Eurobest, an annual event encouraging and rewarding creativity in Europe, came to celebrate the first three days of December in Antwerp. This festival is Born in Antwerps kickoff event. The city will be a harbour of creativity until late 2016.
Senior copywriter and Eurobest virgin Sylvia came, saw and felt incredibly inspired by so much creativity. Read all about her impressions.
Creativity cant be put into words
Yup, you read that right. So instead of reading this blog post, I advice you to have a look at the nominated and winning posters, movies, apps, Seeing is believing that creativity works. But actually, the attempts to define creativity, the dos & donts and quotes are definitely worth reading, so hang on.
The times, they are a-changin
There is an interesting evolution going on, which makes advertising more involved with society. Subjects like hope and truth seem to be more popular than ever before. Its clear weve had enough of those hero stories, too much pooha. Its time to see what truly concerns us, what really matters in life. Plus, we need enough room to participate. Interaction becomes a must. Problems are often a perfect drive to be discussed at creational platforms. And you dont need lots of money to make things different or to achieve amazing results.
How do I know all of this? Because I got to listen to the most amazing and inspiring people in the business. Here are some of my favourites:
Kate Stone – Novalia, the internet of paper
Novalia brings print to life. Kate Stone grabbed the audiences attention immediately; she combines print and capacitive touch to create smart surfaces that act as sensors and speakers. Novalia wirelessly brings the digital world to your fingertips. A sonic poster showing a drum kit is meant to be touched, different points making sound when you play/touch the drum.
Keep Walking Lebanon – Leo Burnett Beyrut
I was a bit surprised about alcohol publicity in Lebanon. After all it is a muslim country. People were invited to write inspirational messages about resilience in Lebanon with #keepwalkinglebanon. An artist travelled across Lebanon to draw these messages at night, allowing the brand to respond to users with a photo of their text message created with fire. Some users were invited to the night shoots to appear in the photo of their message.
The Rom Campaign – how a candy bar wrapper ignited the Romanian pride
Challenge the national (Romanian) ego by changing the packaging from a Romanian version of Milky Way, called Rom. It was amazing and heartwarming to see how the people of Romania became proud of their country, by reacting against the American version (the American flag) of their Rom. Then they changed the packaging again which resulted in a major success. The message is clear: Go into the culture and let people join the conversation.
McCann Bucharest – The Underdog Academy
Most of all I was charmed by the Wild Wild Eastern approach of the McCann Bucharest agency. I love the accent, so it was a pleasure to hear them from the very first phrase. After copying the Western way of advertising – and also because of their specific problems – they used their own identity for making publicity.
Ghita the shepherd, an example for the digitalization of Romania. Ghita is a random sheperd from Romania who’s mostly alone with his sheep. He has never seen a smart phone in his life, gets the full package, gets connected thanks to Vodafone and becomes the most famous and favourite of the country. His life changes completely and lots of smart phones were sold.
And last but not least … theres still a future for copywriters in advertising
Copywriting seems to be a good choice whenever you want to stay in business., says Philip Fass, creative director at Happiness. Words do age better than pictures. Just like wine. That was nice to hear. Next advice he gave was Be a cougar meaning that it is interesting to mix ages (young talent working together with an experienced partner). Ha!
