than the insane craft, lovable characters and absolutely fantastic writing, is a particular problem it addresses. Not a commercial one, but one that our industry is guilty of: holding this belief that brilliantly populist work can’t be brilliantly creative work. You only have to read the blogs to see a sense of derision for work that is overtly made with a mass audience in mind. Instead, ‘creativity’ should be edgy and inaccessible and unfamiliar - all the things that a broad audience will never relate to. And the more of those things it is, the more ‘creative’ it’s deemed to be.
But this campaign, and the fact that it’s aligning people on both sides of the aisle, shows that warm, populist work with real heart, can be a wonderful and highly creative thing.
That’s what makes work great. When we remember that we’re not creating for ourselves, but for an audience; when we remember that we're already interrupting people on the way to the things they love, so we better make it something they're genuinely interested in.
LBB> When looking for inspiration, do you believe it is important to look outside of your own agency?
Jon> The inspiration for this Telstra campaign is clear, and it’s exactly where we should be getting our inspiration from - points of culture and entertainment that exist all around us. The stuff from the places where our audience gathers. In the studio at the moment, we’re simultaneously diving into the worlds of internet health obsessions and the heavy metal scene, and I can’t tell you how exciting and effective it’s been breaking out of the traditional points of inspiration and throwing ourselves into these communities.
LBB> How do you hone your own creativity and how do you foster the creativity of the team around you?
Jon> At Supermassive, we’ve been getting really into escape rooms. It started when we found a place right by our studio that incorporated live actors into a traditional escape room (5 stars, btw), and we’ve been looking for new ones ever since. We use them to break inertia or bad vibes, and get everyone feeling energised again. There are the obvious team building elements to it, of course. But beyond that, I love the way they immerse you in a story that unravels within set parameters. It challenges you to think within the literal confines of a space. It’s cracking a brief using creativity and lateral thinking and getting really satisfying results.
