Lessons from Legends

Creativity is a fundamental part of any business' success, and it's often helpful to go right to the source for tips. Earlier this year, we partnered with The One Club to develop a series that would bring the energy and ideas of creative icons to today's industry. Our goal was to explore the creative consistencies, anomalies, joys, and pains over the past century.



Last week, we hosted icons Mark Tutssel of Leo Burnett and Bob Scarpelli of DDB at Google Chicago. The theme was "Focus," featuring a candid conversation between the two creatives, ranging from influential work, Chicago's mojo, and the future of advertising. Both men discussed the work that makes them proud, creativity's power to solve problems, and the importance of emphasizing the humanity in everything that we do. Creatives from several Chicago agencies, including Leo Burnett, DDB, BBDO Energy, Euro RSCG, and SapientNitro, joined the conversation, and learned about the stories behind campaigns such as Budweiser's Wassup and Troy Library's Book Burning Party.



Our first Lessons from Legends event was held in June, with Lee Clow of TBWA\Chiat\Day kicking off the program. Just as Lee couldn't help but emphasize the importance of Los Angeles in his creative story, Chicago played an active role inspiring both Mark and Bob. We'll soon move the program to another city, and are eager to learn how the next locale inspires another group of creative talent.

Posted by Carley Ribet, Agency Coordinator

Agile Creativity: 7 Tech-Inspired Tips

There's no question that technology has fundamentally transformed the business of advertising. We think the really exciting changes come when we are able to re-imagine not just the ads themselves, but the whole process of conceiving and developing them. The "Mad Men" of the future will not only be fluent in technology, but also in the evolving, highly adaptable, "launch and iterate" style that has become the signature of Silicon Valley.

Developed in close partnership with ad industry executives, Agile Creativity is a playbook that agencies can use to brainstorm ways to be faster and more collaborative in their organizational structures and creative processes. Explore the best practices.

Last week we hosted a G+ Hangout on Air “Coders and Creatives: 2 Angles on Agility” featuring Google engineers and ad executives. The discussion centered around new models of collaboration, how creativity can thrive in a condensed timeline, and the power of prototyping both products and ideas. If you missed it, watch the highlights video. If you’d like to see the full 50-minute hangout, head here.

Also, check out Ad Age’s article on Agile Creativity for more information.



Posted  by Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development - Americas

Introducing Agile Creativity

Join us tomorrow, August 8th, at 10am PDT/1pm EDT for a special Google+ Hangout On Air featuring advertising industry executives in conversation with Google engineers.



Over the past year we’ve had many discussions with ad agency executives about how they are reinventing their business models to excel at the pace of digital. Many of our agency partners are applying practices inspired by the tech world in order to work faster and more collaboratively.



Tomorrow, August 8th, we will be hosting a live streamed panel called “Coders and Creatives: Two Angles on Agility”, where we'll uncover the links between agile practices at play at Google and in the advertising world. Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development at Google will moderate the conversation between:

• Greg Andersen, CEO BBH NY


• John Boiler, CEO, 72andSunny 


• Engineers from Google+ and Google[x], the group that developed Google Glass and the self-driving car

We hope you’ll be there and be inspired to maximize the agility of your agency with some of the concepts discussed. RSVP for the event to have it appear in your calendar. If you have a question for the panel, leave your questions as a comment on our hangout announcement post.



On August 8th at 1pm EST, to view the Hangout on Air, visit the Think with Google Google+ page, look for the “Hangout on Air” post within the stream, and click “Play” to tune in. Don’t forget to be signed into Google+!



Posted by Torrence Boone, Managing Director of Agency Business Development, Americas

Google@ Cannes: Project Re: Brief Premiere, the Google+ "Winners Circle" and More

Last week, at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the global advertising community gathered to celebrate and honor the most inspiring creative work from around the world. We are committed to working with our agency partners to enable and inspire this continued creative magic. Below are a few initiatives and projects that we discussed last week, designed to do just that: 

• Project Re: Brief, the film: Earlier this year, we kicked off Project Re: Brief, our new experiment to re-imagine the future of advertising by taking some cues from its storied past. We’ve brought four of the most loved campaigns of the ‘60s and ‘70s -- Coca-Cola’s “Hilltop,” Volvo’s “Drive it like you hate it,” Avis’ “We try harder,” and Alka-Seltzer’s “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” -- back to life, this time built from the ground up for the digital age, with the partnership of the the advertising legends that originated them. But we think the ads themselves are only part of the story. Behind the scenes of our “Project,” we saw an amazing journey unfold as traditional, classically trained advertising creatives came together with technologists for the first time to collectively push the bounds of what online advertising can be. This journey is captured in “Project Re: Brief: A Film About Re-Imagining Advertising,” which we premiered at Cannes, and made widely available today on YouTube.
  


• The Google+ Winners Circle: In the same spirit of helping share inspiration from some of the world’s best advertising creatives, we're also creating the Google+ “Winners Circle.” This will be a new circle of 50 of the industry’s most honored creatives so that everyone in the industry can meet the people behind the amazing work we’re here to celebrate and see what makes them tick.
  


• Agency Edge, our refreshed training platform for agencies: One of the top requests we get from our agency partners is for more tips and training to help get the most out of the web’s myriad of marketing tools. We initially addressed this several years ago with the launch of AgencyLand, an educational platform designed specifically for our agency partners. But in the years since, the agency landscape, the range of tools available and in fact, the entire ecosystem, have shifted dramatically. So to meet the new and quickly evolving needs of today’s agencies, we unveiled Agency Edge, a place where agencies can get on-demand training, collateral and benchmark data to better serve their clients. 

Cannes is one of my favorite events of the year, precisely because of the amazing mix of innovation and creativity on display. We think, though, that even more dazzling projects lay just over the horizon. Through initiatives like these, we hope to help bring them into view. 




Posted by Torrence Boone, Managing Director, Agency Business Development

The Mobile Landscape: What Creative Agencies Need to Know

Join us on Tues, June 19th at 4pm ET/1pm PT, for a 45 minute LIVE conversation with Wook Chung and Nate Racklyeft of Google's Mobile Product Team!



Wook and Nate will discuss the key technology issues around Mobile and strategies for creatives to drive success now.



Creatives worldwide can join Hangout on Air: youtube.com/creativesandbox



There's a special opportunity for a maximum of 8 leading creative agencies who have done work in Mobile or are planning a special push in the arena, to reserve a spot on screen in the Hangout with Wook and Nate, available on a first come basis. Contact Jeff Sundheim to check availability.






Posted by Jeff Sundheim, Creative Platform Strategies