Page 35 - Adnews Nov-Dec 2022

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Perspectives
At Snack Drawer, we’ve built our Good Sugars production model around efficiency and it’s paid off tremendously. But I have also found it’s important to defend moments of joyful inefficiency at work.
We use the phrase Uncanny Valley to talk about the eerie feeling we get when a replica or recreation of something strays too close to the original. Perfection feels wrong to us, even though we’re in constant pursuit of it. The same might go for work. We do need the ability to clock off and spend meaningful time with our loved ones and be intentional about our health, but creative brains also need idleness – when our minds are allowed time to wander aimlessly, they can end up in wild new places.
Work that isn’t efficient, productive or prioritised, those meetings that could have been an email – they’re like a twilight for our brains, that give us something in between the start-stop of work and rest. It may be an unpopular opinion, but I do think creative work benefits from wasted time.
A crew of creatives I once worked with started every day by playing the card game Punderdome. Another creative partner and I applied temporary tattoos to our faces before tackling a hard brief. These are things that couldn’t have been an email, and should absolutely never be a meeting. But I would still like them to exist.
At Snack Drawer we have tried to create a culture that embraces silli- ness; we’re still new, but in 2023 I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes us. I’m hoping that as we continue to create content that works harder and goes further for our clients and channels, we’re still able to take some of that precious, precious time saved...and waste it.
For me, 2023
will be all
about data and personalisation, with a strong focus on behavioural economic principles and the power it has in marketing.
SCA,
Georgi Oates
Georgi Oates,
IHead of Media, SCA
call 2022 the year of the COVID
hangover. People are rolling to the finish line, excited by the thought of a COVID-less Christmas and to feel the sunshine on their faces again... without a mask of course.
While we definitely appreciated the freedoms that came in early 2022, I feel it inundated us with social adrenaline but now we’ve come down and everyone is a little exhausted. Until the recent Upfronts and influx of corporate events, the industry in my opinion has lacked buzz. Perhaps because so much time, effort and mental reserve were spent on recouping lost profits, hunting for talent and holding onto employees wanting to chase the dream. This was coupled with trying to understand the shift in consumer behaviour and media consumption in a post-COVID world, while working out the new ‘work life’ that now included more time back in the office.
Surely 2023 can only be better. I’m excited for what I hope it will bring. I will continue to appreci- ate the balance that was driven by COVID and the flexibility it has provided everyone in the work- force now. Honestly I’m not sure how people functioned without this... perhaps this is why we had more burnout.
I am enjoying the buzz of the workplace, the collaboration, con- nection and chatter that comes with being in office. I hope we continue to see an improvement on mental health with a stronger focus on flex- ibility, support and recognition.
For me, 2023 will be all about data and personalisation, with a strong focus on behavioural eco- nomic principles and the power it has in marketing. Gathering deeper understandings behind what a consumer actually does, not what they said they do, can open the door to so many possibil- ities. Having communication mes- sages in marketing that connect with consumers on a personal level and that remove any cogni- tive bias should not only generate stronger brand affinity but stronger conversions. Partnering that with first party data to create bespoke and highly targeted
Georgi Oates, head of media, SCA