Atomic 212° and industry heavyweights predict revolution in 2017 edition of The Lunchbox

The Lunchbox 2017, an Atomic 212° production chock full of bite-sized snacks for the modern marketer, is about to hit the shelves. The 2017 edition is crammed with insightful trends and analysis from agency chief and the book’s author Jason Dooris, as well as heaps of big players in the media and marketing industry.

The theme of this year’s book: revolution. Dooris, says of the modern consumer landscape: “People are just saying no. No to brands lying. No to government white noise. No to promises not met. No to dishonesty. No to slowness to act. No to boring and dull. No to wankers in shiny suits. No to greed.

“There’s a revolution afoot, and it’s driven by the youth of the world and facilitated by social media.”

In this year’s take-no-prisoners edition, some of the biggest hitters in the industry have weighed in, providing their own view on the challenges, opportunities and major trends affecting the industry and society in general. Just a few of these people include:

    • Michael Stevenson, Nine Entertainment Co Chief Sales Officer

    • Kim Portrate, Think TV Chief Executive

    • Tony Kendall, ARN Chief Executive

    • Nick Chan, Bauer Media Group Chief Executive

    • Wendy Glasgow and Martin Bertlisson, Google’s Head of Data Consulting and Head of Data Platforms and Partnerships respectively

    • Kylie Rogers, Mamamia Women’s Network Managing Director

    • Rob Atkinson, AdShel Chief Executive

    • Adam Elliot, Seven Network Limited Network Director of Sales

    • Peter Switzer, TV presenter, author and entrepreneur

    • Claire Murphy, Tabcorp Chief Marketing Officer

    • Stevan Premutico, Dimmi Chief Executive

    • Damian Cotchett, AGL Head of Customer Experience

    • Sam Smith, Tube Mogul Managing Director

    • Adam Furness, RadiumOne Managing Director ANZ

That’s just a taste. There are heaps more, and plenty of analysis from Dooris. This is a must-read for anyone who works in the digital, creative, media, marketing or related industries.

The Lunchbox 2017 covers all the major issues that are affecting our industry and a range of conversation starters, from the precipice of programmatic to the untapped potential of virtual reality; from the democratisation of creativity to the model for a future-proofed agency; from Donald Trump to Kanye West.

The 2017 edition follows the launch of the highly successful Digital Lunchbox 2016, but this year it is bigger and better than ever.

Included below, award winning Atomic 212° ECD Jonas Lembke (pictured left), provides readers with some telling insights about the creative industry in this Q&A, exclusive to CB.

Data and analytics are becoming increasingly important in marketing. What does this mean for the modern creative?

As we just saw in the US election, you can have all the data in the world and have no idea about the future. Having said that, anything we can do to ask a better question, or to have a better, more relevant insight to work from, is good. And data can be a big part of that.

The biggest change is that creative departments are not always found in agencies. Sometimes they are small independent creative shops, sometimes entrenched on client side or as part of a startup. We see creatives integrated as part of tech, gaming or media companies. The fact that creativity is manifesting itself outside of traditional agencies, means that we are getting new ways to look at being a creative. And that is exciting.

Always. But that’s not the same as random guessing. A well informed creative thinker solves challenges. And in most cases when there is a step-change in any industry, it is off the back of someone pushing based on their personal convictions. Convictions informed by a combination of intellectual ability, creative agility and pigheadedness. Briefly, people hate change, and that makes innovation hard. I read this quote the other day. “The electric light was not the result of simply evolving the candle”.

Creative thinking does not work the same as production or processing. Certainly, experience allows us to get to things faster, but I would argue that the challenge is to reassert the value of creative thinking. And the key there is to broaden its remit. It is not a commodity that can simply scale. There is no formula for creativity that can be applied and guarantee results. It’s about people. It’s messy and hard work, but that’s what makes it so interesting.

You have to be interested. In people, in behavior, technology, art and in brands and business. And you have to understand and respect the value of great ideas and great people.

Creative people can now choose between a whole number of different fields. What we can do is provide interesting challenges and the means to be part of solving them. I would add that there is nothing wrong with people moving on and learning new things. There is lots to do and every time someone new comes in to our agency, that’s an opportunity for us to learn something new.

The pendulum will always swing. But I think right now, the market seems to favor the bigger, full service agencies. Big brands want someone who can have a much more qualified conversation and deliver in more ways than before. Interestingly, when you look at smaller, fledgling brands, they have creative in house from the start. The brand is their IP. And agencies are struggling to find ways to deliver their skills in a meaningful way to this segment. At the same time, Google, Facebook and Über are turning to big agencies for TV. It’s an interesting time.

Historically, there is a lot of work that I still go to, from time to time. But I’ll say the ICA work from agency KING in Sweden. For years they have produced, effectively, a soap opera that airs on TV. It’s in the 30 second format and drives a narrative that, over the years, has established characters and various topical storylines. It’s now an institution. And these spots are still full of in-store offers. Always seamlessly integrated. In fact, that have made it a sort of gimmick. The quality over time is amazing. We talk about content and storytelling. This is all that, going back over 10 years. The main media is still TV, but these stories are shared and loved
by millions of people every day.

We are seeing lots of new skills coming into traditional creative and shaking things up. Technology and behavior is shifting the ways in which we engage. At the same time, our mandate as marketers and brand builders is growing to encompass service and even product development. All this makes for a fantastic future for creative thinkers.

Being able to challenge the client to innovate and spend some money on the unknown. That is the only way to add real value. There should be mutual respect and a sense that you are collaborating to move things forward. If the work is exciting, and we are breaking new ground together, then the relationship stays strong.

Certainly, there is a lot of evidence that AI, automation and robotics will be brought to bare on many industries. I think ours is no exception. But I also think that the creative spark is a uniquely human quality and that creative industries will always be relevant and keep attracting talented practitioners and patrons.