What I have learnt since being at Proximity...

I have learnt so much over the past few months working here, but most importantly the entire concept surrounding behavioural changing ideas – a term that was new to me before coming here and is actually quite a complex term when you hear it dropped into conversations –the sort of jargon companies use to sell themselves...

But when I broke it down and thought about what it actually involves, it’s the sort of thing I’ve seen in the agency on a daily basis and there have been two main examples that I have been involved in.

So I’ll start with my first account. While here, I've been encouraged to get to know the brand's consumers on a personal level and interact with them face to face, feeding my observations and insights into a direct and digital campaign. I feel that being able to actually talk and engage with consumers is a really innovative approach and proved to be highly effective in obtaining our research, which then became part of the creative work.

Thinking about the role I've played between the consumers and the agency team, I guess I myself am a behavioural changing idea. Hiring a student to give their ideas and help shape campaigns created for students is a very different approach and one that I have been proud to be a part of. It has been beneficial for the company to get all the views from a consumer’s perspective and it has been valuable for me to see things from a brand point of view, and everything all ties in with my media degree that I’m currently doing.

I was also asked to write a diary about my time here and I remember thinking how unusual it was for a creative director like Debi ask to see the perspective of not just a student in the media and how I see the agency, but also the mind of a consumer and how I see brands. So everyone has learnt a thing or two from each other - although I may be young and naive I have still imparted knowledge to the company, who in turn have taught me so much.

More recently I have done some work for the RNLI, in the previous campaign the importance of behaviour changing ideas was highlighted, with the mystery packages we saw young teens defend who they were via the power of new media. The internet was not just used for humour or shock but a platform to stand up against the negative portrayal of today’s youth.

In the second phase of the campaign I took part in a blogger workshop for 7 young bloggers who we want to be involved. So we went to the RNLI lifeboat station on the Thames where I was given the opportunity to meet these young, enthusiastic people who were not incentivised by anything other than the values that the RNLI stand for. So here we were looking to the consumers to help the brand. Looking around the room there were people from different generations, with different skills, talents and experiences, all collaborating to generate great ideas. The amount of potential in the room was overwhelming; Deb actually introduced Mark as a digital guru but was quick to correct herself by saying that the young bloggers were probably more digital savvy than him...

The ideas generated were of a very high standard – it’s amazing how powerful the collaboration can be. They weren’t afraid to include different brands in their ideas e.g. Apple and Nike - that will all be incorporated into the latest RNLI campaign. It is these boundaries that have been broken which again highlights the importance of behavioural changing ideas.

And the significance goes beyond just advertising, beyond selling, it’s about creating something people value.

The strength of marketing is still so powerful, we have learnt lessons from wider culture and even taken inspiration from people like the Queen – as we learnt from the talk last week that she had to change her image to retain value amongst the public and how could we not be inspired by Obama’s marketing campaign, that’s put the slogan ‘Yes We Can’ on all of our lips.