Introduction

OVERVIEW

Having been exposed to the advertising industry in Malaysia, this is what I’ve learned : First, it’s a people business – it’s selling ideas that were created by people to people. Second, creativity is like a muscle. One can’t just will oneself to be creative; one has to train one’s creativity with discipline and perseverance. But here’s what makes it even more challenging for the Creatives – they are expected to churn out new, fresh and exciting ideas every day, but the time to replenish inspiration is simply not enough. How do they work under such pressure?

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has been conducting a course called “IPA Excellence Diploma” for advertising practitioners who have been in the industry for a few years. According to my research, they will be “reading something every day: a proscribed chapter of a book, article or similar. Then you’ve got a 2,000-word essay to write at the end of each module. Then a 7,000 thesis…”

But here’s my personal question, which is the basis of my project : Can reading and writing really help these practitioners shine and be able to generate unconventional, interactive and fresh ideas? If what they’re doing is exercising their minds to think rationally and write, what happens to the ‘creative workout’ they need every day to be able to constantly generate ideas that wow the world? Surely the thought process for generating advertising / marketing ideas would be very different from ‘how do I construct my 7,000 word thesis’!


THE IDEA

With that said, I want to develop an advertising campaign to introduce this Malaysian training agency “95% The Advertising Academy” to UK’s advertising industry.

95% The Advertising Academy is started by an award-winning Executive Creative Director, Janet Lee, who believes in the value of experiential training instead of textbook studies as done in institutes such as universities and colleges. She believes that people learn best by getting their hands dirty (experience). This is especially important for the advertising industry because everything done is hands-on, and must be new and innovative – which would mean that generated ideas will not be found in advertising award magazines and textbooks.

Having worked in 95%, experienced and facilitated in a few trainings, I can vouch for what Janet believes in.