​Clever Creative: Imagination at Work

Usually in Clever Creative, we take a look at an ad that is the result of a creative agency's comprehensive, pain-staking efforts. But in this week’s post, we’re going to focus on some super creative, tongue-in-cheek, behind-the-scenes looks at the processes that go into the creation of those ads and the overall workings of an agency. The following parodies were created for Canadian-based strategy’s Agency of the Year awards, and they’ll show you how creative agencies are the epitome of imagination at work.

What’s it like to work at a creative agency?

Most of us have seen Mad Men and gotten a glimpse into the glamourous world of television advertising. Is it really all confidence, recognition and awards? Not if we believe Zulu Alpha Kilo. In a PSA titled “Scared Straight: Out of Advertising,” the agency invites us and a bunch of aspiring creative directors to some real talk about what to expect of agency life. (Please heed the NSFW warnings and wear headphones; we didn’t, and we overheard one of our interns talking about switching her major…)

The real cleverness of this ad is that it was created not only as a parody that makes us in the field chuckle in agreement, but also as a way of attracting the right people for their 14 open positions. We admire their bold, funny-because-it’s-kind-of-true approach to hiring, and we hope that Nigel gets to see his son before he graduates high school.

What is the worst part of working for a creative agency?

That one’s easy: Filling out timesheets. When you work for an agency, every day you must log in the time you spend on each project, which in turn, keeps your accounting department from having to hunt you down every Friday to figure out what time to bill. However, if you’ve worked in an agency, you know that sometimes you switch between 5 projects in as many minutes, making it really difficult to track in your timesheet. And of course, there are days when you completely forget to log anything and then have to go back through your project management tools, Chrome history and recent Google Drive activity to complete the timesheet puzzle. (Dear GEM Accounting: We have only heard that this happens from a friend.)

One of the goals of a creative agency is to identify problems and provide the right solutions. When it comes to missing timesheet information, BBDO Canada officially has our back(sides). In this parodied ad for Time$hits, they present such an ingenious idea that the GEM accounting department and our creative team questioned whether it was real. Unfortunately, it’s not.

What is the ultimate goal of every creative agency?

If you ask john st., the answer is: world peace. But how can good advertising make us all just get along? It can’t, not directly. But bad advertising can. john st.’s explains: “Hey, maybe if we all hate the same thing, maybe we can create a little love.” Let’s see what they mean in this “Make Humanity Great Again” short. When you’re done, scroll down to see more of john st.’s take on creative agency life.

Let us know what you think of these parodies, and be on the lookout for next week’s installment of Clever Creative!

If you’re looking for some clever creative of your own, feel free to contact us.

Tags

Scroll, or tap/click a list item to filter posts by that tag.

• Clever Creative
• Art
• Advertising
• Ad Agency