The Box...Disrupted.

Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.

The first few weeks of my internship with TBWA\Chiat\Day have taught me so much. First, that it's normal to work daily from 8:45a.m. to 7:30p.m. and sometimes later, because you're just that busy; but second, it has taught me the value of a simple suggestion.

What makes a great advertising campaign? Is it the power of the research that goes into it, or is it the simple brilliance of a creative team? Is it a combination of both? Of course; but I think some luck has to be thrown in there as well.

Take, for example, TBWA South Africa's campaign for The Zimbabwean that recently won the Cannes Grand Prix award for one of the best campaigns created this year. Through the use of their "Disruption Days," TBWA managed to not only examine the many facets of what makes a reader interested in a newspaper enough to actually read it, but also look at the surrounding political climate in such a way as to see the importance (or lack thereof) of the monetary system's decline in Zimbabwe. But, you may ask, how did they come up with the idea to stamp individual pieces of money with headlines so shrewd and meaningful that they made The Zimbabwean popular overnight?

It's all in the power of a brainstorm. It's not a simple formula. It's the capacity to think outside of the box while still keeping the box, and everything that surrounds it, in view. It's the ability to let self-consciousness go and suggest ideas that are not only startling and surprising in nature, but that also hit a deep chord with the human psyche.

Advertising, like I've always said, is a give and take. You get out of it what you put in to it, and sometimes it means more than just trying to promote a product. There is a reason that advertising has been called the picture of a generation.

And this, I think, is what makes TBWA stand out. I'm not saying it as a pitch for them; I think their advertising speaks for itself. Their realization that the younger generation of Pepsi was getting smarter, more involved, and changing; their discovery that the Snicker's label was recognizable in and of itself; their amazing ability to transform a relatively cheap vodka brand into something world famous; I could go on. By not only keeping their current social climates in view, but also branching out in terms of their creativity, TBWA has discovered the ultimate compromise- reigning in creativity in such a way that it ultimately becomes more creative.

In advertising, we should only hope to do so much.