Saatchi Brief No. 4 Response

So my last post was about the 4th brief for a place on the Saatchi & Saatchi Summer Scholarship, where we all had individual 5 minute Skype interviews and had to 'bring our CVs to life'. (For more info see my last post)

The brief was challenging, and initially I found it really hard to come up with an original idea. An example was given by Saatchi, of maybe getting a choir to sing on skype for the interview; sounds pretty fun but it conditioned me to think about performances and I guessed everyone else would probably think that way as well. After a few hours chatting to my housemates about it, one of them said it would be cool to do it from outside the office which made me think, it would be even cooler to do it from inside the office or even from the same room.

So that very quickly became the plan- to walk in on my own skype interview.

Last Friday I managed to get in contact with Massimo Fiori at Saatchi and ask him if he'd be able to help me get into the office and into my interview. Luckily, he was happy to oblige me, so at 7 on Wed morning (having not been able to sleep at all on Tues night) I was on the bus on the way up to 80 Charlotte Street. I arrived there at about 12.30 for my 1pm interview and was met by Massimo who gave me the password for the wireless and a seat in reception. At about five-to-one 'THE CALL' came through (not quite as 24 as I've just made it sound though. Jack Bower can handle his nerves, whereas I was a proper mess).

My memory of that next ten minutes isn't fantastic but I answered the skype call and said something like 'Hi Saatchi, your brief was to bring my CV to life, and there has only been one way I could think of doing that, so if you'll bear with me one minute...'. Then I hung up on skype and walked into the room they were in. 'I could only really bring it to life by coming up here in person'.

It seemed to go down quite well, and everyone was really nice. Although I walked into the room expecting to see 3 or 4 people, and I think there were actually about 7.

I'd prepared about 50 A4 bits of paper with little phrases, pictures and stickmen that I held up as I did my presentation; sort of Bob Dylan style but much cruder. I did my presentation and then it went straight into questions, which were a mix of things about the industry eg. 'where do you see advertising being in ten years time?' and personal stuff like 'what makes you angry'. This only lasted a couple of minutes and I think I had a fair go at answering them.

That was pretty much it really. Like I said, they were all so nice and it really cemented for me that this is what I want to do, and the sort of people I want to work with.

When I got home I had a tweet from one of the guys who had been in the room, Nick Gold. It only said 'well done' but that was cool and topped off the whole day for me. Also, I got a phone call from Julia yesterday and found out I've made it to the final stage, so I'm going back to Charlotte Street on Friday for the morning. That's about it really. Was such a awesome experience, albeit a bit nerve-racking. So glad I took the risk.

I really enjoyed getting to meet them all though, and it definitely paid off- I'm thought to the final 25 and have to go back next Friday morning.

Saatchi Brief No. 4

For those interested, here is Brief Number 4 from Saatchi & Saatchi.

CONGRATULATIONS. YOU’RE NOW JUST ONE ROUND AWAY FROM THE FINAL AT CHARLOTTE ST.

This brief will test your ability to think on your feet.

The live, 3-minute web cam CV presentation.

Yes, that’s right. You’ll have 3 minutes to bring your CV to life, live over Skype.

3 minutes of our full, undivided attention to sell yourself to us.

Don’t just read out your CV. That’s boring. Think about how you can turn it into a memorable, interesting, fun and creative presentation. Think of it as a performance.

You don’t actually need to do the presentation yourself. So for example you could write a song about yourself and get a friendly choir to perform it live. But you must be there to answer some questions directly after your presentation.

The presentations will take place in 5 minute time slots from 10:00 – 14:30 GMT on Tuesday 5th and Wednesday 6th April. You’ll need a web cam and decent speed broadband. Don’t even think about doing this with dial up. Seriously. Also, you can only do one interview.

From this the 24 best presentations will then be invited to attend The Final, here at 80 Charlotte St on 14/15th April.

Here’s what you’ll need to do.

Book your slot by tagging yourself on the time you want on the pictures on Julia’s profile page. Then confirm the time by leaving a comment beneath (e.g. 10:00-10:05). This will be done on a strictly first come, first served basis. Once a time slot has gone, it has gone. Please do not tag any time that has already been tagged.

Download Skype and create an account (don’t worry, it’s free).

http://www.skype.com/

Add us as a contact. Our Skype username is saatchirecruiting.

Then be online at the specified time and wait for us to call you on Skype.

Please keep your presentation to a maximum of 3 minutes. Remember, you don’t have to use it all.

Good luck and see you at the final.

Ooo... how exciting! Will let you know when I think of how I want to do it :)

Saatchi & Saatchi Brief 3

So, it's been a while since I've written anything, and as usual this is as a result of Uni work. I've got an essay to write at the moment but I'll quickly update you on what I've been up to before I continue.

So... the twitter thing for Saatchi went really well. I got through that stage, which was nice! I don't really know how they judged it, but it occurred to me when I was in the shower yesterday that it was probably just based on Klout. It's a bit irrelevance to be honest, as I got through, but something to consider if I end up partaking again next year and the format is very similar.

Got about 370 followers at the moment, but not really sure what to do with them. I feel bad, as they follow zombieapocatips out of good faith in the hope of some funny zombie stuff but I don't really have time to keep tweeting, for now. Will have a think about what to do with the account....

So yes, that went well...then came an exam (this was brief 2). It was a multiple choice job and we were allowed to use the internet to help us. Questions were on Saatchi & Saatchi, current clients, employees, different campaigns, also a bit on social media and that sort of thing. To be honest I did find it quite hard but I guess my masterful use of google managed to get me through, as I made it onto brief 3....

Brief 3 was given on 8th March and was as follows:

"AFTER THIS ROUND YOU’LL BE JUST ONE ROUND AWAY FROM AN INTERVIEW AT SAATCHI & SAATCHI.

Brief no.3 will test your presentation and selling skills, as well as your ability to recognize a great idea.

Choose what you consider to be a great ad, then recreate it yourself in a video.

You must appear at the beginning of your vid, before the ad, and in no more than 90” sell your ad to us. Explain why you chose it and why it’s a great idea. Really sell it and yourself to us. Imagine you’re pitching an ad to a client. Be as memorable as possible. Please note the whole vid can be longer, only the intro must be 90” max.

Upload your vid to our youtube channel (see link below), and post the link on Julia’s wall no later than

12 noon/midday GMT, Thursday 24th March.

Only the 50 best vids as chosen by us will go through.

Your video will be judged on:

90” presentation.

Ad choice.

How memorable and entertaining it is overall.

You don’t have to appear in the ad, but can if you want, but you do have to introduce it.

It doesn’t have to be a UK ad, but it must be in English. No subtitles.

Good luck and cue you…"

Pretty exciting stuff! And it was so much fun! I came up with an idea of what I wanted to do quite quickly, and the first week or so was spent talking it through with various friends (who have been invaluable). Last Saturday was when we finally shot it, and it went pretty well. Everyone was really good fun and put up with my indecisiveness and decision at the end of filming that I wanted to go back and redo the first half of the shots as the light had changed.

Then Sunday was spend editing and Monday/Tuesday evening writing the pitch. Filmed the pitch on Wednesday with the help of all of my housemates and then got it on youtube! The reception has been really positive, and I'm pleased with the finished product. Just got to wait and see what Saatchi thought of it, now.... will let you know!

Interactive Manifesto

Oooooo.... I failed at keeping you all up to date with the latest on the Saatchi & Saatchi stuff. But good news, it went well. Made it through the twitter round and now I'm on a new brief which I've had some ideas for.

Anyway, here is something I've been doing recently. My friend ran in the Student Union elections recently and we put him together an interactive manifesto to go with it. It was so fun to make. Hope you enjoy it. (You'll need to watch it in youtube, and with annotations on)

A better day

So tired, so here's a quick summary of what happened today. I had a lot of reading to do for a seminar and some reading to do for my dissertation and...I got a bit desperate for some attention on twitter. Decided to put out a desperately needy 'need more followers, please retweet' job and actually got quite alot of new followers on board. It wasn't cool, but I was stumped on how to carry things on with limited time available. Tomorrow should be a better day as I have no lectures or seminars, just Juliet Gardiner's new book 'Blitz' to wade through.

Tweets: 80

Following: 153

Followers: 216

Mentions and retweets: About 33/34 retweets and 12 mentions.

Night

Today's update

Hello, hello.

I don't think I wrote on here yesterday in the end. Was a busy day out and about doing things that meant I was away from twitter until the evening. (A welcome break).

Got back on it today, but it's been slow progress thus far. Followers have increased a little, and I've been retweeted a few times and been chatting with people but I feel like I need to come up with something new, and keep things fresh. I'm worried that it's getting a bit stale. Not had any fresh ideas this evening but I'll have a sleep on it and will hit it hard tomorrow. I need to raise my profile, more. Maybe I should be tracking down more famous people and getting them to mention me. On that note, I had a good one yesterday. Was tweeting with a guy out of the Walking Dead, which was pretty cool. Also picked up some magazines as followers and been contracted by a media guy based in Bristol who was interested in what I was up to.

Will hit it properly again tomorrow. Need another day where I get 100 or so followers. Although, I have quite a lot of reading to do for a seminar so we will have to see how I'm doing. Anyway... stats

Tweets: 66

Following: 150

Followers: 178

Mentions and retweets: Maybe 10/12 mentions and 3/4 retweets

Oh yeah, following has gone down as I cut a few people who weren't related to zombies and that. They were people from Uni who I followed initailly to try and generate some follow backs. Gone, breakthrough.

Night

Third Day

So it's my third full day of tweeting and as predicted it's been a bit of a slow one. I've been busy most of the day so far preparing a presentation and haven't really had much chance to blog or tweet with people. However, a few new followers have joined since last night.

I didn't end up going to bed when I said. Decided to have a little look for a few more people who might be worth following and stumbled across #zombiesurvivalcrew. Found their leader and got in contact which resulted in a few retweets and consequent new followers, but I did stay up pretty late to get them. It's all good though :)

Tweets: 44

Following: 192

Followers: 151

Mentions and retweets: Maybe 10 mentions and 2 or 3 retweets so far

I need to add stuff to the blog now. I wrote a little bit about the zombie survival crew and tweeted it which got noticed. Got some good publicity in return from them which is what it's all about, I suppose.

To be honest, I'm not sure how much more will get done today. Probably going to head to the pub after I've made dinner. I'll end up tweeting on my phone, though. Seriously, this is so addictive.

End of today

It's the end of my second full day of tweeting for the Saatchi & Saatchi grad scheme and it's been a bit of a mad one.

Things started off slowly as I had that dissertation meeting (which went OK, cheers for asking) but got pretty crazy as the afternoon went on. A friend I met when travelling in 2009 offered me some brilliant advice that really got me thinking about the ways I was trying to reach out to more people on twitter.

He got me thinking about who I was following and for what reason, so I went and sought out some big zombie/horror twitter accounts and then checked up on people who followed them, making the assumption they'd be interested in what I was up to. Turns out that quite a few of them were.

Then I stumbled across #zombietweets which turned out to be gold. In the space of about 3/4 hours I got 40/50 retweets and about 60 new followers. Stats as follows:

Tweets: 31

Following: 188

Followers: 131

Mentions and retweets: maybe 30/35 mentions and 40/50 retweets

I'm pretty sure this whole thing isn't about who can get the most followers and the most retweets. I've read the brief quite a lot of times now and It's got to be about interaction. I want to have regular interactions with the followers I already have. If I get more, then that's great but I think it's more important that I stay true to the idea and have fun tweeting with people.

Tomorrow is a busy day for me, as I'm giving a presentation at a Climate change conference on Sunday and need to practice it, but I've set up a Tumblr today, and the plan is to add some more things to it if and when I have time. Will try and get a few more tweets out there as well.

I'll keep you posted, night.

Saatchi & Saatchi Grad Scheme

A few days ago Saatchi & Saatchi released the details of the first challenge for their grad scheme. It was as follows...

Brief 1.

This brief will test your originality, creativity and ability to connect to a mass audience.

Create ONE new Twitter page. The objective is to get the highest Twitter rating and social influence as possible before the deadline.

The 250 people with the highest combined scores from briefs no.1 and no.2 will go through to round 3. But don’t worry about brief no.2 just yet. We’ll let you know about that soon.

You will score points for the following.

- Followers

- Updates (tweets)

- Retweets (of your tweet by other people only)

- @mentions (of you by other people only)

Your page can be about whatever you want. The more interesting, original, witty and creative the more chance you have of it taking off. But think carefully, we will only accept your first entry.

Don’t just start your page and get all your mates to follow you. This probably won’t be enough. How can you create a buzz and get as high a rating as possible? Be creative. Use your initiative. Impress the socks off us and scare off the other contestants in the process.

But remember this is a job application, so please use your loaf and have some common sense. Do not trick or mislead people in any way, make promises you cannot keep, do anything illegal, that could be considered offensive, or of questionable morality.

There was a bit more but that was the general idea.

It took me a few days to decide what to do, but in the end opted for an account called 'ZombieApocatips'. Pretty much does what it says on the tin; gives tips to survive the zombie apocalypse.

Its been 24 hours since I went live and I'm pretty happy with it all so far. Stats are as follows:

Tweets: 8

Following: 147

Followers: 46

Mentions and Retweets: I'm not gonna count but quite a few mentions and several retweets.

Sort of panic followed at first, but will cut back on people in a few days. I think that by the end of the weekend I should be hitting 500 followers. Hoping things will snowball.

Got a plan of what I'm going to tweet over the next few days but tomorrows project is to get people interacting on #zombieapocalypse. Will do a daily update to keep you informed. For now, its bed time. I've got a dissertation meeting tomorrow. Gonna stick a book under my pillow and hopefully by tomorrow I'll be fully informed of the goings on at Will's coffee house in the restoration period. Night x

Tutorials

Getting offensively lax with my photoshop practice due to essays and exams but here are a couple of things I've made from tutorials this evening.

Just taken a couple of hours away from the revision to try and brush up on my photo manipulation (which is pretty basic to say the least) and I'm quite happy with them.

Like I said, both from tutorials so nothing too exciting, but if you fancied a go the first is available here and the second is available here.

That is all. I will do more in the coming weeks, I promise.

Lego+Stopmotion

LEGO and stop-motion animation seem to be the perfect partners and seeing as I bought a camera over Christmas, I now desperately want to get some LEGO.

So yes, I think that is something I'm going to pursue over the next few weeks. Not right now, unfortunately, as I've got deadlines for Uni at the moment. But soon.

Here's a couple of videos I saw that inspired me. The first one is a short for LEGO done by Blue Source and the second is a music video by Rymdreglage that has been shortlisted for Youtube Play. Check it.