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The creative contingent of adland is the beating heart of the industry. To fully embrace this, and with a mission to create awesome and inspiring covers, each month AdNews hand-picks an agency to work its magic.
This month, AdNews tasked whiteGREY with designing a cover that would reflect our investigation on PR and its place in the industry.
What were your initial thoughts on the PR brief at hand?
It was like being back at AWARD School! It was a challenge to distil our thinking down to a single page. We had a lot of fun with it.
Advertising and PR go hand in hand, but we found it interesting how [traditionally] PR supported an idea and stretched the conversation. Yet today we’re seeing ideas being led by PR and the conversation leading and launching more traditional executions. The partnership is still tight, but the balance has shifted. It’s a big shift in the way ideas are now formed.
Post first brief chat, what went through your mind(s) and what were the next steps you took as a team?
A whole lot of Whipple. And then research. We dug up AdNews covers from yesteryear, looked into what it takes for an idea to make PR headlines and explored ways to dramatise its powerful influence on advertising. Keeping our thinking simple was paramount, so we kept scamping and re-scamping. Some of our thoughts were humorous but portrayed advertising negatively. We got a quick chuckle, but that was probably the hardest thing about this brief — finding a succinct way to show balance has shifted without portraying any negativity.
How did you know you’d landed on the best concept?
It triggered a response in us when we talked about it, so we knew the rest of the industry would feel the same way. We wanted to hero the impact PR is having, yet we also knew doing so would elicit a response from the rest of our team, from the other agencies in our building, all the way to the creative intern scouring your pages for inspiration. It was the perfect storm.
Who from the team was largely involved and what were their roles?
Analise Burwood and Romy Smith led the thinking with oversight from TinTin (some may know him as Ronojoy Ghosh) and Chad Mackenzie.
What were the biggest hurdles to making this a reality? Any challenges?
We were worried you might not want to rebrand your front cover. It was a bold move on your part to allow us to play with your branding. The end result is something we’re all really proud of. It’s still AdNews, with a bit of whiteGREY cheekiness and bravery thrown in for good measure.
Tell us about the actual creation techniques — how did it come together?
We started wide and culled our options down to rebranding the cover of your magazine. Chad, TinTin and Romy then threw a few headlines around to tie it all together. We chose “Is PR flipping the agency model?” We feel it ties together the future of PR and advertising nicely. We also needed a subheading for the “PrNews” title that spoke to the benefits of PR, and “Word. Of. Mouth.” was born. Analise then brought it all together in design and made the “PrNews” title identical to your branding.
Biggest challenges with the whole process? Did anything keep you up at night?
Ensuring the idea was so simple it could be on the cover of a publication.
Best bit about the process?
It was our first day at whiteGREY and we got to work on your cover! It was awesome. Thank you for such a simple, refreshing brief.
Credits
Art Director — Analise Burwood
Copywriter — Romy Smith
Creative Director — Ronojoy Ghosh
National ECD — Chad Mackenzie
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