Great space, great food, great conversation, great content — all were part of the Creative Jam today (IMHO, of course). Highlights for me: Barbara Goodstein’s keynote on the AXA Equitable 800-pound gorilla campaign — we’ve covered it in DMNews before but I was still impressed by the level of attention to measurement this company gives this integrated campaign.
A panel about creative risk-taking with Duncan Gray, exec creative director with Proximity London; Holly Pavlika, ECD at Big Fuel; and Nick Moore, EVP/CCO at Wunderman was quite interesting — I got the feeling that defining both creativity and risk is a tall order which all three struggled to get to a bit, but ultimately they offered some great examples of how some brands are taking creativity to the next level even with the economy squeezing budgets.
I also sat in on two roundtables and hosted one of my own — a chat about standard size pieces and how to be original and interesting and creative within those limitations. Patrick Fultz, Caples chair, had lots of interesting tips, from different paper textures and tabs to interesting two-color ink choices and simple yet effective copy techniques.
Another roundtable on user-generated content, hosted by Jason Inasi, CEO and CD, The Factory Interactive, was popular and sparked plenty of conversation. We chatted about everything from Twitter and peer reviews to what brands are doing right and wrong. For example, the recent Skittles effort in replacing its Web page with a Twitter feed (which ultimately was removed when folks started Twittering unflattering Skittles comments) got a thumbs-down.
