Re-Set & stay with the simple idea: John Hunt, TBWA\Worldwide

The second day of Spikes Asia 2009 begun on an energetic note. Delegates were trickling in and TBWA\’s Worldwide Creative Director John Hunt’s session opened to a near full house. Hunt’s session revolved around one thought and one thought alone – the new age communication breaks away from media schedules and is only about the idea.

by Noor Fathima Warsia
Published: Sep 18, 2009 6:47 AM | 2 min read

$Re-Set & stay with the simple idea: John Hunt, TBWA\Worldwide$

The second day of Spikes Asia 2009 begun on an energetic note. Delegates were trickling in and TBWA\’s Worldwide Creative Director John Hunt’s session opened to a near full house. Hunt’s session revolved around one thought and one thought alone – the new age communication breaks away from media schedules and is only about the idea. Considering, this is what the conversations in creative circuits were before the digital invasion triggered all kinds of conversations, Hunt’s began with Re-Set.

He said, “As corny as it sounds, people used to say that it is not about the size of the budget, but the size of the idea, and it is truer today than ever before. Today, the definition of medium has to be refined and the younger creative professionals get it intuitively and that is where they want to play. Everyone today understands that anything that affects the consumer behaviour is a medium, and one has to chase ideas instead of media schedules.”

He substantiated his point with various examples like Obamacino, Nivea, The Zimbabwean, where the medium were as different as coffee dust, couch and money. “But when the idea is powerful, these mediums transcend to other mediums like television, radio and online. But you must not get into the debate of what medium did a good idea use. Everything is good if it works; the classification is irrelevant.”

Hunt’s presentation was marked with some of the most creative and inspiring works that didn’t boast big budgets but ideas that created an impact on the consumer and results for the brand. He gave real life examples to illustrate that sometimes the trigger of a great idea could come from a new technology like nanotechnology or thinking out of the box and creating disruption in the way a brand communicated.

He concluded his conversation by saying, “Don’t let recessionary clouds get in the way; there is a rainbow behind these clouds.”