We open on small budgets...
Words and bastardised concepts by Divya Singh
A reimagining of the first draft of presentations of the big ideas that have won our admiration. Could they be as effective with a more conservative budget… and approach?
We set up a vox pop and give Americans, particularly New Yorkers, a chance to be the Son/ Daughter of Dundee. We ask how they imagine an offspring of Dundee would be like. They get to hold a fake dundee knife and say the iconic line, send a G’day Mate to their friends and even get a photo wrangling a fake crocodile which they can share on social media. We collect all this lovely content and promote the amazing land of Australia.
To show the power of change a woman can bring, State Street Global Advisors commisions a not-so-famous graffiti artist to do a mural of a little girl unflinchingly standing in front of the Wall Street bull. We can get this done in my suburb close to the train station. Elections are close so the Federal Member of our district will be willing to give approval for something like this.
We open on a torso shot of a handsome young man splashing water on his face and armpits. The water refreshes the man in slow motion. He looks at the camera with a smirk.
Man: If your man stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like me. He takes the towel that is covering him waist down, wipes his chest and hangs it on his shoulder.
End frame.
We ask people visiting the Island of Palau to post a picture of themselves on Instagram with #palaupledge.
Every post becomes a pledge, coz, you know Instagram is lit AF. We can also ask influencers to join the movement. Coz’ like, we love them so much.
The exciting news for the launch of Gravity Rush 2 will be conveyed with an amazing bunch of proposed sizes of digital banners. They are animated.
We open on a bored woman at home. She hears an upbeat music (from an audio library) and breaks into a dance piece. She finds her inner strength as she breaks stuff around the house. A colleague’s friend’s sister’s brother-in-law’s cousin is willing to direct it.
Most creatives will never be given million dollar briefs during their career, but what they will receive are small budgets with high expectations.
Just as we are expected to meet our short deadlines, it’s increasingly becoming part of our job to stay very much inside the allocated budget. And I am often reminded to keep this in mind as part of the thinking process.
I felt a bit stifled the first time I was told to do so. But that was eons ago. Now I tell myself that our clients are working hard for their KPIs. Meeting their numbers is crucial for them. Unfortunately for creatives, our KPIs just happen to be different. Ours live on shelves.
There have been many brilliant creations that never required a client to bleed money to meet their targets.
But does that mean we stop dreaming big when we are presented with a budget that’s half the salary of a Jnr Creative?
Mostly, yes. There’s nothing’s worse than a big idea not crafted well, which is the first part of the budget to go. Replacing amazing locations with a green screen and using our family and friends as talent? Let’s go back to our cubicle, clear the wall and start again.
Otherwise we risk seeing our big idea on a small budget—and more so less courage—end up as a digital banner. And that’s the kicker: brilliant work is never about budget alone—when you do have something big going on in that nugget of yours, you better make sure you have a strong leader (and client) to back it.
Div Singh is a freelance art director. You can see more of her real life work here (all within budget, naturally).
