Examples of Outdoor Advertising

We recently took the Level 2 students to visit four high profile and very contrasting advertising agencies in London. We always try to make the level 2 agency trip encompass as wide a range of agencies as possible and we certainly managed to live up to that aim this year.

First up in the morning for group A was a trip to the biggest agency of them all: AMV BBDO. Level two strudent Liam Nicholson explains how the visit went:

'We were greeted in the boardroom by two very polite creatives Milo Campbell and Sonny Adorjan. They spoke to us about their intriguing journey into advertising and inspired us with a screening of an AMV BBDO show-reel and 'The Process' (aka designing the stop sign) which gives a humorous insight into the client/creative relationship. As well as showing us some of their work, Sonny and Milo also spoke about the type of integrated campaigns and digital work, which creative directors like to see in a student portfolio. The highlight of the visit however, was when Paul Brazier, the executive creative director at AMV BBDO and former president of D&AD, enlightened us on the creative process and gave us advice on how to make it in Adland, all in his brilliant Brummie accent.'


Getting the chance to meet someone as high profile as Paul doesn't come around too often and the advice that he gave to the students was all the more well received because of it. AMV is a large and impressive place to visit and was a great motivation for everyone.

Whilst Group A were visiting AMV, Group B were being hosted by creative giants, Mother. Level 2 student Sophie Macdonald explains how the visit went:

'We had the amazing opportunity to visit Mother London and considering the reputation that Mother London has, it was no surprise to walk into what looked like an art gallery.'


'After seeing Mother's unconventional and fantastic ground floor we were then shown upstairs where we were introduced to the famous 250ft concrete desk. We sat down with Dan, Craig and Ben who gave us lots of advice concerning portfolio's and the hard work that needs to be put in, they also showed us some great work and ran a very insightful Q and A session to round off our visit.'


So that was the morning taken care of and it was now time for Group A to visit one of the newer agencies in London - Creature.

Level 2 student Lily Peters explains more:

'On our agency visit trip to London, we were fortunate enough to meet with Stu Outhwaite, previously C.D at Mother and now a partner of fledging agency Creature. Creature is a vibrant, creatively focused agency and Stu shared key information on how to enter the Ad world, driving home the fact that networking and contacts are essential in order to get your foot in the door. Creature had an incredibly friendly vibe and Ruud Kool - a Lincoln graduate - was able to join us and shed a more recent light on life as a post-grad Creative.'


'Having the opportunity to be within an agency environment and meeting Stu was highly motivational for us all. Creature has a very exciting feel to it and it was wonderful to visit such a new agency and meet with a successful creative who had once been in our shoes.'

The group that had previously visited Mother also visited industry heavyweight JWT in the afternoon.

Sophie Macdonald tells us more:

'As we entered the reception at JWT the walls were covered with bicycles which made the agency feel like a very cool place to work.'

'We were greeted by Senior Creative Miles Bingham who provided us with huge amounts of advice and information about the industry and went on to show us some of the adverts that he had worked on. He also gave us advice on what would happen during a work placement at an agency and what to do when dealing with big clients.'

'Miles gave us an idea of how an ad comes to life with the 'hard slog' that goes into it. He was very passionate about the work that he had produced and about working in advertising. He gave us an honest and uplifting talk about the ups and downs in the industry and at the end of his presentation he gave us his email in case we needed future help and advice.'

Phew. Quite an exhausting but very rewarding trip.

A very big THANK YOU to all of the agencies and individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to see us. Visiting an ad agency is always inspirational as well as educational and this trip proved to be no different. Here's to the next one.

Copywriter Roger Horberry paid us a visit recently to run a writing workshop with the Level 2 students. As well as being a full time copywriter Roger also has a great reputation as a teacher of writing skills to both students and the industry. His brilliant book 'Brilliant Copywriting' contains many useful techniques for the aspiring commercial writer and is recommended to any student of the subject.

So it was with great anticipation that the students awaited Roger to cast a critical eye over their work. Level 2 student Ben Williams explains how the day went.

'Today we had the privilege of having the independent copywriter, Roger Horberry (author of several books such as ‘Brilliant Copywriting’) to talk to us about copywriting. Roger discussed topics such as tone of voice, which involved considering the audience, and ‘who’s voice should we hear when we read the words?’ He also used a great example of using consistency in tone of voice with a reply to a complaint about innocent smoothies.'

'He got the class involved with a number of exercises: one was about personality in print, where we had to write in the style of a certain celebrity. Another was about everything we don’t have to say (but probably should) where we deconstructed famous speeches, which highlighted that we need more than just the facts to engage the audience.'

'We finished off with one final exercise that involved us writing six word stories using our favourite words which we chose at the beginning of the lecture. Overall, the workshop was incredible useful and I feel that I have learned a lot more about copywriting.'

It's always good to see Roger working with the students to improve their writing skills and hopefully it won't be long before we see him again soon.

We're all about sharing on this course. But not sharing for the sake of it, no sir.

Last week the first year went out into Lincoln to buy a book from a charity shop, one that they would absolutely love to read, be it novel, recipe book or comic.

Then, when they returned, they wrapped them and turned into CA's version of Santa Claus by handing out random books to their classmates.


Well, I hear you thinking, what's the point?

We know what we like to read. In fact we know it so well we can sometimes buy the same stuff over and over again. From time to time breaking that pattern and reading something we would normally skip can be a good way into another mindset. Fun too.

'Swapping books, try it! You just might learn something new'.

We do a lot of unusual extra little things on the Creative Advertising course.
And here's one of them.

We found an old display case and have created the Creative Advertising Cabinet of Curiosities (or 'CAbinet...' – do you see what we did there?).

And we're going to display interesting things in it.

A rolling exhibition of oddities, if you will.

To start with, Gyles is exhibiting his collection of 1990s phonecards.


The accompanying text says:-

'Phonecards are, in effect, a form of currency. Here is an intriguing collection of changing designs from the 1990s that were used in the then ubiquitous public telephone box.

Displayed here are cards with commercial sponsorships; phonecards reserved for use in prisons; versions from Japan and France; different promotional techniques designed to encourage the use of the public phonebox and various joint ventures with different charities.'

Regular readers of this blog will know that 'Lincoln Ink' has become an annual Creative Advertising student party, epitomising the key themes of the programme: creativity, commitment and marker pens (often permanent).

This year's party organisers took the opportunity of combining the tattoo theme with raising awareness of the programme's splendid Movember efforts, growing fine moustaches to raise funds and awareness for often overlooked men's health issues. You can visit the CA team's Movember page here.

Early in November we had the honour of a visit from Pete and Ollie (Pollie Wanna Create), 2010 graduates. You'll remember these guys landing their first job via twitter! They currently work at Archibald Ingall Streeton (AIS).

They ran a session with Third Years to give them a taste of their first year in adland as well as setting a really exciting challenge. Here's what current Third Year Maria had to say:

"It’s always nice to see how well Lincoln graduates are getting on, and Pete and Ollie’s visit this week was a perfect chance for us to meet a successful team of Lincoln-bred creatives!  They talked us through their work, gave us tips on standing out in interviews, networking, and how to turn a placement into a job. There was even an ‘invention’ exercise that offered 6 placements at AIS for the winners, just to up our game.

It was really helpful to be able to ask them all those questions we had about ‘life as a new creative, looking for a job’, but also to see how enthusiastic and positive they were about the industry and their work. It makes the prospect of being young advertising professionals, a little less scary."

Thanks Maria and, of course, thanks to Pete and Ollie for such an energetic and genuinely useful afternoon!

Great news!

Here's a quick (but pretty cool) thing.

Earlier this month, Creative Advertising 2010 graduate Brooke Cutmore (who works with creative partner Ruud Kool at Creature, London) was announced to be one of four winners of the Howies Microadventures competition with the short film 'From London to Lewes' that she made with Luke Clark.

To quote from the Howies website:-

'Microadventures let anyone plunge into a world of cheap Credit Crunch adventures. Adventures that are close to home, which are fun, affordable, easy to organise and designed to get you doing and experiencing things that would normally pass you by.'

We asked you to get out there and do your own Microavdenture and send us your story. For us, these four stories really captured the spirit of Adventure.'

You can check out the other three winning entries on the Howies Brainfood website.
Here's Brooke and Luke's film.

Everyone knows that students love to have a party.
And its pretty common knowledge that Creative Advertising students love the brilliant TV series Mad Men.

So, it's obvious, isn't it?

Here are some photos from last week's Creative Advertising students' Mad Men party.

Each year group is sent a project to throw themselves into over the Summer with the knowledge that during the first teaching week that work will be critiqued. This critique sets the tone for the whole year.

This years second year had been working hard on the brief 'Remember My Name', in which they have to make sure the tutors who have not taught them previously can match their name to their face... and remember it for weeks to come!

They can surprise us, involve us, use whatever medium they wish but it is not enough to just answer the brief, the work must also stand out.

We had students dressed as tigers, cakes with the student's faces on, competitions, music videos and one bold chap even shaved his name into his own chest.

These were all solid efforts and whilst they worked, there were a couple of pieces which really stood out and were not only memorable but something we wanted to see again, take a copy of and show to other people.

Every year we welcome a new bunch of hopefuls into the Creative Advertising studio. Each of these young apprentices arrives with dreams of greatness and all are ready to be moulded into future creative warriors.

So, how do we test them out on day one?

Well, we make them prance up and down in T-Shirts they have designed themselves so the second and third years can film them, of course. But not any old T-shirts, no, these were T-shirts they had designed to communicate something about them, their values, hometown or background.



Let's call it an initiation and a valuable one to boot.

By abandoning their fear of looking silly and throwing themselves into the action they quickly dropped barriers and, unbeknownst to them, have now started the journey to becoming creatively open.

There is a method to this madness.

Congratulations to Kieran Clayton and Masha Shukkore who designed the winning T-shirts.

This is what Jenna has to say about their recent project:-