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The peak of creative excellence
Showing examples of award winning campaigns to illustrate his point, here's what he thinks of global advertising...
- Americans do ‘funny' better than anyone else, excluding the joke they have for a president (his words).
- The Europeans are doing ‘craft' better than anyone else, with elegant, intricate advertising.
- South America is known for its visual drama.
- Australians are champions of brutal, in your face, honesty that hits you in the gut with its message.
- Asia is home to simplicity, the strong message often delivered in one word or a sentence.
So what does our home continent, Africa offer?
Says Human, “Unless your message has some kind of local relevance, no one is going to listen. African advertising has taken some time to come into its own, but I think it has. And we have our own distinct local flavour.”
Scaling the highest peak
Staying with scaling the highest peak in creative work and all that, he turned to Antarctica – the continent which defies our idea of what a continent should be – to illustrate how advertising that is completely unexpected is the advertising that makes a significant impact. “The bottom of the world is a bit of an upside down kind of place, but is home to the kind of advertising that defies what advertising should be. The unexpected.”
From our continent, Africa, for example, came the award-winning Nedbank ad with the world's first solar powered billboard that generated solar power for the entire school on whose ground it was placed, supplying hot dinners to learners and lighting the classrooms.
Getting to the summit of all these advertising styles is the challenge for all creative folk, Human says.
A formula
Advertising allows us to do all kinds of things. Here's his great advertising formula in a nutshell...
HumourCraft
Visual Drama
Honesty
Simplicity
Unexpected
There you have it. Go scale your own creative mountain already.
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About Louise Marsland
Louise Burgers (previously Marsland) is Founder/Content Director: SOURCE Content Marketing Agency. Louise is a Writer, Publisher, Editor, Content Strategist, Content/Media Trainer. She has written about consumer trends, brands, branding, media, marketing and the advertising communications industry in SA and across Africa, for over 20 years, notably, as previous Africa Editor: Bizcommunity.com; Editor: Bizcommunity Media/Marketing SA; Editor-in-Chief: AdVantage magazine; Editor: Marketing Mix magazine; Editor: Progressive Retailing magazine; Editor: BusinessBrief magazine; Editor: FMCG Files newsletter. Web: www.sourceagency.co.za.