Coming up with a better idea is the last bastion of competitive advantage.
Wade Kingsley, the Australian lead for Contagious, presented Cannes Lyons Deconstructed at This Way Up Festival with AWARD and the Advertising Council of Australia.
He was interviewed by Liana Dubois, CMO at Nine, on Talking Creativity, a special edition of Nine's podcast series, exploring creative minds at the Advertising Council Australia's This Way Up Festival.
“When you think about creativity, it's the last great competitive advantage,” he told Liana Dubois.
“You can have an unfair advantage by coming up with a better idea, and no one owns the mortgage on a great idea.”
Technology, in the form of the latest AI, is a shiny new thing that has everyone talking, he said.
“It's an occupational hazard of media and marketing,” he said. “And, of course, there's a place for that.
“But when we go back to the human centred truths, the great concept or campaign idea that's either changed a market, changed a category, changed the fortunes of a brand, they're the things that are going to rise to the top.
“I wonder if we've got a little bit of a cringe factor in Australia. I'm talking about us towards us, not outside, because generally you meet people from overseas who talk about Australian media and marketing and advertising in a very good terms.
"And sometimes I think we've got the old tall poppy thing or chip on the shoulder where we don't feel like we're up there with the world players.
“But a lot of the work featured this year, very effective in terms of results, was Australian based Australia.
“And we shouldn't forget that a lot of Aussies go and work overseas in creative endeavours in agencies or CMOs.
“Our little footprint is a bit like the Olympics. We punch well above our weight per capita.”
One of the trends this year was something called gutter tech, almost the opposite of AI.
You think of tech, that is new technology. That's different.
And then there's gutter tech.
“When you're walking down the street and you see those tactile bars that people who are vision impaired can use to find their way,” he said.
”A cement company actually came up with an idea to change the dynamic of those bars.
“When someone who's vision impaired touches one of the bars with their walking aid, it actually tells them what is there.
“A different symbol was for a bank and a different symbol was for a restaurant.
“Cement, that's not really a cutting edge technology. But that was what the campaign used.”
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