Ever want to fling something at your creative director? Now you can, and it'll look like a compliment!
This year, Ogilvy & Mather London is hosting Cream, a global showcase of fresh creative talent. In a campaign called "#InYourFace," it incorporates actual cream pies into the mix.
Cream's 2016 private viewing will happen at Ogilvy London's offices next Thursday (Sept. 15), when 20 creative teams will get on stage to hit a roomful of (invite-only) senior creative directors—not with pies, but with "all their talent and creativity."
Hey, dry cleaning bills add up. But to get us all in smarmy spirit ahead of the event, Ogilvy worked with Rankin to create a series of GIFs that make you feel like you're flinging cream pies at a medley of British-based CDs—including Caroline Pay, Mick Mahoney, Nils Leonard, Nicky Bullard, Stu Outhwaite and Chaka Sobhani.
Below, Pay and Outwaite gets theirs:
In addition to giving you an outlet for expressing your pent-up rage, the videos are meant to inspire young talent to pursue industry gigs.
"It matters that we encourage the next generation of creative talent to be brave—that we, as the CCOs, ECDs and CDs, create the working environment for them to be able to smack the world in the face with their creative brilliance," says CCO Mahoney of Ogilvy London. "Encourage them to be in our faces daily with their awesomeness. Hopefully, the launch of the new Cream format will inspire all of us to do just that."
Thanks, Mick. We feel inspired, all right:
"Unearthing raw talent continues to be a challenge that the industry faces, so Cream is a fantastic way of connecting undiscovered talent from around the world, with ECDs who can give them their first break," adds Katriona Fraser, managing partner and creative talent head at The Talent Business, which operates Cream. "We can't wait to see our brilliant winners take to the stage."
We've often observed that advertising must be among the most self-congratulating industries in existence. Probably because of this, we also have a history of being self-deprecating about it. In 2013, the Kiev International Advertising Festival even created special rooms where award runners-up could physically abuse the winning work.
Cream is a good example of both our weird relationship to back-patting, and our incestuous way of trying to solve our own creative drought. It's a cattle call for young talent, chosen by established talent, that also masquerades as a way to attract even more up-and-coming talent.
In a way, getting senior CDs to bless newbies isn't so different from getting top ad execs to donate sperm and eggs, to "ensure" a country's creative future.
This dynamic reflects how married we are to our own establishment; it isn't often the industry ventures past its own borders to harvest new minds en masse, relying instead on outliers to draw close and conform. So in addition to the abuses (real or imagined) that we may endure from a lurking creative director, there is also something satisfying about being able to pie the crap out of one in the context of this song-and-dance. Even if—as so often happens—the song-and-dance itself has found a way to make the act look industry-positive.
But let's focus on the satisfaction of the throw. Below, see Nils Leonard, Nicky Bullard and Chaka Sobhani score some face candy.
CREDITS
Title/Project: #INYOURFACE
Brand: The Talent Business / Cream
Client: The Talent Business
Partner: Nikki Hall
Managing Partner: Katriona Fraser
Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather London
CCO: Mick Mahoney
Deputy ECD: Sam Cartmell
Art Director: Alexa Craner
Copywriter: Maddie Taylor
Digital Production Director: Sasha Dunn
Designer: Room
Head of Production: Grant Mason
Managing Partner: Jane Douglas
Website Build: H&O Digital
Exposure: Online (website, social)
