Thanks to Tom from Boondoggle for the link.

- 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.

There’s been a lot said about ‘user centred design‘ in web marketing circles recently. We talk about things like ‘conversion strategy‘ and ‘navigation strategy‘, phrases which have now become big buzzwords in marketing meetings. There’s no denying that these things are really, really important, but what if they come at a price? What if the the function of a site replaces creativity – instead of laying a platform for it?

This is a critical conversation. A conversation that must not get lost in the details, and one that (interestingly) people get quite heated about. There is a certain doggedness in the approach of some web consultants* that the ‘objective must come first!‘ and that creativity is not actually that important.

The team at World Wide Creative have chosen the stance that creativity and usability live side by side. This can sometimes be a difficult road, but one that we want to become the best in the world at navigating. The reason we pursue this path is that we believe you have to balance both in order to resonate in a cluttered cyberspace.

*Usually consultants who’re not really that creative themselves.

Spier creative web marketing

Fred and I were asked to be so-called experts (I hate that word) at the “Talking Heads” evening which was the closing event of the Spier Arts Festival.

The focus of the event was “The Future” and the format involved one to one conversations with individuals in the general public, the audience rotating every 20 minutes. The topics varied from “The Future of Spandex” to “Search Engine Marketing“, (you can guess which one I spoke about, and you’re probably right in thinking the other one was far more interesting).

The evening was extremely informative but there was one key message that seemed to come through in all the conversations I took part in and from all the people I spoke to: The importance of creativity.

SEO is more often than not considered a science (not a creative process), involving implementing changes to a site based on the need to please an algorithm. However the need for creative thinking has become more and more important for a successful SEO campaign over the last few years. Understanding who you want to generate links from, and thinking creatively in how to attract those links.

But what about the future?

Its hard to predict anything in such fast moving times so I wouldn’t dare guess past the next five years and even the next five years is speculative. Search has already started to become more personalised and this will, no doubt, continue. Combine this with the trend of storing more and more of our information online, (gmail, del.icio.us, etc.) and the need for search engines to learn about us as individuals (our interests, our needs, our habits). Providing ways of helping us store and sort that information more effectively is inevitable.

Taking into account this level of personalisation the search engines will teach themselves at an exponential rate – and as a search marketer, trying to keep up with this evolution will become impossible.

5 years ago you needed an expert to optimise your web site. Now pretty much anyone can do it. The “secret” information is now freely available. The reason individuals don’t do it themselves is mainly due to time constraints. There is also the fact so many little elements make up good optimisation, that missing one or two can have an impact. This will change, and things will become more automated, technology even easier to use, and it will be simpler for anyone to do it themselves.

As search engine marketers we’ll have to totally forget about algorithms and focus on the objectives of search engines – “to provide the most relevant search results” (if this even stays the objective). Thinking creatively about websites and the information / interaction they offer will lead to greater success in a world where all sites will be algorithm friendly.