Lee Lawrence

Three takeaways from D&AD Jury Day 2: 1) I’d love (someone smarter than me) to chart the diversity of execution YoY in PR shows over the last 5-8 years. I’m confident that pie graph would show an exponential increase in creative tactics. So please, can we finally kill the dinosaur-dated argument of “that’s not PR, that’s OOH/film/a t shirt”… it’s not the channel, it’s how you use it. 2) To that pointtttttt, we had great discussion around whether name of the category was the most appropriate description of the work and our role in the industry. There was a unanimous decision to make a formal recommendation to D&AD to redefine the category to “earned-first creativity”… it's not semantic, as it would definitely sharpen how we evaluate the work. Curious what others think about this... 3) Winning a pencil is crazy hard! I’ve been in both jury rooms and it’s more discerning than the mighty Lion. With no quota (a gift to the jury!) and no gold/silver/bronze, D&AD doesn’t just evaluate the work against other entrants, but against the industry’s output over the year as a whole. What a great experience setting the standard in PR creativity under jury president Deepshikha Dharmaraj and alongside Bridget Jung Emma de la Fosse Nedal Ahmed Julie Kang and Indy Selvarajah. Thank you ✏️

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The future is coming—and fast. Pre-order our highly snackable deep-dive into the world of snacks, dropping later this month: https://okt.to/fpkuqR #snackingreport #snackingcpg #cpgtrends

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HOT TAKE INCOMING!! Look at Liquid Death. Started by an ad creative. Now a billion dollar brand most creatives in advertising wish they could do work for. (Kudos Mike Cessario and Andy Pearson) Jason G. started Illicit Elixirs. Jan Livingston started Gray Whale Gin. (Who else?) Imagine if MORE advertising creatives started a brand and showed the industry what advertising is supposed to be? Maybe then we could get back to making work that's fun and not marketing from a place of fear. We could raise our own creative bar and force clients to play on the level we all know they should. Here's an idea I came up with while writing this: What if we all pitched in $150 a year to help build a brand from nothing to Liquid Death status. (that's one less coffee a week in LA.) We'd all be owners and share in its success. We could call it "Go F This Biz" (Fund) It's a Go Fund Me platform for ad creatives who have ideas for companies and want to get out of advertising but still make great advertising. I'm in. Who's in?? If my network pitched in that'd be 1.3MM to start. Not bad. Just a thought. Have a great holiday weekend ya'll! #Stayhungrymyfriends

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Failure is a part of the game in advertising. Whether it stems from a partner's decisions or campaign outcomes, taking risks means sometimes falling short. I love this article's insight into how to approach and leverage failure. As a leader I have always tried to make room for failure—it's essential for our growth as creatives. #creativity #agencylife #leadership #creativedirector

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"Chaos asks questions of you order never will" The wonderful Colleen DeCourcy retells her experience working with Dan Wieden when she took over as Chief Creative Officer at Wieden+Kennedy Her immediate response to me asking about working with Dan was this quote about chaos. We have a natural reaction against chaos because it can be destructive and unsettling but what if we reframed it as a necessary condition for achieving something truly breakthrough 🌪 Chaos propels you forward while order maintains the status quo 🌪 Chaos creates leaders while order creates managers 🌪 Chaos demands a response while order delays it 🌪 Chaos reveals the cracks while order papers them up 🌪 Chaos forces ownership while order delegates it 🌪 Chaos fosters creativity while order fosters compliance 🌪 Chaos requires trust while order replaces it It got me thinking whether there is an optimal mix of Chaos and order required to achieve breakthrough ideas and momentum? We spend most of our time creating order but what if what we actually needed was an injection of chaos? To hear more from this episode check out the links in the comments John Kearon Kerry Collinge Orlando Wood

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Speak out on topics that truly matter and authentically align with your brand's values. And do not play the short game of acquiescing to the usual mob of purpose-haters. #SocialJustice #BrandValues #TakeAction

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Who doesn’t love a rebel? A few years back - one of our MiO Marketplace agency parthers Connectivity Media Strategy was working on campaigns for Pabst Brewing Company. The Metropouolos brothers owned the brand (before making a killing selling it off). Their creative team including K.C. Blinn put out some really eye popping creative and Connectivity got the go-ahead to find some ways to create buzz worthy exposure (chalk art, wild postings, incredible hand painted boards). Pabst was indeed cool again. Mike Cessario and his team at Liquid Death has taken that up 5 notches and that’s what their targeted consumer base loves about it. I’d also like to point out they often do it with incredible use of #outdoor and other forms of traditional media. I’m often still a bit surprised more brands see that less as a risk and more along the lines of that’s often what stands out without needing massive budgets. So why don’t we see it more often? PS: #profitfriendly should be trending PSS: Think you’re ready to try? Hit my DM’s so I can introduce you to K.C. and/or Gina Maker and the team at Connectivity Media Strategy.

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Hard to believe that this continues to be hotly debated and protested by both client and agency slide leaders. The answer seems obvious. I would argue against testing a Brand's positioning strategy with consumers. If the right leaders have the right inputs / data (especially consumer and competitive understanding), I recommend not testing a strategy per se. Rather, I encourage clients to move briskly into creative development and then test the creative. This serves as a disaster check on the strategy and also paves way to getting business building creative in market.

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Apple's latest "Mac does that" ad campaign is derivative of probably half a dozen other ad campaigns including Roku's "Ok, Roku does that." spot by R/GA in 2021. This, combined with the previous "destruction of culture" ad for iPad, is creating a not-so-great string of misses for the tech behemoth. Also, Mac has always been about breaking the mold. Positioning it as just a better AI PC (which I don't even know what that means) flies in the face of an inspiring tradition of disruption. I don't know who did these ads, but it caught my eye... for all the wrong reasons. Is Apple doomed to Dr. Clayton Christensen predictive cycle of disruptors or can it right the ship? Or has that ship sailed? What do you think? #innovatorsdilemma #innovation #apple #mac #advertising #digitaladvertising

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Brand love or brand growth? Choose both. Through creativity, commerce has transformed from transactional tactics to inspiring brand experiences that happen to sell a whole lot of stuff. I hope you enjoy my thoughts on Creative Commerce. MRM McCann Worldgroup ADWEEK

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This article has been written many, many times in my career, yet very little changes. I post this not to rant at the system, but to continue to acknowledge the obvious disparities. Advertising must do better. Let me know what you think, or simply vent. I think we at least deserve that. #advertising #diversity https://lnkd.in/eHmGk-yv

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The term "non-working dollars" gets thrown around a lot as a way for people to justify production budgets. The basic idea being that money that isn't spent on media (i.e. getting the message in front of people) isn't doing anything beneficial for the advertiser and needs to be minimized as much as possible. Hence non-working. In reality, the WAY you say something is intrinsic to the way its perceived. This visual, originally shown to me by the one and only Michael Fanuele, is a great demonstration of the tight connection between message and delivery. Cheap can mean authentic, but it can also mean untrustworthy. Set budgets accordingly.

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✅🖥️ Variety (5/22): “Last year, the writers strike kept boldface names from appearing at the upfronts. This year, everybody turned up the star power to 11. NBCU stuffed its presentation with performances from Little Big Town, Michael Bublé and Kelly Clarkson. Amazon went overboard with a nonstop parade of A-listers, including Reese Witherspoon, Will Ferrell, Jake Gyllenhaal and tennis great Roger Federer, with none other than Alicia Keys as the opening act (and yes, she promoted her Amazon line of skin care products). Disney also hauled out the heavy hitters: Ryan Reynolds, Michelle Williams, Sterling K. Brown, Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, just to name a few. Opening Disney’s upfront was Emma Stone, introducing CEO Bob Iger while getting in one more plug for her Oscar-winning film “Poor Things.” The sheer number of movie mentions (NBCU took time to debut the trailer to “Wicked”) felt unusual at an event traditionally tailored to ad-supported TV. But in the streaming age, everything’s for sale — and there’s nothing brands like more than cozying their messages up to the biggest names in showbiz. Sports franchises were put on a higher pedestal than usual as networks lean on live games to deliver the audiences that advertisers covet. Sports personalities, from Tom Brady to Jason Kelce to Dawn Staley, were all over the presentations. Fox made it clear to anyone in earshot that it has the Super Bowl next year and it has Brady, a bona fide NFL legend, joining the Fox Sports team in the booth for football season this fall. Disney used a hunk of its time to tub-thumb the future of ESPN. Netflix bragged about landing two Christmas Day NFL games. WBD pledged allegiance to the NBA even as the company is kneedeep in contract negotiations with the league.” ⬇️ #upfronts #newfronts #streamingtv #ctvadvertising

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The media measurement landscape is as complicated as it's ever been... but it doesn't have to be. Backbone Media's Data and Analytics team is launching a new series, Measure What Matters. In it, we will break down the challenges and the opportunities for brands. For far too long, we've all relied on clicks and pixels and ROAS... it's time to open up the aperture and look at how media can drive business goals and results.

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I got that feeling, because Im at Target, Sipping a latte, Shopping for nothing, but buying everything. Isn't this Yargets overall strategy? They want us to stroll, roam, browse, and enjoy being in their store. This ad is absolutely hilarious and brilliant. It highlights the thing about Target that we all love and evokes emotion. While watching this commercial I saw myself in a few of these characters (cough, cough, the latte drinker, and plant enthusiast). 🎵 Perfect song choice. When it feels like a no-brainer that this ad worked.... that means its a real gem and a marketing win. Watch the Ad 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSQ2e9nY #Target #TargetStores #targetCommercial #FunnyCommercial #Marketing #MarketingWin #MarketingSuccess #MarketingInsights

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These are my vague feelings about AI presented by an actual expert in the field. Best piece of content I've seen in this latest wave of interest: https://lnkd.in/g_wVueit

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You remember this Spider-Man drawing meme from a few years back? https://lnkd.in/gXwXApdd You know, the one that shows the level of quality you get when you give an artist 10 minutes vs. 1 minute vs. 10 seconds? I remember when it started doing the rounds, a lot of creative types used it as an example of how much worse their work is when it's rushed vs. when they get enough time to truly ideate. What's funny is, this isn't even the best depiction of that. Imagine instead if you started by giving someone 10 seconds to draw a *brand new* superhero — one that doesn't already exist. My guess is the result would go something like "Uhhhmmmmm.... I dunnnoo.... (hastily scribbles rough silhouette with a cape)". Then give them 1 min and watch more detail get added. And then 10 and watch really rich character and story elements emerge. I see this a lot in organizations that put a premium on sprints and MVPs. It's one thing to put time constraints on refinement, evolution and optimization of an idea. It's another to rush the ideation itself. That's typically not a good recipe for innovation, since (as my example illustrates) when people are rushed, they tend to regurgitate/replicate the familiar. There is something to be said for putting some time constraints on ideation as a generative exercise. And when facilitated with a focus on lateral connections sparking new combinations, there is a way to hack novelty at pace. But often the main value is in getting all the obvious ideas out of the way, and getting the gears turning in the back of brains to let time do its work of mental marination. Then the real gems that team members can't stop thinking about can be prototyped/MVP'd/etc. Have you seen rapid ideation produce novel concepts (in product, comms, org design, etc.)? Or has it tended to churn out ideas that feel like replications/regurgitations, logical/linear progressions and slight incremental improvements on what already exists? #innovation #creativity #ideation #agile #mvp #prototyping #poc

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