Lily & Amanda, where are they now?
Anyone for a balloon.
'Shedding our uni skins we headed straight down to London, bright eyed and bushy tailed, into our first placement at VCCP, which kicked off in July.
As fate would have it, just after finding out our time there was almost up, we received an email from Indy, associate creative at Kindred. He asked us to pop in for a chat after seeing our portfolio via ‘Ken at BBH’– someone to this day we haven’t actually met, but to whom we are eternally grateful! So pop in for a chat we did, setting up our second placement.
Over the past five months we’ve had a fantastic time with great opportunities from going on several shoots, (including one where our balloon-blowing-up skills were put to the test for Beat Bullying), to working on a series of big pitches and taking the creative reign on a number of campaigns. Three extensions on and one amusingly informal conversation later, we’ve been hired! Our first real life jobs in the mad bad ad world as Junior Creatives – it was like Christmas came early.'
Mother agency visit
Their Mother's would be proud of them.
'It was only 3 hours after leaving Anomaly before we were waiting outside Mother, a building contrasting both in size and style to where we were earlier. The buildings situated 5 minutes away from the train station, but in the time between the two, we passed 1 giant rat, about 45 trainers hanging from a telephone wire and about 100 hipsters, it was awesome. As we walked into the reception area of Mother we were greeted by the slogan “Graffiti is advertising to me” in massive font above the elevators, this pretty much summed up Mother’s creative and youthful style.
An elephant is about to sit on Jonny.
Mother’s policy is about “doing work that makes your mother proud”, and to emphasise this every employee has a picture of their mother up on the wall in the corner of the foyer. As I sat there, admiring the obvious ambition and creative feel of the place, I realised how good it would feel to see my mother up on that wall, and how proud that would make me feel.
However, my daydreaming was soon interrupted as we were shown into their meeting room, the only room in the whole agency with a door. This was not the most interesting aspect of the room though. There was a massive elephants arse coming out of the wall apparently for two reasons, acoustics, and “to kill the elephant in the room” so that people feel more comfortable speaking.
Jonny and Georgie playing with their friend.
We were then lucky enough to be given a presentation by two creative directors Martin and Kyle, as well as Ben Heap. The guys told us all about Mother and its work, all of which I recognized and appreciated. It was not long before I got the sense that this was an amazing place to work. They described how they have events almost every night; they take part in their own projects and they work together around a massive table, like a big family. To me it seemed like a place where everyone is appreciated and you can truly be yourself. It was not long before question time. They answered a variety of questions, some told us about the importance of pairing up with someone that challenges you and also highlighted the necessity of creative pairs in the industry, now, and for the foreseeable future, and one answer in particular disappointed second year Simon, “No, the agency isn’t like Mad Men.”
Unfortunately, it was not long before our time in London was up. But I can tell you, after that day, I wont be gone for long.'
Second years visit Anomaly
The only way is up for Anomaly
Part of the philosophy you will find at Anomaly
No sausages
Upon entering the agencies building we were greeted by a wall of creative quotes, scamped from top to bottom. This was a good start; it already seemed like an interesting place to work. Upon having a few minutes to enjoy the creative wall, we were ushered into tight lifts and taken to the agencies floor.
As the doors of the lift opened, we were greeted by a bright, warming red glow radiating from the hallway, which was painted strikingly, to say the least. We were then led into a boardroom to start the presentation.
The presentation started with Ben Moore telling us all about the company and its strategies. He told us how they really tried to be the “anomaly” of all of the agencies, providing a service completely different and surprising. Through a business like approach, and strong opinions on the direction that the industry is heading, they are a relatively new agency in the UK trying to make big waves, with bigger clients. The presentation carried on, and it was quite interesting, with him showing us the agencies best work, including work for Budweiser and Adidas. But for me, the more interesting part came when we got to speak to the creative pairPaul Mann and CA graduate Mike Cuthell. They are both freelance creative who were very open with us, providing first hand experience of the ups and downs and completely new perspectives on the industry. They reassured us that getting the job is possible, and that it is truly worth it. One particular reoccurring theme of the agency that really made me think was their questioning of the importance of the creative partnership roles. They suggested that the industry would evolve into a place that makes partnerships redundant. However, we soon came to realise that, different agencies have different philosophies when we visited Mother in the afternoon.'
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