The Drum and Stein IAS are out to ‘Save Creative Soul’ at the Chip Shop Awards US

So seriously, in fact, that they’ve taken to the streets of New York and San Francisco to spread the word and convert people to the creative side with a #SaveCreativeSoul campaign. Members of the Stein IAS team, including chief creative officer Reuben Webb, made videos on each coast of them preaching the word of creative, motivating people to become believers in creativity – and learn more about the Chip Shop Awards in the process. Enter the awards before the August 30 deadline.

Webb, who is also a Chip Shop Awards US judge, said filming the videos was a challenge. “Is it advisable to go into the streets of New York and act like a crazy preacher? Of course not. I was half expecting to get arrested, I was bound to offend people but it just seemed like too much fun not to do it,” said Webb, adding that the rain that day meant fewer people to get in the way of good shots. But that didn’t mean they didn’t have supporters in the crowd.

“We had the run of Times Square and shooting in the rain made us feel and look crazier. The people who stopped to talk to us are the public by the way. Another soul saved!”

Why Save Creative Soul?

Stein and The Drum are on a mission to get people to think more creatively, to raise the bar of creative and reach new audiences, and the #SaveCreativeSoul campaign is designed to do just that.

“Creative Soul represents the advertising and marketing industries’ collective need to create beautiful, impactful things that make people feel something,” Webb told The Drum. “Save Creative Soul highlights that most of the ideas to go live in the industry are a compromise from a creative point of view. Creatives bare their souls in the form of their ideas. Sometimes they are nurtured and crafted into something valuable, but often they are bludgeoned into a grey, amorphous blob of an idea by well meaning, untrained people who have editorial power over the experts.”

Webb went on to say that most creative people become hardened to this unfortunate reality and see compromise as part of the job. The Save Creative Soul idea argues that underneath the shield they yearn for creative freedom, that they want their creative soul to be set free.

“In a fun way, this idea is raising an issue that anyone who works in an agency knows is real, but nobody wants to talk about. Agencies want the world to believe that they only create beautifully crafted campaigns that are highly effective; it’s not in their interests to scream in frustration in public. This idea is making a confession on behalf of creatives who know their creative soul is in danger but can’t come out and say it. The way to salvation? Enter the Chip Shop Awards which allows total creative freedom,” Webb said in full pitch mode.

The opportunities to originate are at a premium in most agencies, which means that not everyone has the chance to work on the things the creative mind enjoys most. Webb says that the creative mind is a tool and if it’s not used regularly, it will blunt.

“We believe at Stein IAS that everybody whose job it is to have ideas should be originating all the time – the creative soul must be nourished. We have a team dedicated to finding creative opportunities that give creative people the chance to solve cool problems and the Chip Shop Awards is a major highlight in our creative training calendar,” he says.

“We’ve always loved the Chip Shop Awards for its inclusivity. It’s a great leveler that means that anyone in the agency can win an award for pure creativity, and win the respect of their peers. A new starter asked me recently, what can I do to prove I am ready for the idea origination briefs? My answer was, to start by winning a Chip Shop Award. I think it is brilliant that there is a genuine award scheme, judged by experienced experts, that needs nothing more to enter than the ambition to prove yourself. And we leverage every ounce of energy it generates to the benefit of our creative culture, staff development and retention.”

Why enter the Chip Shop Awards US?

Says Webb: “It’s hard to have valuable, original ideas, and things that are hard to do in life should be held up as an example of what it’s possible to achieve. Recognizing good creative work serves as a reminder that any brand can do this if they have the will to innovate beyond putting the word innovation on the website 200 times. And it offers encouragement and hope to creative souls who are yet to find the time or place to express themselves and show their potential.”

The deadline to enter The Chip Shop Awards US is August 30, and the event will take place on September 24 in New York.