Page 8 - AdNews Mar-Apr 2021

Behind the Cover
The cheese sample, but make it virtual
The creative contingent of adland is the beating heart of the industry. To fully embrace this, and with a mission to create awesome and inspiring covers, each month AdNews hand-picks an agency to work its magic.
With most live events put on pause last year, experiential marketing’s return is looking a lit- tle different in 2021. This month we tasked indie agency Howatson+White to deliver a cover on what these experiences will be.
What were your initial thoughts on the experiential marketing brief at hand? There probably hasn’t been a cor- ner of our industry as dramatically impacted by COVID as experiential marketing has. Everything from activating festivals, to managing showcase events, to sampling in the supermarkets was wiped out overnight and it’s going to be a long time until it comes back. There’s only one avenue for experiential right now, virtual. And so this is where we focused the idea.
Post first brief chat, what went through your mind(s) and what were the next steps you took as a team? Remember a few years ago when we all thought we’d be watching concerts, movies and sporting events on our VR? Well for now, things are better in real life. And so we wanted to comment on the value of the physical, even though by necessity the world is moving virtual.
How did you know you’d landed on the best concept? We asked ourselves what’s the most fundamental version of experiential marketing that could never be as satisfying when expe- rienced in the virtual world. Cheese of course. Big cubes of delicious, mass produced cheese,
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it needs no instruction. Our biggest challenge was balancing the techni- cal requirements of triggering the code, with the visual demands of it looking like a block of cheese.
Tell us about the actual creation techniques. How did it come together?
Our creatives and engineers collab- orated with media artist Julian Wolkenstein. The idea was clear, so it was all about the craft – balancing code with art.
Biggest challenges with the whole process? Did anything keep you up at night?
Given we pushed the limits of QR readability, there’s always a con- cern it wouldn’t launch. But checking the cover at proofing stage gave us confidence the art translated from the screen to the printed cover without issue.
Best bit about the process?
Starting as we mean to go on – with brilliant creative collaboration. On this project Howatson + White + Sharpe + Lee + Wolkenstein.
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Would you like to scan this? Welcome to the experiential edition
with a convenient toothpick stuck in it. Don’t you miss the cheese samples at your local supermar- ket? We do. Will they ever come back? We hope so. Our cover (and the experience it unlocks) is an ode to the physical that can never be replicated by the virtual.
Who from the team was largely involved and what were their roles?
Creative team at H+W:
Ant White (Founder and CCO) Leslie Sharpe (Creative Director) Media Artist:
Julian Wolkenstein
Account Service at H+W:
Chris Howatson
(Founder and CEO)
Sun Lee (Senior Account Director)
What were the biggest hurdles to making this a reality? Any challenges?
The QR code has been the humble hero of covid. Who would have thought we’d have a QR code front and centre on our cover in 2021? Delightfully, everyone now knows what it does and how to activate it, so
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