Ed Gunn’s LIA Diary: Day 3 – 4
Ed Gunn (right), a planner from Colenso BBDO represented New Zealand at the 4th annual Creative LIAisons at LIA in Las Vegas. Here’s his report, exclusive to CB.
By day three, it would be fair to say that we were all getting into the swing of maximising our Vegas experience. Minimising time wasted doing pointless activities such as eating and sleeping, in favour of learning about creativity, jury deliberations and Vegas.
The third day was the day where we got to sit in on a jury deliberation. It was the day most of us had been anticipating since day one. On entering the room I was a little taken aback; I’d seen jury deliberations on Judge Judy quite a few times, so was shocked to see no bailiff, plaintiff nor a defendant. Instead it was a room with a big screen playing case studies, surrounded by comfy couches with seven advertising legends sat on them (including Faris Yakob, whose book Paid Attention I had coincidentally been reading on the flight over).
As someone who has written award entries and is constantly irked that I have yet to write one that’s added to Colenso’s grand prix haul, it was a priceless insight into what makes good work, and how to sell that to judges. Seeing how the judges make their decisions from a list of 300 entries, how important a good case study video is, and seeing how important category selection is when entering, was a real eye opener. Seeing these men and women unstitch a piece of work to its smallest parts, to try and identify anything that may be a bit scammy or may have a nugget of pure genius, was an experience that will stay with me. It’s what we’re all striving for – the ability to be able to quickly identify whether something’s a good idea or not by questioning everything that we see or hear.
The final day was another interesting one filled of seminars. My highlight was Emad Tahtouh – a great speaker, straight shooter and director of applied technology at Finch. An ex-professional poker player, he showed that tech shouldn’t be gimmicky; it has the ability to tell a truly emotive story when used correctly.
Then, it was time for the keynote speaker. Daymond John, founder of FUBU and self-confessed ‘shark’ on the US TV show, Shark Tank. He talked about his life for the most part; the rise of FUBU, hijacking advertising with LL Cool J, that FUBU was originally going to be called BUFU (until he realised the connotations within the LGBTQ community) and his more recent celebrity endeavours. It was a great lesson in empire building and what ambition, drive and determination can result in. He challenged us to find two to five words that would describe us, as you need to be able to sell yourself before you can sell anything else.
Then, a big group of us made our way to Old Vegas for some end of trip shenanigans. I won’t go into specifics but if I had to use Daymond John’s system, the five words would be “cages, dinosaur, hostage, boxer, Mormon”.
It was one of the highest-octane weeks I’ve had. I got to meet and share drinks with some of the most inspirational people in the industry, get a feel for where this industry is going, how to make work as effective as possible, hang out with some of the best up-and-coming advertising talent on the planet and have a fistful of stories that will last a lifetime. Time to fly back, recoup some sleep and hit the ground running with a mind full of tips and inspiration to make my work, and those around me, even better.
A big thanks to LIA for organising this, Campaign Brief for sending me, and Colenso BBDO for choosing me to go.