Stay Restless: Work Differently

Written by Remco Graham, Executive Creative Director at Now.

Sprinting, not dawdling.

It’s an exciting time, isn’t it?

Probably the most exciting it’s ever been in the way we reach our audiences.

The way they co-create with brands.

Speed is everything.

And then there are advertising agencies.

The monoliths with their processes.

The institutions with their timelines.

The timelines that tell clients, ‘we’ll need a month’ on that brief.

And over that month, the world has already changed. Adapted.

What was fresh, is now anything but.

Agencies have been very slow to adapt.

They’ve been dawdling along.

Tripping over processes that are 50 years old.

The agencies of the future are all re-looking at how ‘processes’ work.

Here at Now we’re looking at ways of working that involve quicker, nimbler ideas.

Last week we tried something new.

For three hours, the whole agency came together to work on a brief.

A pitch brief, where the turnaround was tight.

We split the agency into groups of six.

In those groups, everyone was a creative.

Every planner, suit, receptionist, PA, partner and designer.

All creators.

At the end of those three hours, we reviewed all the work on the wall.

It was good. Actually, it was better than good. A few of the routes were great.

Routes that might have taken a creative department a week to come up with.

We put three of them into the pitch.

For those three hours, I saw real energy and excitement in the agency.

A palpable buzz.

For those three hours, it felt like we were working in the agency of the future.

We loved it so much, that for tight turnaround briefs that’s the way we’ll now work.

As a whole agency, co-creating. A collective of bright thinkers from every department.

We call it Creative Sprinting.

After all. The world is changing.

Shouldn’t we?