Meet The Drum’s US 50 under 30 honorees from the South

By Minda Smiley | August 17, 2017

Each day this week, The Drum has been highlighting 10 of the 50 talented women that make up our inaugural 50 under 30 in the US, a list that is celebrating women across the country who are putting themselves - and their cities - on the map via their creativity, achievements and dedication to an industry that is changing at a fast clip.

Today we are featuring our honorees from the South. Each was chosen with the help of a judging panelthat included MullenLowe Los Angeles executive creative director Margaret Keene, Colle McVoy executive creative director Laura Fegley, Arnold Worldwide chief creative officer Icaro Doria and Barker EVP-creative director Sandi Harari.

After receiving nominations from readers, the judges helped choose the final 50, who will also be featured in the October issue of The Drum's magazine.

Below, our finalists from the South discuss career achievements, advice they’d give to those just starting out in advertising and favorite things about living and working in their respective cities.

Lauren Prociv, senior strategic planner-UX at The Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia

What is your biggest career achievement to date?

Learning how to play golf. I took up the game because I was tired of hearing the adage about how many deals and decisions are made out there and I didn’t want to miss out. Now I love it. It’s cheesy but the game is one giant metaphor for strategy, confidence and persistence in a world full of both sunny days and windy days and you have to be able to play through both.

What brand means the most to you?

Coca-Cola. When I was 13-years-old, I wrote and mailed (neither Facebook nor Twitter were invented yet..) them an angry letter over something hilariously trivial about their can art (long story). Two weeks later a giant package of swag arrived with a hand-signed letter thanking me for my passion. And there was two of everything because at the end of my letter I said something to the effect of, “P.S., my twin sister is mad at you too.”

What one piece of advice would you offer someone entering advertising today?

Creativity is a muscle. Too often I hear "I'm not creative enough for advertising." Well, you couldn't do 100 push-ups if you've never done push-ups before either, right? You can do both those things if you put in the work, stay focused and never settle.

Continue to The Drum.

Strategy too left-brained? Planner, heal thyself. 

by Matt Mattox | Campaign US | July 06, 2017

The Martin Agency's svp/group planning director makes the case for using both sides of your brain.

There’s a seductive enemy among us — certainty. Actually, it’s the illusion of certainty we’ve inappropriately bestowed upon data (big, small, fast, slow).

For the record, I’m not a data hater. As a planner, I love data. Data is rightly and unquestionably critical to what we do, and will only become more so. But I believe data needs to be put in its rightful place. It’s an input, not a panacea. The key to our past and future success as planners (as well as quants) stems from our creativity.

Sir John Hegarty has commented on the topic of data and its relationship to creatives. But I believe data seduction is an even more dangerous enemy for strategists. Especially now that "big data" has made the transition from next-big-thing to a given. 

Why?

You’ve heard it before, and it’s true: strategists/planners need to be both right- and left-brained. (Right being the creative side; left, the logical.) Planners need both sides to come up with single-minded messages, ideas and strategies that are inspiring and born from fresh insight. Single-minded messages, ideas and strategies that are clear and supported.

So what’s the problem? Shouldn’t more data mean we have more tools at our left brain’s disposal than ever before? More information to dig into? Yep. But at the same time, I’m not confident our success rate at developing remarkable strategies is increasing. I actually wonder if it’s decreasing. How could this be?

I think the problem is, well, us. 

We’re letting data get the better of us. We’re letting it affect how we think. We’re letting it consciously, and even more dangerous, subconsciously, make us more (and too) heavily left-brained.

We’re placing too much emphasis on synthesis and too little on provocation.

Too much on clarifying and too little on questioning.

Too much on reductionism and too little on possibilities.  

Too much on information and too little on imagination.

Too much on accuracy and too little on awesomeness. 

Too much on left-brain thinking and too little on right-brain thinking.

What makes this so tricky is that the increased availability and ability to manipulate data has actually made that hemisphere more vital than ever. So we can’t and shouldn’t just excise left-brain thinking. Unfortunately, it comes down to something much more difficult and delicate — constantly looking in the mirror and keeping ourselves honest.

And like a frog in a warming pot of water, if we’re not actively self-aware, we won’t notice our rational brain invisibly killing our most creative thinking (or the ideas of those around us). It’s this unnoticed, uncontested, inner threat to our creativity that scares me most.  

I wonder what would happen if more of us (brand planners, UX planners, media planners, engagement planners, comms planners, data scientists, quants, whatever your flavor of strategy) consciously led with our right brain, and not our left. 

If we listened more to our heart. Took more leaps of faith. Swung more freely. And made a point to convince others through our conviction in addition to our logic. I believe we’d be the planners we want to be more often. We’d be the correctly balanced planners our teams and clients want us to be.  

Yes, we need to be right- and left-brained. But you’ll be a better planner when you make the conscious commitment to use your left-brain powers in service of your right. 

You’ll know you’re on the right track when your ideas make you and those around you excited and nervous. If you’re not seeing or feeling this, flex the right side of your brain. Quick. It will make what you do more rewarding, more valuable, more impactful, more fun. 

As my CSO and friend Earl Cox has said, at its heart, planning is about taking informed leaps. Don’t let the see-it-to-believe-it cautiousness of left-brain thinking keep you from leaving the ground. And beware of the insidiously warming water that can cook away your creativity. Lead with your right brain. Your left will follow — helping you both take off, and land, smartly.

Matt Mattox is svp/group planning director at The Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia.

Westeros’s Top Design Agency Offers Case Studies On “Game Of Thrones” Houses

Fast Company | Dan Solomon 

WHAT: WesterosDesign.com, a website that purports to be from the leading agency in Westeros (with an office in Essos, across the Narrow Sea, of course).

WHO: The Game of Thrones tribute project is a lark from Alex Zamiar and Jonathan Richman of the Martin Agency, with strategy and design help from Gigi Jordan and Matt Wojtysiak.

WHY WE CARE: With six seasons and approximately 10,000,000 thinkpieces behind us, it’s hard to imagine that there’s anything new to do with Game of Thrones–but Westeros Design is downright novel even for the most obsessed-over fantasy world this side of Middle Earth. Written as a series of in-world case studies from the firm that ostensibly designed the banners for Houses Stark, Lannister, Targaryen, Bolton, and Arryn–as well as the Titan of Braavos and the sigil of Lord Baelish–the site is surprisingly deep in its content, and a perfect example of the sort of agency-speak that is downright hilarious to imagine in a fantasy world.

“When you can ride, tame and give birth to dragons, it’s fairly obvious how you should direct your brand look and feel. So most of our work was done. But, when House Targaryen came to us there was one major problem hurting their public perception: no dragons. They had been extinct for several hundred years. In our opinion, all the flaxen hair and banners in the world couldn’t come close to doing what a terrifying giant fire-breathing killing machine could do for both brand recall and conversion.”

Every page of the site is fully in-character (visit “location” to see that they’re on the northwest side of King’s Landing, and don’t skip the “our team” page to meet the Dothraki head of new client acquisitions), which just proves that Zamiar and Richman seem to take their Game of Thrones fandom every bit as seriously as you do.DS

Continue to Fast Company.

Footlongs Go on ... and on ... and on in Subway's New Campaign

By Jessica Wohl. Published on July 10, 2017.

Subway is playing up and playing on the size of its Footlongs in a new campaign from The Martin Agency, the shop's first work for the chain.

The campaign, which the agency did on a project basis, features a new tagline, "So much sandwich."

The work has a bit of a humorous tone and includes extreme closeups of the two sandwiches being sold for $6 on a limited basis, the Subway Club and the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki. (Yes, Footlongs are now $6 when they're on promotion and have been for some time, even if the $5 Footlongs of the once-ubiquitous jingle still pop into your head.)

Link to full article.

Man Gets Caught in a Bulldog Stampede in Latest Funny Geico Ad

Marketer Gives Spain's Annual Brutal Tradition an Adorable Makeover

By Ann-Christine Diaz. Published on Jul 06, 2017

Geico and The Martin Agency take advantage of Spain's annual Running of the Bulls Festival, which kicked off today, to debut its latest ad from the "It's Not Surprising" campaign.

In it, a man apparently partaking in the tradition becomes "that guy" who stumbles and falls to the ground, waiting to be crushed by the incoming bovine stampede. But as the creatures make their way 'round the bend, turns out they're of a gentler, kinder and more face-licking species. "The running of the bulldogs? Surprising," the voiceover says. What's not surprising? Money the customers save through Geico, of course.

Continue to Creativity.

For Geico, BoyZ II Men Make Nausea, Sweaty Eyelids Sound Good

by Barry Janoff 

Following in the footsteps of Salt-N-Pepa, Little Richard, Charo and Gladys Knight’s The Pips, Geico has delved into the world of music nostalgia to showcase celebrities who have experienced the heights of popularity but are due for an impactful comeback among a new and younger demographic.

The insurance firm this week breaks a multi-media campaign starring Boyz II Men, a group formed in Philadelphia in the late 1980s, who are multi-Grammy winners with 11 albums to their credit.

The “It’s What You Do” campaign features the trio of Nathan Morris, Shawn Stockman and Wanya Morris, seen here as conduits of bad news, but with a twist: When they sing dreadful news, it goes down like a spoonful of sugar.

Link to full article.