Discovering the wow in everything

The beauty of this world is that it’s crammed with surprises and hunting for them is the exciting start of the creative process.  I love research, I love being proved wrong, I love going down rabbit holes and I love, love, love that moment that you discover a nugget that either takes your campaign to another level or changes its direction.

No matter how arduous people find it, primary research is crucial to getting the best out of an idea. And if you are given the option of secondary research – take it!

Remember, if John Hegarty hadn’t gone to the Audi factory in 1982 and seen a faded poster saying “Vorsprung durch Technik”, this slogan wouldn’t have become synonymous with the brand and then weaved its way into our culture.

Sometimes, however, you end up finding pieces that you have to stick a pin in. Here is a list of potentially useless nuggets we have discovered that have simply made us go ‘Wow’!

Are they all true? We’d like to think so.

One

One of the greatest adverts of our time – The Cadbury’s Gorilla – was initially not loved when it was first pitched by director Juan Cabral. As he told the Guardian in 2016:

“They said: ‘Let’s get this right. You want to make an ad that’s three times longer than a normal ad, has got no Cadbury’s chocolate in it and there’s no message?’” (Caird, 2016)

In fact, Cadbury told Phil Rumbol (director of marketing at Fallon, London) they were never to show the ad. Rumbol, however, persisted and 4 months later history was made.

Two

We are more microbe than human (Gorgus et al., 2016). The current estimate is that we’re about 43% human (if we were to count up all the human cells). The rest of us is made up of microbes including bacteria, viruses and fungi.

Three

Bananas contain alcohol. If your ripe banana has brown spots – then it could contain up to 0.5g/100g of alcohol. (Gorgus esq 2016)

Four

The idea for the dancing bear film created for the famous TFL awareness campaign was originally taken from a film created by Professor Daniel Simons, who was reportedly not asked for permission to use the concept nor credited for it (BikeBiz, n.d.).

Original:

TFL:

Five

The artist Joseph Turner, painter of “Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth”, tied himself to the mast of a ship during a storm to experience the full effect of the wind and sea.

“I wished to show what such a scene was like, I got the sailors to lash me to the mast to observe it, I was lashed for four hours, and I did not expect to escape, but I felt bound to record it if I did.” (Ruskin, n.d.)

Six

We’re attracted to baby animals because their eyes are out of proportion to their heads. According to Konrad Lorenz (date?), our threshold for finding things cute (the need to nurture) is lower than in most other animals because our young are born vulnerable. So any animal that reminds us of human babies – with large eyes, a snub nose – resonates with us. So, if you’re advertising, making a Disney film or building a car that’s targeting female buyers (apparently … just take a look at the VW Beetle or Mini Cooper) bear this in mind.

Seven

Cows fight for hierarchy.

“When a cow reaches puberty or joins a new herd, she fights each other cow once. If she loses, she associates that cow’s smell with pain. If she wins, she feels safe around that cow.” (Breuning, 2016, p. 75).