NORTHERN PLANNER

If you read Rob Campbell's blog, you may have observed he's very enthusiastic about his employers' work. I'm sure it's not corporate toadiness but pure enthusiasm. 

I claim the same excuse for promoting my own employers' work. Namely, the Sainbury's  Christmas campaign. 

When I say 'their work' that's a lie, because it's a great example of all agencies working together and not territorially claiming the 'idea'. 

You may have seen Ridley Scott's 'Life in a day' film, where they edited tons of videos to create a rich tapestry of the lives of the stormtroopers of the everyday. There's so much joy, drama and daily turmoil in the ordinary, and that film really captured it. 

The basic idea is do the same for Christmas. Not earth shattering insight, no huge creative leap. Just 'you know that great film RIdley Scott did, why don't we do it for Christmas'. 

Because the brief is 'win Christmas emotionally' (and there's no point trying to out-do John Lewis)

Sometimes, the real bravery is not doing something that will make the creative directors in adland wet themselves, it's doing something that will work, that will surprise and delight the people that matter –  customers. 

I've been in a number of projects where 'user generated stuff' was rejected because there was nothing for creatives to do. They hated editing other folks' stuff. By the way, I'd be the first to reject people making ads etc, because they're usually crap. But when you find something that got some traction in culture already, re-purposing it for you own means can be hugely powerful. 

A Life in the Day didn't cross over from something people in adland and a few more 'right on' folks liked to something that connected with the UK at large. So doing it again, using mass media makes lots of sense. It's only media folk that will be bored with the idea. 

In other words, the challenging is embracing populist ideas and surrendering ego. 

The rest is brilliant editing, brilliant comms planning and, well, that's it.