Technology is only as good as the creative that powers it
Save creative souls is the line Stein IAS devised to help promote the Chip Shop Awards, an event that provides a showcase for unbridled creativity. It celebrates the sort of work most award schemes outlaw - such as parodies that have sometimes been created without the knowledge of the actual brand involved. But the idea is to give the creative community an outlet that focuses on one thing and one thing alone; the quality of the idea.
What started as an interview with Tom Stein at Stein IAS turned into something... way different.
It means the event is a great leveler with professionals competing on the same basis as students, or even more established players getting to show what they are capable of when freed from the normal constraints common in the industry.
But the Chip Shop Awards is also well aligned with Stein IAS' philosophy. Although an agency which is well established in the realms of MarTech - they preach a philosophy that to really cut through, brands have to invest in good old fashioned creativity as well as new fangled technology.
This insight inspired creative director Jonathan Keebler to write a theatrical song that summed up the frustration creatives can feel when confronted with client demands to photograph and handshake or increase the size of the logo.
He performed it outside the Chip Shop Awards in New York in a bit of a musical extravaganza which also featured 15 drummers and dancers, to the surprise of his agency MD....correct title.... Tom Stein.
However, when Stein got over his shock at seeing his creative director singing on a New York sidewalk, just off Broadway, he was quick to point out that “Saving creative souls is really about saving brands and making brands successful. For B2B brands and B2C brands to be successful, it's gotta be about more than technology, it's gotta be about more than data, it's gotta be about more than AI. Those things are great, they're important. But technology is only as good as the creative that powers the technology.”