Breaking In

Kim Papworth is Executive Creative Director at Wieden+Kennedy, London.

Honda – “Jump”

Honda – “Impossible Dream”

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Check out some great work from Ted Royer.

TR: What impresses me most are smart business ideas, not just funny ads. If a student can show that he or she has thought about the real business needs of that company, then I’ll know they have the kind of brain that can do exciting work. It’s one thing to be clever and communicate something well, it’s entirely another to show me you can push a client to change the way they do business or to truly change a consumer’s behavior.

What I don’t look for is work that has already been produced, unless it’s great. No CD gives a crap that you got something made unless it’s exactly the type of work you want to make. I want to see where you want to go, not where you’ve been.

In the best interview with students I ever had, two guys walked in and put their book in front of me. I opened it. The first idea was a huge, business-changing idea. The second was almost as good. I closed the book and offered them a job right then and there.

WS: How important is finish? If ideas are the most important thing, can sketches be enough? Do you look at physical books anymore, or is it all websites?

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Ted Royer is Executive Creative Director at Droga5 in New York.

Newcastle Brown Ale – No Bollocks – “Miners”

Net10 – “Bill”

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Check out some great work from Tyler McKellar.

TM: I look for someone who is clearly enjoying what they’re doing—whether it’s a serious ad or a funny ad or something in between. You can tell fairly quickly if someone is just cranking out an ad to please an ad school instructor or if they’re giving their work the tender loving care that can only come from truly enjoying writing and designing.

WS: How important is finish? If ideas are the most important thing, can sketches be enough?

TM: I think it’s critical that some ads be thoroughly finished—as a way of showing you’ve got the stamina to effectively see something through to the bitter end. But the reality is creatives are almost always showing ideas in very rough forms to their clients, so what would be so surprising about seeing that from students in their effort to break into the business? Great ideas will always win, whatever form they may currently be in.

WS: How important is writing? Do you need to see long copy?

TM: You hardly see long-copy print ads anymore, but the web has opened up even longer writing opportunities. Proof that you can keep ’em laughing or crying or thinking for a good 500 words or so will go a long way to proving you’re not a fluke who’s relying on a few snappy headlines.

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Tyler McKellar is a copywriter at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Coke – “Fritz”

EA Sports – “Living Room”

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Check out some great work from Feh Tarty.

FT: A student book is like couture advertising. You know what I mean?

WS: No. I don’t.

FT: If you look at a fashion show, it’s not necessarily things that are completely ready to wear, but it’s a way of thinking. Of how to break the mold of what is normally out there or what you expect people to see. I think when students try to continue to take on real projects and make it seem real, they sort of lose their sense of creativity. Because school is the last chance you have for years, until you get some experience under your belt, to create something that’s just a full-on expression of how you think. Advertising should be, design should be, or whatever it is you’re into, should be like that. And so, in a book, you just look for new ways of thinking and how they push ideas, because that’s what it’s all about before you get hit with the reality.

WS: So make it conceptual…don’t try and make it really realistic?

FT: Yeah, you want to get a sense of it being realistic but it’s like…the ideas that a client would have to be really brave to buy. Still responsible in their thinking, but it requires a sort of bravery.

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Feh Tarty is Creative Director at Mother London.

IKEA – “Wembley Cats”

IKEA

IKEA UK re-released Jona Lewie’s 1980s hit ‘You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties’ performed by London-based group Man Like Me and remixed by Arthur Baker.

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Check out some great work from Scott Vitrone & Ian Reichenthal.

WS: What do you look for in a student book? And what impresses you?

SV: I think one of the better junior books that we remember, Ian and I both said the same thing when we saw it: that we felt like we just met the person. You could feel his personality coming through it—through the work. And it was just subtle things. You could kind of get an idea of who this guy was and what his voice was like. And a lot of times you don’t see that. More often, you see books that try to reflect what people think a great book is supposed to look like.

IR: We’re not talking about a book where all the campaigns were alike, or that they all seemed like they were coming from the exact same voice. It wasn’t that. It was just…

SV: It was skewed a little bit.

IR: Yeah. It was just that this person had a point of view on each assignment that was different. If you gave the same assignments to 1,000 people, I bet nobody would have come up with the same idea for any of them.

WS: What do you think about sketches? If the idea is strong enough does the presentation matter?

SV: I think it’s been made to matter. If you combine a great idea with great execution, it’s going to resonate a little more than a great idea…the same great idea just in a comp form. It’s just the same in an agency. You have a great idea on paper, then production hopefully enhances that.

IR: If we had our choice…if we had to choose between two books, one that was really polished but filled with bad ideas and a book that was filled with really great ideas but not so polished, obviously we’d pick the one with the great ideas in it. But it’s probably true that, if you have great ideas and you know how to produce them well, that would be more valuable than just the book full of great ideas in sketch form. It’s part of what we’re going to ask of a new team…a lot of their job is putting ideas together.

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Scott Vitrone & Ian Reichenthal are Executive Creative Directors at Wieden+Kennedy New York.

Southern Comfort – “Beach”

ESPN – It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports – “Proposal”

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Second page of work from Scott Vitrone & Ian Reichenthal.

Brand Jordan – “Airborne”

Brand Jordan – “Love the Game”

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