'Fake it 'til you make it' and other lessons learned on a book crit world tour
Like many young creative duos looking to break into advertising, Katie Healy and Shivani Patel found their emails to London agencies often got lost or ignored in creatives’ inboxes. So, armed with a fund from their university, they set off to get their book through the doors of shops outside of the UK in a tour they dubbed #GlobalBookCrit.
WIth Rafael Genu, creative director at Y&R Italy
The idea for the trip sparked from a brief set by their University of Lincoln course. “It asks you to do whatever you want for a project as long as it makes you famous and from that it is effective in some way,” explained Healy and Patel.
“We thought that we could use this as an opportunity show our determination and stand out from other creative teams, so set ourselves the challenge of seeing how far across the world we could get for a book crit, as we knew it was hard enough getting one in London anyway.”
The process began with research. The creatives sought out global contacts via the Young Creative Council and the Talent Business, planning their trip around those who emailed back. Once they launched a social media campaign anchored on the hashtag #GlobalBookCrit, more offers began to roll in – from Moscow to New York City.
The final trip took them to four agencies in Paris, one in Milan and another in Dubai.
“Famous Grey in Paris was a small office compared to the one we had seen in London but it still felt like a really nice environment,” said Healy and Patel. “They showed us a piece of work they had just submitted and it’s definitely the kind we would love to be making some day. TBWA Paris was huge in comparison and seemed very corporate but creative at the same time.
“We had never heard of Dare.Win before meeting with the creatives there. Despite this, we loved the cosy, creative vibe and loved the fact it has really cool accounts such as Netflix and Spotify.”
Their favourite out of the five, however, was Impact BBDO in Dubai.
“Tres [Colacion, creative director] was so lovely and the agency itself seemed like it had some great accounts. We didn't know whether there was a lot of strict regulations on advertising in Dubai but after speaking to them they said it was surprisingly very similar to the UK regulations.”
The biggest lesson learned from travelling the world armed with a book? Fake it ‘til you make it.
“Agencies want to see mock ups on photoshop of your adverts, not marker visuals,” they explained. “As far as life experience goes, we definitely learnt that we're confident we're going into the right industry. Every creative we met was so lovely, offering us food and drinks on top of their advice when they didn't have to.
"It's nice to know that everyone in the industry looks out for each other and is willing to help in many ways, despite being complete strangers to begin with.”