Examples of Outdoor Advertising: VCCP

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Level 2 Visit to London Advertising Agencies

Last week saw the Level 2 students visit some of the highest profile advertising agencies in London; BBH, Wieden & Kennedy, DLKW Lowe and VCCP. A course that delivers ‘real world experiences’ is vitally important for the of Lincoln Creative Advertising students.

This first hand experience is mutually beneficial for both the students and the agencies. It allows the students to see the inner workings of an agency and likewise the agencies get to meet the next generation of advertisers. Like the Egyptian Plover to the Nile Crocodile…it’s a win-win situation.

I'll let the students explain in their own words how the visits went, first up Ellen who visited BBH.

“Walking through the middle of Soho, and you see that little black sheep on the door. It can only be BBH.

Glass bottles of water, wall art and plastic sheep completely immerse you in the ethos of the company; when the world zigs, zag.
Walking through the floors and sections you could just feel how much everyone wanted to be there.

They have an unlimited free coffee bar, complete with pastries and foam hearts in the froth of your latte (which we took full advantage of). Oh and brownies, they had the best brownies!

Whilst there, we were shown around by Claire andMaria, part of the ‘Lincoln Mafia’.They showed us BBH’s most recent show reel, and explained the process the agency goes through when they take on a brief.
They were really great at giving us advice for when it’s our turn to try and make it in the big, scary advertising world.

We also met BBH’s newest creative team, Marc andCallum. They showed us their website, and talked about their ‘Mega bus book’ which they’d put together in a 7 hour bus journey on the way to London using only stories in that days Metro.
Pretty impressive.

The whole visit gave us an exciting glimpse into what we hope our creative futures have in store.

Another interesting aspect of bbh was “Zag”

In a world full of zigs, do you zag?
zag is a dedicated area for starting new and upcoming companies and ideas, finding their target market, to producing the best work available to go from strength to strength – a wise investment for any new company."

Whilst one group of students was visiting BBH another group went to DLKW Lowe. To find out more about the agency, Abigail and Ola gives us there impressions of the visit.

“DLKW Lowe was everything I imagined an advertising agency would look like. The building was huge and had really high ceilings, there were adverts that they had created all over the walls (the Morrison’s ads mainly) and a massive lightbulb hung from the ceiling as the main centre piece of the agency; showing that this is the place were great ideas happen and evolve! The atmosphere was buzzing therefore I instantly got a positive vibe! We met with an inspirational previous Lincoln Creative Advertising student called Adam who is now in a creative team at DLKW Lowe and has been there for 3 years. He told us about how he got to where he is now, what briefs he’s previously done and what briefs he’s currently doing, what the procedures are once you get a brief, what it’s like living in the busy and expensive city of London and lots more vital and helpful info! He gave a great impression of DLKW Lowe and it is definitely an agency that I aspire to work for!”

“We ventured into the heart of London to find DLKW Lowe, an advertising agency that has produced many successful campaigns. The visit was quite short but in the time that we had, we managed to prize a

lot of important information about ad land from our Tour guide/Former CA pupil, Adam Smith. He was without his partner (also a graduate from the course) But he managed to give a very informative session on his own. He spoke about the scale of their work, from from filming in different countries to late nights in the office. He also talked us through his ideas process and reinforced how hard we need to work to become the creatives we want to be. It was a very enlightening experience and a true reality check, especially since it came from the mouth of someone who had previously been in my shoes. All in all, it was a great experience.”

The second agency for the BBH group was VCCP, here are Jo and Hannah’s accounts of their visit.

“Half of the second year students were lucky enough to visit top London agency VCCP. It all started with a quick workout (a hefty five flights of stairs) to reach the top floor to have a swift but exciting tour of the agency. Our hosts for the day were ex-Lincoln Creative Advertising students, Jade Sturman and Sophie Townsend, who have been working for VCCP for over a year and are living proof that it’s all possible if you stick at it. Not only did we hear about Sophie and Jade’s experience of the advertising industry but were also joined by two of the female Creative Directors of VCCP who gave invaluable advice and told inspiring stories. It’s safe to say our very first visits to London agencies have given us a tiny glimpse of the industry and how thrilling the world of advertising is. We can’t wait to become part of it.”

And finally Charlotte, Tom and Cullen tell us how their group’s visit to Wieden & Kenedy went.

“On Friday afternoon a group of enthusiastic Creative Advertising students from The University of Lincoln found themselves in the wonderland that is Wieden+Kennedy.

We entered with an acute sense of excitement that boiled over, for most of us, at the mere sight of the reception area. The white walls were adorned with weird and wonderful items; a Honda helmet sat amongst painted wellies, multiple clocks, and mannequin heads.

We met the brilliant creative team, Philippa and Artur, who studied Creative Advertising at Lincoln too, and were led into a conference room that had a partially glass ceiling, through which you could see people walking above you. In the week leading up to our visit we had been set a fantastic Nike brief by Wieden+Kennedy’s creative teams, and were to present our solutions to them and Nike’s Creative Directors that afternoon. Presenting our work was possibly the most nerve-racking thing we’ve ever done, but it was fantastic to get feedback from people within the industry right now, and was certainly an eye opening experience.

The quality of Wieden+Kennedy’s work that we were shown was phenomenal. We were privileged enough to hear from a variety of people within the Agency, including an wonderfully eccentric and highly engaging talk from Luke Tipping (Senior Interactive Creative), and even had a talk from ECDs Iain Tate and Tony Davidson, covering how they made it to where they are today, what they look for in creative recruits, and a whole range of other fascinating insights.

Days like this make a huge difference to us young creatives. We know how competitive this industry is so the thought of discovering where we fit in it can be daunting. Emersion will always be so much more inspiring than just talking, so to visit an agency gives us a real feel for the place, for the people who work there, their work, and what they stand for. It’s incredibly motivating to go somewhere you could potentially work at one day, and we learnt as much about ourselves that Friday as we did about Wieden+Kennedy, and that’s invaluable.

So, we entered excited, and left buzzing, ready to discover and create new things (we even got free t-shirts). Bring it on Wieden+Kennedy. Bring it on.”

“The opportunity to work on a brief for Nike was one of the most exciting experiences of our creative careers. We threw everything we had into the project, and having our idea awarded winner has set us on a creative high! Having the industries’ best critique our work at W&K gave us added confidence that what we do is on the right lines and appeals to industry. A fantastic small snippet (hopefully) into our future career paths.”

This year's agency visits were all organised by former students of this course, which made it even more special. It's very rewarding to see CA graduates who are now staff at the highest profile agencies and it's a great vindication of all that we teach on the programme. A big thank you again to all our alumni who went out of their way to make this year's trip so rewarding.

Sophie & Jade Asda Christmas ad.

Jade & Sophie's Asda commercial.

Tis the season of Christmas adverts and the latest big supermarket to release a yuletide message is Asda. The new ads feature the story of Asda Christmas smiles and were created by ex-Lincoln Creative Advertising students Jade Sturman and Sophie Townsend. The girls made the commercial at the advertising agency VCCP who hold the Asda account. Here's what the girls say about the making of the ad.

'We’ve been working on and developing this campaign since the start of June, living and breathing Christmas during the entire summer, which was a little surreal to say the least. We have a great team of people at VCCP who worked hard to ensure the idea stayed as true to the original concept as possible, although inevitably changes were made along the way, we feel that everyone’s hard work has paid off and as a result have managed to come out with a campaign that everyone is proud of.

This ad sits as part of a set of ads that will play out over the Christmas period, all based on the idea of smiling. The idea, though simple, is something everyone can relate to, it light-heartedly reveals the true meanings of the different smiles seen at Christmas time and helps tie the ads together as a fully formed campaign. As Asda is a brand that doesn’t takes itself too seriously, and is considered a down to earth retailer, tonally the concept of ‘celebrating smiles with Asda’ worked really well for the brand.

We’re really happy with the work so far and are still developing and producing everyday. We just hope it gives everyone that warm, fuzzy, Christmas time feeling and of course, raises a few smiles.'

Well done girls and happy Christmas to one and all.

Another successful London Week

Just before Easter the third year students had their 'London Week'. The year group was split in two and each group visited one agency a day. In total the cohort visited 10 agencies in 10 days.

Some of the agencies set briefs the week before and ran a crit when the students arrived. Some agencies were even more demanding and set a brief in the morning and then critiqued the work in the afternoon. A couple of the agencies gave presentations on how to get a job in advertising, showed some of their recent work & gave advice on portfolio content, industry expectations & how to successfully make the transition from University to career.

Monday saw visits to Leo Burnett & DLKW:–

Fresh faced and raring to go at Leo Burnett

Kieran pretending to work hard at Leo Burnett

Quick! Write lots at DLKW and look busy!

Agency: DLKW

Taking the escalator up to DLKW

Tuesday and the students visited Grey and creative recruitment agency The Talent Business:–

Lots of sugary drinks at Grey

Agency: Grey

Creative recruitment agency, The Talent Business

The Talent Business

Wednesday and it's agencies Creature and JWT:–

Agency: Creature

Cool things at Creature

In the reception at Creature

Need a break? Don't go to JWT - it's hard work.

Woah! JWT's impressive reception.

Agency: JWT!

Agency: JWT

Thursday and it's off to Inferno and Mother:–

Kieran presenting at Inferno

Sarah & Natalie presenting at Inferno

Agency: Mother

Waiting in reception at Mother

Agency: Mother

And finally, on Friday the students visited agencies Ogilvy and VCCP:–

All aboard The Mayflower meeting room at Ogilvy!

Stan and Beth arriving at VCCP

As you can see it really was quite a week!

Thank you SO much to all everyone at the agencies who helped organise the week. We simply couldn't have done it without you. The vast majority of these were past University of Lincoln Creative Advertising graduates so you see how it goes: come to Lincoln > graduate from Lincoln > get a placement (or two or three) > get a job at a top agency > keep in touch with the staff team in Lincoln > help the next generation of creative talent. You get the idea.

Next up for the third years, pull everything together that they've learned in Lincoln and London and prepare for their portfolios for final assessment. And then it's the degree show (and Private View party).

Nice.

Lily & Amanda, where are they now?

Anyone for a balloon.

Lily Peters and Amanda Elvidge graduated from the Lincoln Creative Advertising programme last June and have been busily doing work placements ever since. After a lot of hard graft and dedication the two of them finally landed themselves a full time position at Kindred, hoorah. Here's how they got there in their own words.

'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.'

London Week - VCCP

To complete the reports form the third year's recent week in London, here are a few photos from their visit to VCCP.

The group were welcomed by University of Lincoln Creative Advertising graduates Josh & Steve who had set the teams a brief to complete beforehand. Each team presented their ideas and Josh & Steve gave the feedback, followed by a big Q&A about portfolio content and some great advice about making it into the industry. It was an incredibly enjoyable and informative visit. Thanks guys!

And so, for another year, that marks the end of the report from the week visiting 10 ad agencies in London.
Aaaand, relax.....
But oh no.... it's assessment time in 5 weeks!
Back to the folios to rework, rework and rework all those briefs again....

Level 2 Advertising agency visits

Last week saw the Level 2 students visit some high profile advertising agencies in London. Getting first hand experience of the ad industry is vitally important for the University of Lincoln Creative Advertising students, who focus a great deal on 'real world experience'. The agencies get to see the next generation of advertisers, and the students get to see how interesting an agency is. It's a win-win situation. I'll let the students explain in their own words how the visits went, first up Suzi Paddison who visited VCCP.

"On Friday morning Group A made their way to Victoria to visit the agency VCCP. We were all very excited knowing that we were going to get a glimpse inside the agency which created great ads for brands such as Compare the Market and O2. We were greeted on the 5th floor of Greencoat House by Josh Dando, a Creative Advertising Graduate who has been working there with his partner Steven Dodd since March 2011.

Josh tells it how it is in the VCCP boardroom.

Firstly we got a tour around the building, through the large open plan working offices. It was great to see that the agency lived up to it's title of being integrated, with employees of different roles mixed together throughout the building. We also saw the separate sectors of the VCCP partnership - VCCP Search, VCCP Blue and VCCP Digital. Everybody was very friendly and seemed quite relaxed in their working environment.

Josh then gave us a very insightful Q & A session where we learnt about their journey into the agency, what they have been working on and how the agency works together. To finish the visit we went to a meeting room where we saw a show reel of some of VCCPs most recent successful ads, a great way to end the visit.

Suzi's group in VCCP's reception.

Going to VCCP was really motivational for us all and we feel we all gained a lot of great advice on what to do after graduating, and especially as it was from someone who was in our shoes not too long ago. A big thank you to Josh and everyone at VCCP for being so welcoming!"

Whilst one group of students were visiting VCCP another group went to JWT to find out more about the agency, Emma Thomas gives us her impressions of the visit.

JWT's Reception

James Hobbs giving the students the benefit of his experience.

"For many of our second year this was their first agency visit and as we stood looking towards 1 Knightsbridge Green, you could sense the excitement and anticipation in the air. As the clock struck 10am, all eighteen of us had been handed our passes and were heading up towards JWTs reception. At the top of the escalators we were greeted with a floor to ceiling wall of multi coloured butterflies. Already people were commenting on how cool an office space they thought it was.

James Hobbs, an ex lincoln student, and his creative partner Jeremy took us to the the Bullmore Room where we began our insight into the world of JWT. After a brief introduction to the duo we took a group tour around the agency. Traffic, accounts and the creative floor were all a buzz with creative conversations of current briefs and clients.

Once the tour was over and we were back in the Bullmore Room, James and Jeremy shared with us some of JWTs recent adverts and some of their own work, guiding us through the creative process of Andrex from initial ideas to final execution. Being able to see this process was both reassuring and inspiring to all of us. After almost two hours, we'd been given a first hand insight into both JWT and what it's really like to be a creative in the industry.

James and Jeremy will mostly be wearing stripes this week.

As we headed back down the escalators and left through the turning door, we felt more motivated and inspired then ever before to pursue our advertising dreams."

Finally Jenni Trotter tells us how her group's visit to DLKWLowe went.

"In the afternoon of the agency visit trip to London, Group A were lucky enough to visit DLKWLowe in South Kensington. We were unsure as to what to expect from an agency going through a huge creative change at the moment, however greeted by a mix of patterned walls, huge velvet armchairs, giant lightbulb feature and gold framed televisions, the agency definitely had a welcoming and quirky feeling from the very start.

We were met by Lincoln Creative Advertising graduates Neil Ritson and Stefan van Zoggel who gave us a great chat about their journey as a creative team – from pairing up in their second year to the ups and downs of placements to then getting hired at DLKWLowe just over a year ago, going on to create work for clients such as Thorpe Park and Alton Towers. They also gave us a brilliant insight into how to create a great book by showing us their portfolio that they took to book critiques and giving us advice on how to create a book which sets your creative team apart from all the rest.

DLKWLowe's brightly illuminated reception.

It was great to see a team from our own course who have gone on to create their own stamp in a London agency which is currently building a great reputation in the advertising industry. We all found it incredibly motivational to not only sample an agency atmosphere, but also speak to people who have once been in our shoes and are doing so well for themselves."

Neil and Stefan can now afford the latest style baseball caps.

Is that a Morrisons Christmas advert prop I can see on the window ledge?

Visiting advertising agencies is always very motivational for the CA students but this year's trip was particularly nice because all of the agency visits were organised by former students of this course. It's very rewarding to see CA graduates who are now staff at the highest profile agencies and it's a great vindication of all that we teach on the programme.

Extraordinary RFL work by Josh & Steve

Past graduates from the University of Lincoln's Creative Advertising programme Josh Dando and Steve Dodd have recently completed a visually impressive campaign for the Rugby League.

Creative team Josh and Steve – who work at ad agency VCCP in London – graduated from the programme in 2010 and have created a campaign called 'The Rugby League of the Extraordinary' to bring the sport to new audiences in a dramatic and compelling way: Sam Tomkins dodges great balls of fire; Eorl Crabtree shoves a skip and James Roby does pull-ups with chains around his waist in a bid to persuade the public to enjoy the feats of strength and power they can expect to see on the field.

The film includes a specially created soundtrack by Adelphoi Music.

The campaign went live last week and already features on the I Believe in Advertising website as well as being Campaign's and The Drum's ad of the day last week.

You can read some of the publicity on the RFL website and view the new 'Extraordinary' website here.