I hope this serves everyone well now and into the future when they come to the task of organising their first book for this cut throat industry known as advertising, so in no particular order THE 10 BOOK COMMANDMENTS!
1. Thou shall be clinical - Have no more then 5-7 big campaign ideas in your book, but don't force yourself to make it 7, less is more, and great advertising has always been built around the art of simplicity.
Plus just having one shit campaign idea can make your whole book crumble, because thats what your potential employers will remember and talk about after the critic, about how shit that campaign idea in your book was, and how that other book they saw before you was soo much better, they couldn't pick out a bad idea!
And coming from a potential employer's perceptive; 5 of your strongest campaign ideas also make for a more clinical book, it shows you can judge your own work making the creative director's life easier.
2. Thou shall have well known brands - Well known brands speak volumes for your thinking if you crack them, and not a lot of these well known brands have good advertising, most of the time it's shocking, it's bad, which gives you the chance as a young up and coming creative to show you can do better then whats coming out.
One of the troubles of having brands not well known in your book is the idea will be lost, if you don't know the brand you won't really get the idea, which makes the magic of your thinking none existent.
3. Thou shall have some work other then advertising - The term creative doesn't just mean advertising, and that should be embodied in your book, don't just have advertising have other creative work.
Me and my creative partner are currently writing/designing potential publications (we are looking for a literacy agent at this moment in time), before that we designed and made a t-shirt to support breastfeeding in public, we went out our way to get it professionally printed by a t-shirt company. (Wieden + Kennedy London is a client)
What this tells potential employers is that I got someone who is creative 24/7, outside of advertising. (outside the job)
This is exactly what Tony means when he talks about being a modern renaissance man/woman, Leonardo Da Vinci wasn't just a painter, he was a inventor, sculpture, architect, musician, writer, the list goes on.
I am not saying you should be anything and everything, but its good you have other creative outlets, to show your skill set goes beyond commercial work.
4. Thou shall self promote thyself - Get yourself across social media, the creative community knew about me before I went though the doors of Watford, I was known as Creative Brummie on twitter, and built a reputation of being prolific with my One Minute Brief entries. (it earned me an award)
Branding/self promotion shows confidence in yourself, and sets you apart from the crowd, yes your work should speaks for itself but I feel self-branding is the cherry on the cake.
It could be a really cool logo for you or your team (we have one of those), or you have a cool name for your team, in my old team we called ourselves 'PotterScotch' combining our last names to sound like a tasty sweet, from there we could of turned our website into a sweet shop.
You see how branding yourself opens doors to giving your book a creative skin.
It could be something more disruptive then a skin, it could be a stunt or a video.
There was a team once offered a free taxi ride for a book critic in return, it got in all the major advertising publications, all the major players in advertising where reading it and even ending up in the taxi, this eventually lead to the team getting loads of placements.
I think the best way to summarise this all is imagine you are your own agency, what is your image, your culture, what makes you different from the rest of the competition.
4. Thou shall show thy can be serious and funny - A book shows how you speak as a creative, and if you can only provide one tone of voice, you come across one dimensional.
The best creatives can be a serious and funny, but always different.
This comes down to the brands you tackle, from a disposable like a sweet, to a more financially demanding brand like a bank or car.
With bigger brands you have to be serious because your audience is making a financially serious decision on what they buy into, for example cars aren't disposable so you can't make a ridiculous insight that won't have a major benefit, which won't effect that major decision in their life.
While a sweet isn't a financially serious decision, its not a life and death situation, your only spending 50p, a quid tops, so a funny observational truth doesn't need a major benefit.
Also the audience you tackle can affect the tone of voice of your book, and mould and shape it anyway you like. The easy way out for a lot of student books is targeting a young audience like themselves, but the true art is targeting people that are a complete opposite to you're age/life style.
Imagine you're a method actor and you have to embody your role (audience), whether it be a single mum, or a pensioner, this comes down to understanding them, catching a insight in their life, turning that into an idea, which will eventually be executed through a tone of voice that can communicate to them perosnally.
Tell me, would you rather be Daniel Day Lewis or Jason Statham? (talking about overall ability, not action sequences)
5. Thou shall try to have different brands in thy book - I have already mentioned this in having funny and serious in your book, about having range of brands to create a perfect tone of voice, but if I was to say anything else about picking brands is to pick brands in different categories; food, tourism, car etc.
This will make sure you have a range of brands that aren't remotely similar, for example having Pukka Pies in your book but then having McVitie's is too similar, both snacks and both in the food category.
The golden merit in a book is to cover the big six (this fits under the bracket of having well known brands in your book), the big six as Tony (former tutor) would put it are the biggest/hardest brands to crack for your book, and these are the brands that bring in the big bucks for the agencies, so if you can prove you can crack them then you have potential to be a valuable asset to the company.
- Bank/Insurance
- Airline
- Beer
- Car
- Supermarket
- Tourism
In the modern age I feel phone networks/broadband should be added to this list.
6. Thou shall write less - This comes down to how simple your ideas are, if your ideas are simple, it won't require much writing to explain them, or no writing. Explaining your idea before you even show them almost insults the clarity of your thinking (the line is suppose to explain your idea), but if you have to it might not be a good idea for your book.
It is understandable if its a untraditional idea where you have to explain the mechanic, but even then you need to keep the writing down to a minimum.
The reason this is important is creatives/creative directors don't have time to read though your ideas, they'll skim through your book like a magazine, just seeing a block of writing before the idea will put them off, I know it does for me because I got the attention span of a toddler and that isn't a rare trait in the industry.
I think you need to imagine your seeing your book as an average joe walking down the road, he isn't going to stand there and read though it, he needs to get it in seconds, thats why working in poster is invaluable exercise because it teaches you to be quick with your ideas.
7. Thou shalt not just have a website but a physical book as well - This might be a unpopular rule with physical books becoming redundant, because websites are easier to share plus everyone holding a smart phone or carrying around a laptop nowadays, so why do you need a physical book?
Presentation. Talking directly to art directors here, you're sweat and tears in visually laying out and communicating your work will only really be appreciated if it was presented in it's grandeur like it would be in the Tate Modern, showing it on a tiny laptop screen won't bring it justice, this goes especially for print.
You want your audience to be immersed in the work, and that only achievable if doesn't require squinting at it on a screen, plus you want to present it 'in the real' like you where seeing it for the first time on a billboard, or bus shelter.
Which goes on to my next point, if you do go out and get a physical book make sure its A3, you'll be wasting your time getting it A4, you might as well show it on the laptop.
I feel lot of agencies that will appreciate this, especially the really hands on ones like Wieden and Kennedy who really love craft.
And a final point, with the saturation of books on laptops you will stand out.
8. Thou shalt not have brands in thy book that already have good advertising - There is no point tackling a brand when it already has great advertising, you're work will only be compared to it during critic, lowering the standards of your book.
However what said earlier about having well known brands in your book, there are plenty of big/well known brands that have terrible advertising, that if you crack will position you above the competition, so its a reverse effect if you pick the right brands.
But if you ever wanted to tackle the Nike's, Burger King's and Guinness's of this world you need to find a problem thats relevant and in the now for these brands, something they haven't acknowledged themselves, that can't be compared to past work, this will show great strategic thinking and awareness of the market.
Brands will always have problems, the challenge is spotting them.
9. Thou shall always start strong and finish strong - This is straight forward and comes down to the decision making of the campaign ideas you pick for your book, and how you organise them throughout.
During the the critic you want them to straight away have a good impression of you and your book with a nice simple campaign idea, and to leave with a good impression of you with your strongest idea at the end of the book.
Of course the work in between has to be at a high standard, but organising it also important, your book should be a like a story, it hooks you in at the start and grows until the finale blows you away.
10. Thou shall not have topical ideas that go out of date, unless they get publicity - You will see alot of books where people cover topical material that won't be relevant after month or even just a couple of days, do you remember Obama Care, do you remember Kony 2012?
How long will it be until Brexit becomes a distance memory, and we all get on with our normal lives, unless they extend it again!
It almost makes your ideas out of date doesn't it.
Other stuff could be using a individual to create a campaign idea, like using Donald Trump's attitude, how he effects the product or just using him literally appearing on every execution, again traditional campaign ideas need longevity, the famous ones like 'IKEA - The wonderful everyday' and 'Snickers - You're not you when you're hungry' can go on for years, and if you have big strategies like this it almost makes your thinking immortal.
Donald Trump won't be in office for the next 10 years, unless he overrides the government and becomes a dictator.
However if you can make something topical and get it out there on the day/or following day when people are talking about it, that will get media attention, which will show merit that you can get work on the news and talked about amongst the public, something most advertising agencies waste millions, almost billions on and get nothing, not an ounce of attention. (FCK is an exception where a simple press idea gain media attention and awards)
And then you come along, doing it all on your own with pen, paper and some macing magic on photoshop. Great creative wit doesn't cost a arm and a leg, and the agencies will be thinking just imagine what they would do with some money behind them.
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