Partners Blog
What's new @ Google? Tips and tools for agencies
Unleash your creativity
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Reading time: 5 minutes
In a world of superheroes, creativity is a real human superpower. Everybody has it. It doesn’t just live within certain types of people within an agency. We all have creative potential. But as we feel safer and more comfortable, we run the risk of losing that creative spark as life becomes associated with routine and order.
So is there a way to get back into your creative self? What methods from business, innovation or anywhere else are there to help you tap into that wellspring of positive ideas?
We sat down with Doctor Frederik Pferdt, Google’s Chief Innovation Evangelist, for the
Google Partners Podcast
episode 31, and he offered some fascinating insights (and tips) on how to answer some of those questions. During the discussion, he offers his thoughts on how adults can rekindle some of the creative fire they had as children, and other key takeaways to spark innovation at every level.
Ask questions
According to Doctor Pferdt it’s not only about ideas, but also about asking the right questions, finding good problems and therefore developing a healthy disregard for the impossible. Find a “what if” and a “why”.
As author and marketing guru, Simon Sinek
recommends
that you see if you can reframe the problem by getting to its roots. “Start with a Why.” Why do you normally approach a certain challenge from the angle you do, and why not step away from the issue and take a completely new perspective? Try something new. Get into a room, fill a wall or even two with post-it notes: what connections can you make and what new associations can you find, when you are free to consider them?
Break routines
Every human being is looking for routines. They give us safety, security and save our brains energy. They make us feel good. That said, routines sometimes only help us to perform to our average level or below. Like putting your smartphone into ‘Low Power’ mode, some of the more complicated applications won’t work. To free us from the shackles of everyday thinking, it can be necessary to break those routines. Go and walk a mile, go check out a local gallery. Or even, as Jan Chozen Bay suggests in Mindfulness on the Go, pause and take a breath every time you walk through a door
2
. You can also make a list of your routines and they see if any of them are worth breaking (just as some will be worth holding onto).
Two modes for thinkers
As Doctor Pferdt mentions, it’s helpful to consider different approaches to thinking. According to him, there are two kinds of thinking: Divergent thinking powers the imagination, so it’s used for generating new possibilities and combining new thoughts. Convergent thinking powers your judgment, when you’re making decisions it’s how you evaluate and it’s the mode you use when you’re testing something or criticizing.
Allow yourself to recognize which of the two modes you are using. For example, try to think divergently when considering your methods or plans, so that you can embrace new possibilities. Give your ideas a chance to breathe before you start to criticize (and think convergently). One practical example writers use: if you have a speech or memo to deliver, try writing it out with a pen and paper before you type it out, and don’t stop to edit yourself. Let the words flow first and come back to edit later.
You’ll find the shape of your ideas, which you can then come back to and refine with your critical eye later.
Challenge assumptions
Why is it that way, why can’t it be different? New, radical solutions mostly emerge outside of our comfort zone. Constraints should be welcomed as an opportunity. Consider early users of Twitter. Writing a coherent message in just 140 characters (as it used to be) seemed a crazy challenge. But the constraint became creative fuel to millions of messages and new ways of communicating in shorthand. Just as the rigid structures of the meter, rhyme, and theatrical convention were subverted by William Shakespeare - even as he adhered to them.
From the Elizabethans to the present day, forms of convention and modes of communication move forward inexorably. The most successful thinkers and doers have to be ready to learn new ways and keep themselves learning, so they can stay in touch.
Build innovation into your daily routine
When you consider the pace of change in technology, it makes sense to include ‘innovator’ in your job description, in both your actions and attitude. What can you learn and take on in your thinking that will prepare you for the changes to come?
Doctor Pferdt recommends adopting what researcher Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset” (the idea that we can grow our brain's capacity to learn and to solve problems), which can start a virtuous cycle whereby believing you can improve, you actually improve. There is also a sense that having an open mind to new ways of working will not just be crucial in 2019 but might also be the key to agency success in the future. Scott Harrison, founder of The Boom! has this to say on learning at work and the importance of a certain kind of versatility.
1
In the end, the challenge comes back to us all. How do you change your everyday approach to get creative?
Watch the video below and tune in to the
Google Partners Podcast
to find out more; and let us know your thoughts on
Twitter
.
1
Kapow! how you can hack, teach, make and steal your way to creativity in digital
, Think With Google, June 2018
2
Hacking your innovation mindset
, re:Work, June 2018
Young Lions Cracked the Code to Get to This Year’s Cannes Lions Festival Six Seconds at a Time
Thursday, June 8, 2017
In a few short weeks, representatives from the world’s top agencies will descend on the south of France for the
64th Annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
. In an effort to part of the action, 100 young creatives from across the globe went head-to-head in the inaugural
Young Lions Bumper Hack
to compete for two coveted spots to this year’s festival, and an opportunity to go on to compete in the
Young Lions Film Competition
.
This wasn’t any ordinary hack; the brief challenged the next generation of creative talent to tell a story to their future selves. But there was a twist. They had to tell this larger-than-life story using a bite-sized format, YouTube’s :06 bumper ad format. Each entry had to include three :06 films to bring their ideas to life.
YouTube introduced the :06 format last year to help advertisers capture attention in today’s mobile world. Bumpers have shown significant impact when it comes to brand metrics like ad recall
1
, but creatives wanted to put it to the test to see if six seconds could indeed tell meaningful and emotional stories. So we asked creatives and filmmakers to create for the format at this year’s
Sundance Film Festival
and
SXSW
, and they illustrated that bumpers were an untapped creative canvas.
But it was time to give the young guns a crack at it. The Cannes Lions jury carefully reviewed the submissions, which included a wide variety of creative interpretations of the brief, furthering the notion that six seconds is limitless when it comes to storytelling. However, the 2 sets of films that stood out to the jury offered sage advice to the future creatives these youngsters aspire to be. “For me, the best ones were from the creatives who shared a message that extrapolates their own ego, but draws attention to something bigger like giving value to people and the planet, for example,” said Yuri Mussoly, one of the jury members and Digital Creative Director at Africa. “For me, this is the future of advertising.”
That theme was clear throughout the films from Vittorio Perotti of Italy, which were a simple testament to not forget important values as his career progresses. The films, appropriately named “Slap Yourself Now,” highlight the importance of relationships, career and ethics and the necessity to not forget one’s values regardless of success. Perotti explained that “the brief made me think about what I want to be in the future and what I should not forget. I'm afraid to lose some important values in life because people often ignore them when they grow up. If I did the same, I would slap myself.”
"Slap Yourself Now" by Vittorio Perotti, Designer & Art Director, Sagmeister & Walsh, Italy
The submission from Lance Francisco of the Philippines played on the daily demands that creatives are often faced with and flipped them into a positive mantra to remind him why he set out to be a creative in the first place. “By unlearning these learnings, we can get back to the core of creating again,” said Francisco. And going back to basics is exactly what creating for 6 seconds challenged the young creative to do. “Six seconds forces you to be strikingly simple. It is just enough time for you to give out a clear message and forces you to find a clever way to communicate the message.”
"Untitled" by Lance Christoper C. Francisco, Art Director, Publicis Jimenezbasic, Philippines
“The two winners stood out for avoiding clichés and for delivering on the brief with punchy typographically driven pieces,” said Chris Clarke, Young Lions juror and Deputy Creative Officer at The Guardian. Perotti and Francisco will will get to heed their advice at Cannes Lions this year as they compete as a team in the Young Lions Film Competition. The winning Bumper Hack films, along with many of the other submissions will be featured at the
YouTube Beach
during the Festival.
While Perotti’s and Francisco’s films took the grand prize, all of the submissions showed the breadth of creativity that six seconds can offer. Take a look at a few other favorites as we applaud these young creatives and their approach to bite-sized creativity.
"Duck" by Ashley Wilding, Copywriter, CHE Proximity Sydney, Australia
“Brevity Can Stir Your Imagination” by Yukina Oshibe, I&S BBDO, Japan
"Start Today" by Tristan Viney, Copywriter & Seamus Fagan, Art Director, Ogilvy, Australia
As the world gravitates toward mobile content, creatives will be challenged with telling big stories through condensed formats. The creative revolution has only just begun; who’s in?
Posted by Noël Paasch, Marketing Manager, Agency Marketing, YouTube
1
In a study of over 600 campaigns, 9 in 10 bumper ads measured globally drove a significant increase in ad recall. Across all campaigns measured, average increase was 38%. (Source: YouTube Internal Data, Global, July 2016)
↩
Creativity in Constraint: Two U.S. Creative Teams Emerge Victorious From YouTube’s Global Creative Hack
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
When two creative teams from the U.S. arrived in Singapore last month, they knew they’d be facing stiff competition and absurd deadlines. The teams from Deutsch and Grey had just flown halfway across the world to take part in the inaugural
YouTube Creative Hack
competition as part of
Spikes Asia
.
Spikes Asia is a yearly event comparable to Cannes Lions that brings together 2,000+ industry leaders from 26 countries to celebrate creative excellence across the Asia Pacific region. This year, the conference focused on YouTube, celebrating the most creative and innovative campaigns on the platform.
Creativity was on display throughout the conference’s keynotes and award presentations—never more so than during the YouTube Creative Hack competition sponsored by YouTube and Young Spikes. Fourteen teams of young creatives came together from across Southeast Asia, Japan, India, and the U.S. for some friendly competition.
The structure was simple: Teams of two had to concept, write, and produce a mini ad campaign in just seven hours. They would create three ads to fit
YouTube’s new six-second bumper ad format
, all using existing long-form video assets from a brand whose name, objectives, and target audiences were kept secret until the competition briefing session.
Right before the clock started, the client was revealed: the Singapore Tourism Board. In just seven hours, all 14 teams, including the jetlagged U.S. duos, had to present their ads to a panel of expert judges who would determine the winners.
Neither of the teams from the U.S. had ever been to Asia, and now they had to create ads convincing people to come visit Singapore.
The team from Deutsch based
their ads
on the insight that millennials like to show off to their friends when they’re having a great time. “We started concepting around this feeling of travel envy—that jealousy you feel when looking at pictures and videos from your friends’ awesome vacations. We all hate those friends. That shared hatred/jealousy led us to the line, ‘Singapore. You can be mad, or you can be here,’” shared Andrew Kong, copywriter at Deutsch. Kong and his partner, Curtis Petraglia, art director were able to turn this simple insight into a fun and polished six-second ad, which showcased fun things to do in Singapore while getting the message across quickly.
Alternatively, Grey used the fact that this was their first time in Asia to land on a simple insight: Singapore is very similar to some of the world’s other big cities like New York, London, and Los Angeles, but with particular advantages. “The creative hack was a fun challenge that forced us to trust our guts and whittle down the ads to the core insight," said Will Gardner, art director at Grey. Their
scrappy campaign
portrayed that simple message through clever supers and playful iconography. The six-second ads were designed to target users by home country.
The results? The teams snagged first and second place, making the Creative Hack a huge success for the U.S. teams. Despite the challenges a new country and new ad format presented, the team from Deutsch won the jury over, taking top honors unanimously. The Grey campaign also impressed the judges, with its relatable and dexterous execution, earning the team the second place honors. "Initially, we had no idea what to expect from bumpers and this opportunity showed us the possibilities of being creative within constraints. We're excited to expand on the experience and take what we learned back to our teams,” said Robert Jencks, designer and junior art director at Grey.
Leaning into the creative constraints of the six-second bumper ad format helped the U.S. teams transcend language barriers and local nuances. Having just six seconds to play with meant the teams had to focus their creativity and create pithy ads rooted in simple human truths. Regardless of platform, audience, country, brand, or time limit, that’s the kind of creativity that will always win.
Posted by Noël Paasch, Agency Marketing Manager, YouTube
Google+: 108, the +1 button is coming to display ads
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Earlier today we
announced
several exciting new additions to Google+, including many on
mobile
. We’d like to announce one more addition for our AdWords advertisers, +1 on the
Google Display Network
.
Since its
introduction
on search results and search ads, the +1 button has been installed on over a million websites across the web with over 4 billion impressions daily. Starting early October we’re expanding that to include display ads across the web on both desktop and mobile. For the first time, you’ll be able to run social-enabled ad campaigns that work across millions of sites in over 40 countries around the world.
If you’re running display ads through the Google Display Network you may begin seeing the
+1 button and personal annotations
with your ads. With a single click, people can recommend the ad’s landing page to their friends and contacts.
Incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising. A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.
For example, take Elaine, who sees an ad for discount flights. She +1’s the ad, thinking her friends might value similar deals. Now when Elaine’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount flight ad on any of the millions of GDN partner websites, they’ll see Elaine’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.
On desktop, the +1 button and recommendations will appear at the bottom of display ads, then fade out until the viewer hovers over the ad. The viewer can also close the overlays by clicking the ‘x’.
On mobile, the +1 button will replace the existing ‘g’ logo and recommendations will appear for several seconds, then fade out.
Elaine’s friends and contacts will also be more likely to see the ad. Because a recommendation from a friend is such a strong signal of relevance, the Google Display Network gives ads that have been recommended an extra boost by including them in the auction for any page a friend visits. Of course, if you’re targeting specific
placements
or audience segments (including
interest categories
and
remarketing lists
), your ads will only show on pages that match those restrictions. Additionally, your ads will never show on any placement or category on an
exclusions list
.
What’s even better is that the +1 button on display ads will work together with +1 buttons on search results, search ads, and websites. A single +1 applies to the same content across the web, no matter where it appears.
On the Google Display Network (GDN), the +1 button will be added to image, animated GIF, Flash, Display Ad Builder ads and select
mobile inventory
. You can also choose to include the +1 button on your
DoubleClick Rich Media
ads, which can run on or off the GDN.
We’re confident from our initial experience with the +1 button on search that this’ll be a great addition to your GDN campaigns. However, if you’re not sure that you want the +1 button and recommendations associated with your ads, starting today you can
opt-out
at the campaign level in AdWords under
campaign settings
.
To learn more about the +1 button and how it affects your ads and search results, visit our
+1 button site
.
Posted by Eider Oliveira,
Senior Software Engineer
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