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There are many good ideas in the world. There are far fewer great ad ideas. Great ideas are unexpected. And they give their audience that a-hah moment which makes a product or brand matter. Ogilvy Melbourne is rather good at great ideas. It’s already helping Australia to punch above its weight – again – in this year’s awards. Ogilvy Melbourne’s executive creative director, David Ponce de Leon, talked to The Stable about great ideas, why D&AD’s pushing for great ideas matters and how the industry can keep them coming.

The Stable: D&AD’s mission is to promote and support creative excellence. Every “era” in advertising has its own challenges to creative excellence. What’s in the way right now?

David Ponce de Leon: I believe the biggest challenge of our era is the notion certain marketers and operators seem to have that you don’t really need an idea anymore. That data and the right targeting of content is enough to move people into action. This is a very dangerous notion. Unfortunately, they seem to be confusing precision with persuasion. Ideas are what bridges the gap. Great ideas will always require a leap of faith. In these risk-averse times, that’s becoming an unlikely proposition for some. This is why shows like D&AD remain so relevant. They remind us of the importance of ideas and set a bar of excellence for all creative industries. It has always been an excellent show, hard to win and its annual, the only one worth buying. Inspiring stuff.

TS: Ideas can come from anywhere but what does it take to make a great creative campaign? 

DPL: Well, there is no formula. At least not in the traditional sense. However, what I’ve learned over the years is that you really need a cracking insight first. A true, irrefutable core human truth about the product, service or whatever is the problem you’re trying to solve. Then, and only then, great ideas that can turn into great campaigns will emerge. You still see a lot of stuff out there that is all execution, or poor stories that looked like good ideas on paper, but ultimately fail to connect. This is because they lack soul. The insight is the soul of every great idea. Without it, you’ve got nothing. I don’t see data, new mediums or technology changing that. No matter how precise and efficient.

TS: Advertising is rather obsessed with refilling its creative stores with young advertising students? Is the industry keeping its search too narrow?

DPL: I applaud every effort to increase diversity in our industry, period. As we mentioned before, ideas can come from anywhere. Diversity in all forms is necessary to bring new ideas, fresh thinking and novel cultural perspectives. However, allow me to point out something that has become evident to me in the last couple of years. There is an obvious lack of portfolio training happening in most major tertiary education providers. They are generalists, and this is known, accepted and understood. Graduates are coming out without basic portfolios in a sea of group assignments, logo re-designs and creative writing essays. We need to get back to basics: “10 pages with 10 cracking ideas” portfolio (or webpage). Unfortunately, there’s only one place offering that kind of training and that’s AWARD School. And I say unfortunately, because we need more alternatives. More providers. More diversity. It’s not good for the future of the creative industries in Australia for any given body to have a monopoly on portfolio building. But no one else is stepping up to the challenge and we will keep on filling our stores with the same kind of people and the same kind of thinking until this changes dramatically.

TS: Young creatives bring freshness and enthusiasm to advertising. What else do they bring? What does experience have to offer? 

DPL: Every workplace needs a balanced mix of experience and young talent. Not too many or too much of one or the other. Young talent is extremely important for any company. They come fresh into the game, still naïve, not jaded or cynical. And full of energy, dreams and expectations! More senior, experienced talent are the veterans, the experts, the mentors. They bring the knowledge of experience to the table and the mastery that only time and dedication to your craft can give you. I find young talent more experimental and more pioneering in regards to new mediums. But more senior talent seem to be better at storytelling. Maybe because the wisdom of the years lived give you more life experience to draw from. Both streams of talent need each other, and in many ways, are dependent on each other in order to succeed. They can’t live without each other and neither does any company.

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