By Ingrid Prowse, Senior Account Director

Up bright and early today to catch the DDB: The New Creative Revolution seminar held by Amir Kassaei, newly-appointed DDB Worldwide Chief Creative Officer. He had a whole heap of insights like how:

• We’re entering the 3^rd stage of the internet – 1^st was connecting computers, 2^nd was connecting people with computers, and now we’re moving into connecting everything
• Digital isn’t a medium, it’s infrastructure and if we treat it as such we’ll come up with solutions we’ve never seen before
• We’ve always got to make it relevant. He predicted Siri will make Google irrelevant because it knows what you want and where you want it and in what context, it’s relevant
• We should be solving business problems. By defining the business problem correctly we’re 95% of the way to getting to the solution
• Treat people as friends not target groups, then you’ll move to giving them something meaningful. It requires a different approach. Adding value to people’s life. Gave the example of Poo wifi (yep you read correctly) a campaign they did for their client Terra: http://mashable.com/2012/04/24/poo-wi-fi/

Then I moved on to the Ogilvy & Mather: Ogilvy & Inspire 2012 With Alain de Botton. He’s a writer, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur, and does a pretty good job of emphasising philosophy’s relevance to everyday life. He spoke about this guy:

 

(I know, hotte right!!). No seriously, this rock is Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher as well as the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism. Basically he studied what makes people truly happy, and believe it or not it’s not a kick ass job, loads of money and um, heaps of sex. It’s these things:

• Friends
• Freedom
• The capacity to reflect (therapy)

He spoke about how loads of ads are pegging products to one of these e.g. 4x4s try and sell freedom, drinks sell friendship, travel companies sell reflection. But the problem is that people are buying a Barcadi breezer and still sitting in a bedsit on their own,  they’re buying the 4×4 and still only driving it to work, they’re taking that holiday and still madly checking their work emails (not me heh).

We’re in a state of confusion between people’s desires and their needs.

He thinks this is going to be the century where we start selling people things they actually need. Companies need to focus further up the pyramid. Rather than just the desires. Comodifying and branding the inner need.

He also said good advertising comes from understanding yourself as a consumer, understanding the art you’re creating. The best advertising is simple, really clear and really simple. Almost childish. It’s how we distillate the truths and ideas and make them elegant and digestible. And never neglect the need the task of seduction; it’s the most powerful force.

Phew.

Then onto the Saatchi’s New director showcase, which I thought would be a breeze…sit back and watch some movies, you know. Err…wrong!

Was like walking into a club in Berlin. If you were prone to seizures this would not have been the place for you. The first director’s cut was pretty trippy too. Then we moved onto much lighter content like Lars Andheim & Christoffer Lossius’ work which is about a man trying to kill his wife, succeeding, feeling a bit bad about it, eating her, feeling really ill, and then feeling really bad about the whole situation – all played to a rather cute, pop-ish tune. Woo!! Yeaahhh!! Peace out people. (In case you’re curious: http://vimeo.com/25338364).

That was enough for me, I could feel my tan fading by the second, so I did this:

Headed back for Crispin and Porter’s talk and then went to line up for the big Bill C (Bill Clinton people!!) but there was like a million delegates in line so I decided against and went and bought a bottle of rose to chill while I write up today’s happenings.

Other stuff:

Here’s some pics of the surrounds now I have a phone back:

I haven’t learnt ANY french

It’s seriously hot 28+

And I’ve gotta jet to the Google beach party (will try not to tell them about the Siri thing)

More tomoz

Je vous aime tous