Valuable yet misunderstood, winning in creativity for brave brands alone

When a lot of brands are “making quite a lot of ads about nothing”, the daring and brave that understand the valuable, but also misunderstood role of creativity, are the ones that will drive it home - just ask Volkswagen.

Playing into the old adage that a brand is the “sum of your experiences”, top creative Damon Stapleton’s personal top three ads from last Friday’s AWARD Awards were all about experience - hailing from Suncorp, Samsung (pictured) and Volkswagen.

There’s no formula to creating brilliant creative ideas but bravery, making people truly feel something, and leaning into the consumer’s thirst for more unique experiences will help you get there.

Chief creative officer at The Monkeys and Accenture Song New Zealand, Damon Stapleton, says when a brand creates something really great, you almost don't have to explain it.

“Brilliant creative is when it goes straight in, like music, a drug or a smell. It bypasses all rationale and goes straight to where it needs to go,” Stapleton says.

He says it goes beyond explanation – there's no one way to do it and that is the “dangerous” path that businesses can go down when they think there’s a formula at play.

“It’s a very hard thing to explain because it's also a very hard thing to replicate, which is why it’s valuable, but also why it’s often misunderstood,” he says.

Chief creative officer at The Monkeys and Accenture Interactive New Zealand, Damon Stapleton, was a judge at the 43rd annual AWARD Awards, where on Friday, a total of 43 gold pencils were awarded across 22 different campaigns, with a further 107 silver and 158 bronze pencils awarded.

The former DDB New Zealand, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia and long-serving South Africa-based TBWA/Worldwide agency exec adds that while plenty of brands know what they look and sound like, when you question them around what they ‘‘feel like’’ it sparks a different and strange conversation that can help draw out far deeper brand insights and creative thinking.

“It's a messy thing because it doesn’t always fit so well into a balance sheet, but if you look at the ­really great brands, they have a great sense of who they are,” he adds.

He says with creativity being the last unfair advantage in business, it’s important that people understand its power as a tool and don’t just say they want creative solutions without really thinking about what that means.

As a jury chair for the 43rd Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association (AWARD) Awards, which recognises creative excellence in advertising, design, craft, film and entertainment, media and planning, strategy and more, Stapleton was part of a crack team of industry execs who decided upon winners in varying categories. Playing into the old adage that a “brand is the sum of your experiences”, Stapleton’s personal top three ads from the nearly 50 categories – such as film art direction, product innovation, TV and cinema commercials and branded audio – hailed from Suncorp, Samsung and Volkswagen.

Suncorp’s One House To Save Many campaign saw it work with creative agency Leo Burnett Australia and resilience experts at James Cook University to create a unique home that could withstand and survive catastrophic weather conditions. The project was designed to generate a conversation around building standards in order to reduce the displacement and disruption for people living in affected areas.

Samsung’s Performance Enhancing Music, in partnership with Optus and ad agency CHE Proximity, combined technology, science and creativity to create audio tracks to enhance athletic performance.

Using Galaxy devices and Aussie athletes, the songs improved the athletes performance by 1 per cent and the playlist went on to be a hit on Spotify.

Lastly, Volkswagen’s The Ad Break Championship GTI Hijack, by DDB Sydney and Tribal, let viewers race the new Golf GTI live against others watching the same ad break.

These trio of ads alone won nearly 20 gold AWARD Awards between them at Friday’s awards show, with Stapleton praising Samsung for not just the great idea or a concept, but for broadening the entire sound category.

With a lot of brands “making quite a lot of ads about nothing” and plenty of ads being almost interchangeable with other brands, Stapleton commended Suncorp on its bravery, a compelling idea and for clearly putting their money where their mouth is.

“That‘s a much riskier endeavour than making a piece of comms and I respect the bravery for trying to do that, and the idea behind it is also something that is necessary,” he says.

He says that in the live VW car game, having people smart enough to understand how to play with formulas and contexts of commercials, to break that traditional ad break mould and broaden the palette of what people are used to, is clever.

“That‘s what creativity has got to do. It’s got to come up with nuances and new ways of doing things which is why I respect those three pieces of work,” he says.