Good morning Sweden!
After 8 days of vacation (yes vacation!) in New York the cup is yet again filled to the brim with inspiration. New York will do that to you, and I think a lot of that has to do with the incredible diversity of the city. You can go knee-deep into different cultures, hipster-niches and fetishes and come out the other side with infinitely more to discover. It just never ends!
The Value of a Naive Approach
One of the nights I was at the Student’s One Show advertising awards ceremony, and I was surprised to see the size of the footprint Sweden and Swedish advertising students had at the show. It felt like every other award went to Sweden in general and Berghs School of Communication in particular. How can this be? Stockholm, though very nice, is after all quite lean in diversity and intensity of impressions compared to New York city (in my humble opinion). I believe that one reason might be our naivety (yeah yeah, don’t get mad, I’m Swedish too). We overestimate our impact on the world and underestimate the competition. And by the laws of nature (or the law of attraction if you’re a new age The Secret fan), what you believe in is what will materialize. We simply believe we’re great and thus succeed. Being a speaker I hear similar observations from international audiences and speaker colleagues: “You Swedes walk up on stage with a naive fearlessness like you couldn’t be wrong, and thus we believe you”. Let’s take it as a compliment. It’s all said i a very loving way. 
The Value Case Films and Great Execution
Another reason for the Swedish dominance in student competitions is their mastery in the art of making case films. I’ve seen a lot of these little 3-minute films by now, and though clone-like in structure, they are often very clear, very well executed and overall very inspirational. Often they are powered by some lyric-less karaoke version of power songs by Coldplay, XX or other contemporary artist, and paint a stylized picture of what would be a complex business problem in real life. These films really show the value of execution. When evaluating one of these case films I see similarities with what Derek Divers, president and programmer CDBaby and HostBaby, says about the value of execution in a quote from the magnificent 37 Signals book “Getting Real”. This is his model:
- Awful idea = -1
- Weak idea = 1
- So-so idea = 5
- Good idea = 10
- Great idea = 15
- Brilliant idea = 20
- No execution = $1
- Weak execution = $1000
- So-so execution = $10 000
- Good execution = $100 000
- Great execution $1 000 000
- Brilliant execution = $10 000 000
To get the total value of the idea, simply multiply the two. As you can see from the model, execution plays a big role. To say the least. A brilliant idea with no execution is worth $20. A weak idea with brilliant execution: $10 000 000. A brilliant idea with brilliant execution: $200 000 000. I don’t think our business is any different.
The Value of Understanding What The Real Brief Is
In several of the case films, the solutions don’t really answer the client brief. But that doesn’t seem to matter much. Contest briefs are in fact only part of the context of the real brief. The real brief is “To emotionally move a jury to promote your entry in 3 minutes or less with a sticky idea”. Any other focus will not get you to the top of the heap of 3000+ entries. As we know from Chip & Dan Heath, sticky ideas are:
- Simple
- Unexpected
- Concrete
- Believable
- Emotional
- Dramaturgic
If you manage to deliver on that brief, you can expect the all important “…there is something about this…” or “…this one sticks with me for some reason…” responses from the jury, moving them to float the entry higher in the competition, eventually towards the grand prize.
Now, don’t get me wrong here – delivering on the real brief is also an accomplishment, and one that deserves due credit. The amount of competition is massive and global, and the jury setting is in fact a very competitive setting. Perhaps in some ways even more so than real life business situations. Real customers are after all not as much on their guard. The competition setting is also in many ways similar to the pitch situation where the pitch “jury” acts a lot like the competition jury.
As Walter, I’ve been known to display a measure of skepticism when it comes to competitions in consultant businesses, because ultimately, I think we’re here to help our clients reach goals, not primarily score gold statuettes and pens. That only encourages clownvertising and other deceases. But when it comes to college competitions I’m a bit more positive. The main incentive for students to compete I would say (besides having fun of course) is to land a killer job. And if I just look at myself when recruiting, having people at the agency who are able to present an idea clearly and inspirationally is something that is really useful to us. At least as part of the skill set. And of course, I’m also in a jury-like situation when I evaluate candidates, which means that great presenters will have one up on poor presenters. Ultimately, the brief for somebody campaigning to get a job at an awesome agency is “…land the f*ckng job…”, and to that end, competitions are the perfect way to practice.
And oh, congratulations to all students who picked up pens in the One Show! U rock and U know it. Come see us sometime.
Similar Posts:
- Being Efficient in an Economic Downturn
- Why Advertising Agencies Should Shut Up And Work
- Forsman & Bodenfors Understand The Game + A Free Idea
- Often Wrong, Never in Doubt
- Happiness Machine
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
A few days ago, i wrote a –much too long– Facebook status about the things i hate and the things i love with swedish people.
The things i really love are:
- their (the Swedes') genuine interest for other cultures.
- their lack of inferiority complex, especially when being abroad or interacting with foreigners.
- their language, square, concise and somewhat dull, but always precise (with its effects on the speaker's mentality).
You call it fearlessness or naivity, i call it lack of inferiority complex, but it seems like we've made the same observation.
Languages have an enormous influence in shaping the way we think, and i think the swedish language contributes a lot in the fact that swedes excel in making clear and convincing 3-minutes case films in english…
I feel confident i making that statement because i can compare with for example the french way of thinking, very powerful when discussing abstract concepts, but highly ineffective in the advertising format.