Justin took the audience through the case study of George Lucas and Star Wars, and how hard it was to convince the movie execs to approve a concept that was well and truly off the charts creatively.

The main points I took from the presentation were:

• It pays to be brave
• Creativity is not the only way to make money, but it is the best way
• Creativity and commerce are not mutually exclusive
• Fred Roed is a great actor (…you had to be there.)

Justin summarised the talk with the following conclusions:

1. Creativity Is the art of finding new solutions, not copying tried and tested formulas.
2. The formulas Of Best Practice and Research cannot be easily applied to truly original work.
3. Creativity can be be applied to find alternative media solutions when traditional channels are not available.
4. Brave work needs a brave client and an internal champion.
5. Creativity can ensure clients enjoy a disproportionate return on their investment.
6. Visionary creatives embrace commerce, but at the same time fight for their creative independence and principles.

Check out FoxP2’s work here.

When we go live with the new Heavy Chef website, we will upload the video of last night’s presentation, but in the meantime, you can revisit some of the classic pieces Justin spoke about in the session. Justin showed some examples of work he admired, many of which underlined the courage that clients need to have to approve some creative concepts…

Check out the “Whassup” advert here:

Check out the Honda Diesel advert here:

Check out the Cadbury’s advert here:

Check out the “Dogfish” advert here:

Dog-Fish - Volkswagen SpaceFox - The funniest videos are a click away

Check out the Oasis video here:
Oasis - Dig Out Your Soul In The Streets

Thanks again to our sponsors 24.com, Perdeberg, Corona, Glaceau Mineral Water and Springleap.

A big round of applause was given to Justin at the end - everyone was truly stoked to have witnessed a rousing and inspiring talk. Thanks to Justin and Charl for entertaining us!

[I also wrote about this banner ad on Ideate, so all you dual subscribers, forgive me for the repitition]

- A Study Of Creativity And Its Power To Transform Business

In 2005 a new kid arrived on the South African advertising block.

The new venture was called ‘FoxP2’. Since opening its doors, the agency has been rated Finweek’s Cape Agency Of The Year 2009, Financial Mail Agency Of The Year 2008, Finweek’s Small Agency Of The Year 2007 and Finweek’s Newcomer Agency Of The Year 2006. Arguably the most successful independent agency to start up in the last five years, FoxP2 has continuously been rated the most creative agency in the country on a per capita basis and is the smallest agency in South African advertising to win the Finmail Agency Of The Year award.

Founder Justin Gomes and MD, Charl Thom, have kindly agreed to talk at the next Heavy Chef presentation, presenting “Why Wookiees Don’t Wear Pants”, a study of creativity and its power to transform business. They will give us a unique insight into the relationship between art and commerce and how it relates to the world of advertising. This is NOT one to miss – to whet your appetite, take a gander at some of FoxP2’s work here.

Oh, and they’ll even tell you what the name “FoxP2″ means - but only if you ask nicely.

Want to attend?

The next Heavy Chef Session is going to be held (on the 1st July) at the familiar venue of 24.com’s high tech facility in Greenpoint, Cape Town.

If you’d like to join us, please email us to get on the invitation list (click here). You will then be sent invites to this and upcoming Heavy Chef Sessions.

• Venue: 3rd floor, 24.com building, Greenpoint, Cape Town (directions here)
• Date: Wednesday, 1st July 2009
• Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
• Cost to attend: Gratis, but there is a dress code… guys come as wookiees; girls as Princess Leiah in ‘Return of the Jedi’

There are 50 seats available, on a first-come first-serve basis.

As usual, the venue will be provided by 24.com, wine by Perdeberg and the beer by Corona. And, for those non-alcohol drinkers, we’re proud to announce that Glaceau Mineral Water will also be present.

You can also check out their great advertising work on Ideate, our sister blog.

This interview by Guy Kawasaki with Lee Aase, social media manager at Mayo Clinic, shows how they make in-depth health and medical news content available directly to patients and interested consumers in order to encourage feedback, dialog, and sharing of information.

An excerpt from interview:

“With over 90 percent of Mayo Clinic patients reporting that they say “good things” to their friends after a visit, using social media tools to amplify their impressions seemed reasonable.”

“That said, we didn’t just immediately jump into blogging, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. It was a natural, gradual progression that incorporated what I [Lee Aase] like to call, “The MacGyver Mindset”…creating new solutions out of resources we already had on hand.”

Specifically, what I like about Mayo Clinic’s approach to social media is their mandate for being nimble, thinking on their feet and having an in-depth knowledge about Mayo Clinic’s strengths and values.

That they have key staff members like Lee Aase to represent these traits is a blessing.

As the communications intern at World Wide Creative there is more than a lot I still need to learn about the web and online media.  Even though I regard myself as someone who can use the web efficiently, I find it vital to know the platform I am working with – not just how to work it but what it is. I’ve heard of terms such as Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 but never understood what they were.

To start off, it is important to know the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web. The internet is actually a public system/network of computers accessible to everyone, everywhere (hardware). Most importantly it provides access to the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web functions within the Internet as a service provided by the Internet.

Ben Ramsey thinks of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 as “‘eras’ of the Web”. Web 1.0 would represent the first decade of the Web (1990-1999), which he calls the ‘read-only Web’. The term, Web 1.0, is mostly used to contrast the earlier days of the Web before blogs, social networking sites and Web-based applications became routine. Web 2.0 would then be the second decade (2000-2009), which he calls the ‘read-write Web’. This implies that not only does the Web connect to its users by giving them information but vice versa, allowing users to connect to companies and each other.

Web 2.0 has for some become a mere marketing buzzword with no real understanding of what it means. Now, there is still disagreement about what Web 2.0 means but to show The best of Web 2.0 technology, I gathered some information on a few of the most important sites and features. This should give you a pretty good idea of what is meant by Web 2.0. 

Micro blogging is an important feature of Web 2.0. It is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates, photos or audio clips and publish them. To upload and share photo’s online Flickr enables you to tag photos and search for specific content of photos. Vimeo could easily be described as the video counterpart of flickr.com. I guess you can mention YouTube in the same breath. When it comes to social bookmarking Del.icio.us allows its users to keep track of their favourite items on the web including music, websites, movies and lots more. Twitter is a text-based example of a social networking and micro-blogging service that lets its users send and read each others’ updates, known as tweets.

Another important feature of Web 2.0 would be RSS (Really Simple Syndication). This feature is used to publish frequently updated works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a structured format. It filters through the web to collect the latest information on specific websites of the user’s choice. It benefits readers who want to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

Through social networks such as Facebook it is clear that web culture has revolutionized. The whole system of social interaction has evolved. Experts have already started predicting Web 3.0 and what it would be like. There are some who believe that the Web 3.0 browser will act like a personal assistant that learns what you are interested in through a memory of sites you frequently visit. Ben Ramsey calls it the next decade of the Web (2010-2019). He predicts that there will be a widespread backlash as Web 3.0 begins to affect the mainstream culture. Ramsey suspects that only by 2015 we’ll really know how Web 3.0 will play out and the affect it will have on the world we live in today.

Facebook has now moved from being not only a social network for personal use but is now considered (more prominently) a platform for business use as well. More and more marketers use Facebook as a key medium for their brands online. During the overall redesign of Facebook, Business Pages acquired some new changes as well. These new Business Pages now imitate the same Wall and tabs design as that of normal profiles. Business Pages maintain the same functionality - the ability to share photos, videos, text, applications and custom content. With focus placed on the Wall tab, Pages will feel much more dynamic than before. This will promote more participation and interaction between brands and their readers, inevitably helping to establish a better relationship. Content posted on the new Wall will also appear in Fans’ News Feeds. This means that posting updates to your Page is much more effective and has the potential to drive significant traffic to your Page. The Status Update will provide a powerful way for Pages to share short interesting bits. Brands that use Twitter can merge their accounts so that selected Tweets will automatically post to Facebook as Status Updates.

Nick O’Neill in his article How to Develop A Facebook Page that Attracts Million of Fans provides 10 tips for creating engaging Facebook Pages. I will only touch on a few of them but all of them are in the end vital for promoting a brand and bettering the overall brand experience.

An important tip Nick mentions is to integrate applications to increase engagement. According to Nick “the last thing you want is for users to land on your Facebook Page and leave immediately”. There are currently over 55,000 applications on the Facebook platform and a quite large portion of them can be directly incorporated into your fan page. Games, quizzes, and other types of interactive content can help keep users on your Facebook Page for longer durations of time. It is important to grab the attention of your users and keep it.

To establish a concrete relationship with fans and clients it is important to communicate with them continuously. Social media has always been about joining the conversation and now brands can be a significant part of the conversation on Facebook. These conversations can take place within a Facebook Page as well as in a user’s news feed. That means every time someone comments on a status, a photo, or a discussion thread, you need to comment on it. However, your social media strategy should still continue to include other outlets (blogs, Twitter, etc). It is important to remember that your fans/clients are also human – they are just like you.

Another point Nick emphasizes is to publish interesting and relevant content. Just like in other areas of social media (blogs, Twitter, etc), it’s central to provide exciting content to your readers. As part of this pointer, the next tip focuses on reposting. Just like Twitter, reposting information is basically the same as a retweet. By reposting a person’s information, they will be more likely to pay attention to your brand.

Facebook Pages present an exciting opportunity for brands to directly engage with their existing and future customers and harvest new ones. It is and has been a known fact that the more time you invest in your brand’s Facebook page, the better response you’ll get.

Over the past few years Facebook has witnessed a dramatic rise in new user adoption. Just to put things intoperspective, here are the Top 5 Facebook pages and their statistics:

Loads and loads of resources on (yep, you guessed it) all things Facebook, including stats on most popular FB Fan Pages*, Apps & FB Connect usage (size + growth).

Look, I’m the first guy to tell you that stats are only stats, and shouldn’t be viewed in isolation, but AllFacebook gives a healthy balance between cold, hard facts and opinion. Thus, providing readers withinformed opinions and observations - something that is often lacking amongst our fellow bloggers (like these guys).

As a marketer though, going through AllFacebook’s resources, viewing the best-of-the-best (number-wise) on Facebook, it makes my job easier to identify & implement best practices for growing brand communities on South Africa’s biggest online playground.

*Seems Facebook users love to sleep - I (love) SLEEP’s fan page has 4,460,499 fanzzzzzzzzzz….