Getting the most of the Axis Adschool

AdMedia, Nov 17, 2003 by Peter Vegas

American farmers are growing too much stuff. I don't know why, it just happens. Luckily for them they get paid for their stuff by the American government. Here in New Zealand, our education system is turning out surplus ad industry people.

Now unlike blocks of butter and bags of grain, you can't store young ad industry people in vast underground bunkers or ship 'em off to third-world countries. These new opportunity-hungry ad industry ducklings come waddling out looking for jobs. Your job, my job. They don't care. They just want to work.

The way I see it there are two ways to deal with this epidemic.

Option One: Get involved with the students early on. Spot the really good ones, then ride them so hard they get discouraged and leave to pursue a job in interior design or law or doing interior design for law firm offices.

Option Two: Be really nice to them so that one day when you're a burnt-out old hack who still hasn't paid off your solar-powered dream home on the West Coast, they'll remember your kind words, feel sorry for you and give you a job.

I went to the Axis Adschool armed with a whole lot of hilarious industry-related anecdotes, witty stories and some insightful observations about overproduction by American farmers. It was great. Adschool students work on the theory that anyone is a potential employer, so even if they think you're a complete dick they still sit there politely like a junior suit at their first Monday morning work- in-progress meeting.

But I had more than a few stories about forging Peter Cullinane's signature at Cibos. I had a cunning plan.

Spawn's charity client is Computers Against Isolation. Its aim is to get hold of unwanted, internet-ready computers and distribute them to disabled people so they can communicate more easily with the outside world.

CAI was set up by a bloke called Wolfgang. Wolfgang is an old ad guy who was banging out ads back when I was at school, fiddling with my Rubik's cube and fantasising about the blonde chick on Chips (the one with short hair who drove the patrol car). He's also a stroke victim, and friend. Wolfgang and I had been talking about doing some new ads that his media department contacts could use to bludge some free space. Sensing a great award opportunity, I should have been onto this a few months ago, but the allure of brochures and fridge magnets had been too strong.

Then it came to me. In a blinding flash (the way I normally get great ideas for ads). Except I wasn't looking in an award book. I would harness the creative energy of the Axis Adschool for my own gain. Not only would I have a chance to check out who is most likely to be my future employer, I would also end up with more ads for CAI than Wolfgang could poke an empty schnapps bottle at.

David Bell, the big Kahuna at the Axis Adschool, runs a session called the 24-hour brief. It is what it says it is (unlike fun-size Mars Bars or TVOne's Big Night In). Now I know a lot of creative teams who use the 24-hour brief theory. The difference is, they get briefed by the suit a few weeks out, then wait until 24 hours before the presso to start working on the idea.

I figured that David's 24-hour brief would work along similar lines. But no, they actually get briefed and have to come back with ads in 24 hours! Simon Healy almost fell off his presidential stool when he heard about this. Suffice to say we won't be instigating the 24-hour brief at Spawn any time soon*.

*Potential new clients please note that this comment about not turning out ads within 24 hours is pure bravado aimed at garnering a few laughs from the traditionally cynical and hard-to-impress creative type. Spawn does of course offer a very streamlined and efficient ad service that ensures your advertising requirements are satisfied, no matter how limited the timeline. All new business inquiries can be made to Simon Healy @ Spawn phone 09 309 4080.

The students actually ended up having 48 hours to decipher the brief as I had to crack a new fridge magnet campaign for a major multinational client. (Are fridge magnets the most exciting untapped ambient medium of the moment? That's another article altogether but I'll leave that thought with you.)

There were no fridge magnet ideas waiting for me on the wall when I turned up at 4pm on Friday. But there were a whole heap of ads and a classroom full of students waiting for my opinion.

Brian Harrison (another old ad guy) once said that the million- dollar skill in this biz is being able to spot a great idea. I think he's right. I'm not sure if my idea-spotting talent is up in the six- figure bracket, but in an effort to increase my chances of success I decided to select a few different ideas and run them all to see what works best.

Part of the reason for this scattergun approach is motivated by my fear of the mad German from Te Atatu. If CAI's new ads don't result in Wolfgang's email account flooding with responses, then he's gonna come after me. Wolf might be confined to a wheelchair, but after half a bottle of schnapps he can outrun a P-fuelled Parnell housewife in a Pajero.