VMLY&R Melbourne was doing well during lockdown, getting the work done, winning pitches, having regular virtual meetings.
But that casual, quick chat in the corridor was missing and Melbourne’s stage 4 lockdown is tough on mental health.
“There was potential for a bit of creative apathy to creep in across the agency,” says Jake Barrow, ECD.
“We’re all locked at home with this whole COVID thing going with every excuse to coast through this and get back to it once we’re in the office.
“We didn't want that to take a backward step. We're on such a great roll anyway, so we came up with a way to double down and fight back.”
The agency usually has a mid-year get together, to discuss over a drink what's going on in the world of advertising with ideas and creativity.
To replace it, they came up with a two week virtual creative festival with contributed commentary on the best work in the world.
Nineteen teams of three people, each made up of people from different disciplines competed.
“We might put an experienced designer with a junior account service person and a copywriter,” says Barrow.
“They would get given a category to judge from a recent award show and then come back with the top three, whether it was radio or media or digital design, or whatever.
“They would share their insights around as to why they picked those three with the rest of the agency. And that would manifest as a daily email.”
The rest of the agency would give their favourites and a prize given by Barrow and his team of judges for the best commentary of the day.
“It kind of took over the agency in a sense,” says Barrow.
Sarah Bailey, managing partner at VMLY&R Melbourne, thinks the festival also gave the opportunity to pair people up that hadn't been working together for a few months.
“In the office, there’s all this anecdotal contact, casual conversations,” she says. “But once you're working from home, and unless you are working on a project, it feels weird to reach out for a personal chat.
“This was a nice opportunity to pair the data guy and a creative who hadn’t really had anything to do with each other for a while to work on a project that was really fun.
“It created some nice cross agency relationships which was a really positive thing to get us through that last leg of lockdown.
“It’s obviously been pretty strange. At home initially and thinking that it was probably temporary and then realizing that it was going to be that way for a while
“Everyone's been utterly amazing throughout the whole thing. And I don't think that we've been worried about our culture because it was so strong.
“But we felt that we needed to, every now and again, inject an extra layer, something to rally around that everybody can get involved with it.”
The prizes included book vouchers, cheese packs, gin tasting kits and meals from restaurants that you finish at home.
Some of the emails to Barrow during the festival:
“This review, share, review and reward system is awesome. Haven’t seen anything like this in getting a whole agency thinking about creativity. Should do it again for 2021.” Kieran Moroney, associate creative director
“It really was a lot of fun, your Festival of Creativity. We all got a lot out of it. And what a fantastic collection of Ads too.” Chris Pedley, concierge office manager
“Was very close to logging on, on Friday to participate on my annual leave day… really loving this and think it’s especially great to be doing these fun (and useful) activities right now! Super appreciative!!” Catherine Collins, account director
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