Thursday 25 February 2010

Copywriting Workshop Hoorah...


There are some of us who feel that copywriting isn’t getting the attention it deserves on our course. However credit must go to the tutors who arranged for Roger Horberry to come in and pass on his copywriting wisdom. Author of “Brilliant Copywriting”, Roger has tons of experience in copywriting, mainly for branding and design.

Words are incredibly powerful, after all that’s how we all communicate. You don’t see people drawing pictures to each other on the street do you?! (Incase you hadn’t realised, I’m a copywriter).

We started the day off focusing on tone of voice. We had to re-write an advert but in the voice of someone famous. I got Danni Minogue. Needless to say, the result was quite entertaining. The exercise taught us the importance of giving our writing a voice. An identifiable tone of voice in the writing of some brands is arguably as important as their logo.

Roger then asked us to take a famous speech and ruin it. How do you do that, I hear you ask. Well a good speech has a message to communicate. You could write that message in one line – not very inspiring. The magic comes in all the small details, the language, the pauses, the delivery, the rhythm of the writing. So we took famous speeches and took all those parts out, which left us with flat, boring bullet points.

Winston Churchill’s famous “We shall fight on the beaches…” speech becomes:

1) We’ll fight everywhere.
2) If worst comes to worst and we starve here, we’ll keep fighting anyway.

We carried out lots of different exercises throughout the day, each with its own little lesson in copywriting. My favourite by far was writing 6 word stories. You may think that’s impossible, a whole story in just 6 words, yet legendary author Ernest Hemingway wrote “For Sale. Baby’s Shoes. Never Worn.” Still think it’s impossible? The emotion captured in those 6 words is just extraordinary. We were told to write 6 words that our 30-year-old self would tell our 20-year-old self. I wrote, “Buy a nice hat. You’ll bald”. Not as amazing as Hemingway's but funny nonetheless, well Roger thought so anyway (he’s bald).

Overall it was a really good day where we could concentrate on words for a change. A big thanks to Roger for coming to Lincoln and letting us play with language.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

What Pete gets up to when he's not advertising....

I thought I’d give you a little insight into the experiences of an international rugby player. Other than advertising, Rugby is one of Pollie’s biggest interests and I’m lucky enough to have represented my country, Cyprus. I keep a diary when I go away to tournaments, mainly because we have so much free time and nervous energy, but also because it’s nice to look back on the memories.


Excuse the expletives, international rugby is an emotional roller-coaster and sometimes no word is as honest and sincere as “fuck”!



Athens Day 1


Felt so shit after the flight, horrible turbulence and my stomach was churning over. Good news was that my luggage arrived safely (it’s ridiculous that the expectation is the airline will lose it). It was good to see the boys again and the banter started flying around straight away. I thought to myself ‘we’ve got a decent side here!’ Arrived at Hotel Mati – nothing special, but I’ve stayed in a lot worse; at least we’ve got air-con! I’m rooming with Dan Thrasivoulou and Marko Mladanovic (he’s actually Serbian but has Cyprus Citizenship), happy I’m not with Colm again although Marko snores like an earthquake. We had lunch and chilled before our afternoon training session. The training pitch was closed for the afternoon so Coach made us train on a basketball pitch – now this is international rugby! I felt I trained well and it was good to run a few patterns and get the flight out of our legs. We had dinner at the tavern opposite the hotel (mmm Greek food). It was then time for bed, I started to think about the matches we were going to play and got quite nervous – really need to speak to coach about my confidence issues.


Athens Day 2


Slept well despite Marko’s best efforts. Had training in the morning, thought I did well, was composed and talked a lot. Starting to get nervous that the lads (bar Chris) aren’t picking up the patterns. Wanted to go into Athens and explore this afternoon, as we had the afternoon off, but most of the guys wanted to chill. I put my compression tights on (long story) – they’ve been a godsend so far! Wanted to speak to coach about my weaknesses but he said to wait until Sunday once the job was done. Bedtime.


Athens Day 3


Game day! As usual, no breakfast for me, forced down a few peach slices but felt sick! We were up against Spain first. The stadium was 30mins inland so there was no breeze, making it fucking hot! I started on the bench, fair play; Dan’s a good little player and deserves to start. I came on for Andreas in the second half. Spain were exceptional and we lost 26 – 7 but we performed much better than we had against them last year! Anyway, back to the important games, Bosnia and Greece. We were to play Bosnia next and again I started on the bench although after just 2mins I was on for Dan to boss the defence about more. Turns out I should have worried about myself more! A chip came over and I was well placed but then came the rush of blood! 99/100 I’d pounce on the ball but this time I tried to kick it and failed (bloody odd shaped balls) – 5 points to Bosnia…fuck! We ended up winning 14 – 10 but we still have so much more to offer, I certainly do! After that we came back to the hotel for food and some downtime. As I learn't from previous tournaments, no sleep for me, makes me feel really groggy. Next game was vs Greece and nerves began to circle in my mind, we’ve been hurt by them before. Coach gave an awesome talk about forgetting the emotion of the occasion, which helped a lot. Kick off loomed and before I knew it the game has kicked off and we’ve already scored! Emotions were flying but we smashed them 31 – 0, with a hat trick from Andreas thanks to my assists’ haha! The game was marred by an incident in which their captain got sent off for stamping on George’s back – what a wanker. I was so happy, I felt like crying. The Greeks were bad losers but we were gracious in victory and could sleep well.


Athens Day 4


A day to remember for the rest of my life! We were in the semi-finals of the European Rugby 7’s against France and we were massive underdogs (obviously). My calf and knee were in serious pain but from previous experience I know that mind over matter makes you feel so much better in the end. We played with tremendous heart and were unfortunate to go into half time 5 – 0 down. The game ended 24 – 0 and according to Coach and the captain, we gave them too much respect…. or, as I suspect, it was because they were bloody full-time professional rugby players for one of the best rugby nations in the world! Anyway, we did ok not to get smashed! Spain were favourites in the other semi-final but were beaten by a doggedly determined Romanian side. That meant we had to play Spain again for 3rd place. We lost, but we gave them a real good go! I came on and made the “tackle of the tournament” which was very satisfying. So overall we came 4th and people were starting to take notice of us. Even better than that, the French coach came over to us and said he thought we were the best team they’d played all tournament.


If you’ve read this far – congratulations! Hope it was in some way entertaining and/or intriguing. Highlights video is available here. (Bet you wish I'd shown you this at the beginning).





Monday 22 February 2010

Your wish is my command

It's that time again for Student Union Elections. Andreas Zacharia (a good friend of Pollie's) is going for Vice President Activities at the University of Lincoln. He plans to take office next year and develop the state of the University activities for the greater good. He is already a well respected member of the Rugby Union team, on and off the pitch, and just a good all round guy. That's why we decided to help him out and get students to "Vote Andreas!" for the position.


The whole idea came from Andreas' manifesto where he explained he would grant three wishes to each activity committee to make their society run better. We decided to make it upbeat and funny, hence the Aladdin theme. We knew his competition were going to be making banners too, that's why we put a lot of effort into making sure they look great and catch a lot of attention. A total of three nights was spent making the banners but they were well worth the hassle. With a total of 100 plus posters going up across the whole university campus plus 30 hand made t-shirts, we're sure Andreas will go far. We'll keep you updated on how he gets on.

Good luck Andreas!

Vote Andreas For VP Activities @ http://www.lincolnsu.com/elections from the 1st March.

Friday 12 February 2010

Alex Taylor Workshop











Yesterday I was lucky enough to be part of a very interesting workshop at Thomas Parker House with our guest lecturer Alex Taylor. I seriously don't know where Mike and Gyles are getting these people, it's a great opportunity. I mean this week we've had Rory Sutherland AND Alex Taylor! What ever you're doing lads keep 'em coming.

Alex Taylor has achieved so much in her career and it was a great chance to have an insight to what it takes to be the best. She showed us interviews from all the top dogs in the industry and they expressed what it takes to be a great art director. If I had to sum up what they had to say, it would be to work damn hard, learn all there is to know, and then learn some more. It's not going to be easy, and she expressed this explicitly. But you could just see it in her eyes how good her job really is. It has been something I have been searching for in my life, a job that will make me want to get up in the morning. A job that will bring me satisfaction and what's more satisfying than a mate talking about your ad in a pub and turning round to say, "I did that". Alex explained that that was one of the best feelings you got from advertising, and I'm determined to be able to say those three words one day with pride. Ooooo, I want it now!!

I learnt an awful lot yesterday and hopefully will keep it with me for my whole career. After all, I have her 8 secret rules to become the best art director, but I'm afraid I'm not allowed to share it with you guys.

Sorry.

Ollie.


Tuesday 9 February 2010

24 Hour Ad Challenge






Got to M&C Saatchi. Used toilet. Met film team. Got briefed. Got nervous. Got enthusiastic. Met creative mentor. Impressed him with ideas. Got his contact info. Rampaged through London looking for actors. Found out Release Forms are annoying. Filmed idea. Met account director from Leo Burnett. Exchanged numbers. Had a Redbull. Uploaded film. Had a sandwich. Edited film. Panicked. Spent 4 hours getting edited film onto tape. Happy with what we produced. Didn't have time for sleep. Handed final tape in. Had McDonalds breakfast. Watched all films at ICA. Impressed by some. Not so impressed by others. Waited for judges to...judge. Didn't win. Surprised by winner. Learned a lot. Absolutely shattered. Slept. A lot