Ever been out with your mates to the pub and devised what has to be a multimillion pound generating Get Rich Quick scheme, only to wake up the next morning having completely forgotten about it? Yeah, of course you have. Well, The Drum and Foolproof have discovered why – it turns out it’s because you were drunk. As simple as that.
The Newt/Judge Experiment took place earlier this year, with 18 advertising creatives divided into two teams and challenged to devise creative ideas from the same brief – only one would be getting completely sozzled while doing so. The reason – to find out once and for all whether drinking alcohol does make you more creative.
So while The Newts were drinking away merrily trying to devise an answer to the brief - to Solve the UK’s Binge Drinking problem by encouraging people to drink water between each alcoholic beverage - the poor old Judges team had to stick to non-alcoholic beverages instead. During the session, over 100 ideas were generated, with a shortlist drawn up of the five best ideas from the night. To help choose the best ideas, a panel of expert advertisers were recruited to look at the shortlist and choose their favourite. In the end, the panel chose the Design Water bottle idea, devised by…the drunken Newts. 1-0 them.
Elsewhere, the public were also consulted for their opinions as to the best idea on the shortlist – both online and on the streets – asking 18-30 year-old drinkers in pubs. All consulted were asked to rate the ideas in order of effectiveness as to which would be most likely to persuade them to alter their drinking habits? The survey was also emailed out to the same demographic to rate the ideas – with the winning idea revealed to be ‘Water Incentives’ which would see tokens placed at the bottom of a glass of water for money off the drinker’s next alcoholic beverage. Genius! And guess what. This was another idea from the Newts. 2-0 them. So there you go. Surely that proves it – drinking alcohol DOES make you more creative. Case closed. Now we’re off down the pub to look for inspiration.
