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Leaders

Fighting fires. Why that Vodafone ad is such a terrible mistake.

Getting an advertisement completely and utterly wrong is quite an art. For starters, it takes two parties who at least profess to know what they're doing: the client and the agency. Then the brief must wildly misunderstand the nature of the audience...

Features

One small mistake, one giant gaff

You must be used to my moaning by now. All those tortuously bad ads that drive me potty - from Brad Pitt waxing poetical in the agonising Chanel 'inevitable' campaign, to Spotify waffling on about what music does to us (which has nothing to do with...

Features

Skin up. Has E45 made a mistake in treating customers like addicts?

Skincare advertising isn't renowned for pushing the bounds of creativity. Indeed, the industry's campaigns tend to be as formulaic as the various unctions they peddle. Occasionally these ads drift into the realms of the ridiculous - I've mentioned...

Leaders

Inspiring Female Leaders: An Interview with RAPP CEO Gabrielle Ludzker

Gabrielle Ludzker is not just any CEO. The current head honcho at customer experience agency RAPP has spent her career breaking away from the traditional corporate CEO stereotype. and leads to inspire rule breakers. Gabby is an inspirational rule...

Inspiration

15 Typical Content Mistakes Marketers Often Make #MarketingMonth

Content marketing has become an indispensable aspect of digital marketing strategies, offering businesses a powerful means to connect with their audience and drive engagement. However, amidst the complexities of content creation and distribution,...

Industry

How AI Will Transform Marketing in 2024 and Beyond #MarketingMonth

If the recent Willy Wonka spectacle taught us anything it’s that relying too heavily on AI for anything at this point is a fool’s errand. However, while there are significant drawbacks to using too much AI in a creative capacity, when it...

Features

How brands can survive ‘cancellation’ #CancelCulture #Uncancelling

There are few words as cutting and divisive in 2024 as “cancelled.” It’s a term you’d once only have heard in relation to your favourite TV series or perhaps an unwise Amazon order but today, it’s something that happens...

Workshop

A creative approach to writing essays for students: The demand or a sign of perfectionism?

When working on college essays, students have to meet tens of demands; they have to cover issues they may not like, they have to meet academic writing standards, they have to hand in their projects on time, and they have to deliver the key points so...

Features

Creative Trends That Will Dominate 2024 #YearInReview

We’ve already looked back at the year that was 2023 and what a year it was. But what kind of magazine would we be if we didn’t also cast our sights on the next 12 months? Of course, there are a few trends you can expect to see pop up...

Features

The most creative campaigns of 2023 #YearInReview

2023 has been a lot of things. It’s been a year that saw great divisions widen and a year that seemed to almost revel in chaos, but it was also a year in which creativity continued to shine, even as it stood on the precipice of potential...

Leaders

#GettingToKnow Daniel Bonner, Global Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson

Daniel Bonner is the Global Chief Creative Officer at Wunderman Thompson and alongside his fellow CCO Bas Korsten, he's responsible for "bringing ambitious clients a competitive advantage through the formidable power of inspiration." Daniel has a...

Features

Surviving Controversy - What Brands Can Learn from Lizzo’s Reputational Disaster #MediaMonth

Susannah Morgan, Deputy Managing Director at PR agency, Energy PR, discusses how Lizzo’s recent lawsuit and surrounding controversy is a sobering reminder to brands not to undermine the reason their audience loves them. Lizzo’s recent...

Features

10 of the Most Disastrous Media Campaign Misfires of All Time #MediaMonth

Media campaigns are designed to provoke attention, raise awareness, and build momentum around a cause, product, or event. The general consensus behind most media campaigns is the bigger, bolder and more colourful they are, the stickier they should...

Inspiration

What Brand Believers Know That You Don’t

Long before digital marketing started to suffocate emotional creativity in favor of unnecessarily complex, performance-based blindness, my agency presented a TV spot for a high-end audio brand. We were excited. We had a powerful concept, and we...

Industry

How to Create your Best Portfolio

How to create your best portfolio (a role-by-role guide.) What does a good creative portfolio look like? It’s a question we’re asked regularly. Putting together samples of your work might sound straightforward, but many creatives find it...

Inspiration

Defining Brand – The Most Misconceived Word In Business

When we launched a firm specializing in helping companies measure, build, and leverage brand and its equity to improve performance and increase returns, we knew naming the firm would be pretty important. After all, our name is our first impression....

Features

Brandification, not blandification - Why brands need to stop falling into copycat functionality

UX design functionality is becoming a dead end for brands and platforms seeking to differentiate as being told exactly how to design something doesn’t leave much room for creative expression - so how can brands still create competitive...

Workshop

How much should I charge as a freelance creative director?

Creative directors are amongst the most coveted individuals in the creative industries. They are generally recognised as kings and queens of their respective fields - masters of all trades that can wield relationships as confidently as they wield...

Workshop

Where technical meets creative - How to run a successful web development team

A great website build is a delicate balance between the needs of the end user, the objectives of the client, and something that’s functional and looks fantastic. The Being Group’s Head of Web, Karven Kwan, shares how running a successful...

Leaders

Training our creative brains and #GettingToKnow Graham Sykes of Landor & Fitch

For this week’s getting to know feature, we’re sitting down with Graham Sykes, ECD at Landor & Fitch and a man with a storied history in the creatives industries. Tell us a bit about your role! Is there a “typical” day? No...

Workshop

3 budget mistakes you’re probably making with your marketing

Picture this: you’re launching a new product or service and have the right marketing strategy in place for your website, branding and design, but when it comes to keeping the momentum going once it’s out in the world, you’ve run out...

Workshop

​Cause, effect and Ugg Boots - leaving logic at the door

Niamh Murphy, Head of Planning and Behavioural Science at In the Company of Huskies, on letting go of logic, rationalising in uncertain times, and the brands that are shaking things up with their pulling power. The difference between changing...

Industry

6 important design elements for a landing page that converts

Retail e-commerce sales are set to hit an eye-popping $5.4 trillion by the end of this year; even so, many would be surprised to realise that the average conversion rate ranges between 1% and 4% for many industries. These statistics make it clear...

Leaders

"Set any entitlement aside" - With ROOK/NYC Co-Founder & Managing Partner Rebecca Christou | #GettingToKnow

An AutoCAD nerd at heart, Rebecca Christou's journey in the creative industry starts in a very far place from branding: the magical (and sometimes tough) realm of architecture. After meeting her now husband and business partner Mark, Rebecca went on...

Inspiration

Here's all the best 2021 Christmas ads in one place!

All the 2021 Christmas campaigns in one place As we all know, there’s no Christmas without a heartwarming, tear-duct-shattering series of lovely Christmas campaigns. Brands and agencies line up every year to release a stream of Christmas ads...

Features

The role of creative in engaging new staff

The silver bullet for successful hiring lies in the quality of the induction. As a new employees’ first real taste of the business they’ve decided to join, inductions are the single most important piece of direct employer/employee...

Leaders

Why embracing your uniqueness is the only thing that will help you shine - With adam&eveDDB Executive Producer Gemma Conway | #GettingToKnow

Executive Producer Gemma Conway believes in hard work as much as in embracing one's own differences. Now living and working as part of a world in which no two days are ever the same, Gemma started from much humble beginnings - "a Media degree from a...

Features

Why don’t you see agencies & clients celebrating their Ruby anniversary?

I’ve been married 21 years this year. That’s apparently celebrated via the gift of Brass things (which seems a bit mean). But it’s rare to see a design agency celebrate past paper (1 year) or cotton (2) or leather (kinky - but also...

Industry

Come explore an award-winning approach to e-commerce with a Head of Design | #BehindTheIdea

Among the winners of The Annual 2021 this year, Ted Vesania certainly has one of the most colourful entries across the entire board. It is also one of the most distinctive. Our judges in the Web panel were impressed by the clean and modern design of...

Workshop

8 simple and inspiring mental health initiatives to improve your workplace today

A healthier workplace is a better workplace. While there’s still a lot to do in terms of mental wellbeing, there used to be a time when mental health couldn’t even be remotely approached and only talking about it would make you appear...

Features

Is it worth it to burn yourself out for that pitch?

Some time ago, I took a few days to read an interesting little book by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, named Blood, Sweat & Pixels. In it, Jason interviewed a number of game studios behind some of the most famous games, learning the crazy and...

Features

It’s okay if you don’t want that six-figure freelance life

‘How I became a six-figure freelancer’. ‘The reality of being a six-figure freelancer’. And perhaps the worst of all: ‘Here’s exactly what I do every day to earn six figures as a freelancer’. You’ve...

Inspiration

The purposeful works of 3D & Motion Designer Csaba Molnár | #MemberSpotlight

Freelance Art Director, 3D & Motion Designer Csaba Molnár has been in this industry for over 10 years, more than enough to develop a broad range of skills that embraces modelling on a number of levels. It is enough to take a quick glance at the...

Workshop

A quick and handy introduction to in-game advertising

Did you know that, whether your next client’s business is relevant to gamers or not, it doesn’t really matter anymore? Surely if you want to create a fully-fledged integrated campaign to target a gaming audience, you should probably...

Workshop

How much should I charge as a Freelance Art Director?

A guide to Art Director rates, with tips and advice from experienced professionals in the industry In the advertising world, Art Directors are the hand of creativity. They are responsible for what commercial campaigns look like, they oversee...