Interview with Kate Allsop, Creative at Grey London. Kate has worked on many major TV Ad productions, print and all other advertising collateral. She has influenced and worked on projects such as Dove 'Real Women', and worked on briefs for Procter & Gamble, GSK and Nomad (Birds-Eye). Kate thrives on the constraints of the brief, rather than a broader university led work she was producing at the time.
Grey have an 'open door' culture, whilst retaining desks of designers to make the ideas come to life.
Q: “How did you get into what you’re doing at the minute?”
Graphics at Leeds Met, naturally progressed into Advertising despite not knowing much about it. In her 3rd year D&AD ran a regional workshop for 6 weeks* giving her the brief-led work desirable from clients. “Fell into it with friend Jo she met on the course”.
*You had to submit a brief to get a place on the course, once she was on they were then split into 10 groups responding to briefs and taking their work to different design agencies in the counties. You presented the work, the Creative Director then critiqued and by the end of it she had a portfolio.
By showing off work it naturally improved, and by visiting each place she gathered an understanding of what she does like and what she has less interest in.
After the D&AD course it was then onto placements in Advertising. Kate and Jo got attracted by “the bright lights of London”.
“Trying to get a job in advertising is like trying to park a car in London. You just have to wait long enough and be patient enough for a parking space to open up”
“Go around the places, show them your book (portfolio), do the crits and be patient”.. its not cheap to live in London, its really hard
Q: “I heard you don’t really get paid for ideas anymore, what do you think about that?”
Younger people are way more mac litterate, hence why they get given the jobs. Kate will mock it up traditionally and find references, yet will need a designer (with mac skills) to do it for her.
Q: “Whats your role within Grey?”
I’m a creative, I work on a team and i’m Creative Director on Braun Business. Creative teams come to her with the idea’s and she guides them along and refines it all down.
At the min she;s working on a captan birds-eye script, in a physical script sense. Once the words are down in numerous different ways for a range of idea’s, the visuals then follow. It takes a long time for a TV script to be chosen or accepted by the company, then when those scripts are finalised you make an animatic, a cartoon version of the ad. Then that goes into rigorous testing (especially with a company the scale of Birds Eye”.
They want to make everything justified and throughly researched prior to producing anything. For Birds-eye for example, its being put out all over the world so has to work for different cultures and a variety of target markets. Its currently in testing, if it passes testing then we’ll make it.
Q: “What is the industry way to go about executing something this large and thought out?”
Generally theres a team of directors (about 3 at least). You talk to them about your idea’s and collaboratively discuss routes to go down. Then the directors will go away and make a ‘treatment’, which is essentially how it will be brought to life. This will include location/studio, what lights, what photographers, references and external research etc etc- one document to bring an idea to life. Often these idea’s differ from yours.
Once the favourite is picked, you are then constantly communicating with the director, and together you’ll go off and shoot it. The directors in charge, but your ideas to protect the idea.
That often says saying no to people, a lot of pressure on you as there is so much money at stake.
Q: “Tell me about the process of creating the Dove campaign”
We shot with David Bailey for Dove when we were just starting out, working on the ‘real women’ campaign where no airbrushing or re-touching would be used. We wanted to shoot real women as they are, really classy simple shots. In the day it was groundbreaking, the beauty industry almost demanded everything to be airbrushed. When we did the Dove campaign, David Bailey got involved and everyone knew it was revolutionary, probably why so many big names got involved. “Everyone who was working on it knew it was a moment in history, thats why we got the higher caliber of people” It was empowering to women and rewarding to me personally, it felt like we were part of the movement rather than the problem. It all started as a little script on a word document, and then the daunting reigns in and you realise that everyone is there because of you. “Not just the camera man, but tea/coffee outlets, medics, lighting teams, huge teams of people for every sector when it comes to TV”.
<Started talking about Fat Cats campaign, featuring Richard Brandson, Simon Cowell etc>
Working on the print collateral is different yet again, starts off life as a marker pen drawing to show to the client. Its essential to always take at least 3 idea’s to present so if one doesn’t go down well, you always have back ups. After getting the go-ahead from an idea’s point of view, you then select a photographer and go on the shoot, basically directing the photographer. Then you do re-touching/digital editing and layout which is another part of the job.
Then you might do a radio ad where you go into a recording studio, perhaps with a celebrity voice over showing how much your days can change. Job is ridiculously varied. Clients want to cover all basis, they want the TV ad, then the article in the press, then the poster. Then they might want social media collatoral, or an app.
Q: ‘How long would you say a campaign takes to put together, from the very initial idea’s generations - right up to being aired?”
A year.
Q: “Who is involved in the execution of an idea?”
There will be a whole creative team, 3 creatives, someone dealing with accounts and a planner.
Planners deal with strategy and research, the accountant has the relationship with the client and handles budgets etc.
Q: “What do you feel about the ethics of advertising at the minuet?”
Its nice to work for a company where they value advertising for good, for D&AD they introduced the white pencil for making a difference in the world. There is a lot of crap out there, making you buy crap you don’t want. Its nice to have a choice, working for Grey gives that choice. You have a lot of power to influence society and culture and even consumption levels, if we can do it responsibly and harness the power in a good way, it can be incredibly beneficial. You can get people to change some behaviour for good- she mentioned the Volvo mission “to reduce accidents on the road. No accident will happen in a volvo car”. To solve this problem practically, they produced a spray paint for cyclists making them visible too. In the right hands you can do good with it. You have a moral responsibility, even creating a bad advert (all “buy now buy now!”) takes time, so why waste your time and energy doing something rubbish? Either entertain people or to do good.
You can make advertising useful and use it in many different ways, such as it helping the consumer physically, eg: Turning into an umbrella.
We then discussed the American Bank campaign, where the posters doubled up as a seat and a rain shelter. Theres ways you can not just pollute the environment with bad adverts which and try and change the world to do something good. Often companies have a charity they work with (for free) to counteract some of the negative messages (if applicable) which is also really powerful.
Q: ‘Do you feel that your role in advertising so far has immured a positive social message?”
We did the advertising for WWF Save the Elephants, all about the ivory trade. It is incredibly powerful, burning ivory tusks on the beach for the globe to see. By working in advertising you have the potential to change the world and if you can change government policy then its a huge responsibility.
Q: “How aware do you feel consumers are about the decisions being made by creatives?”
“On what level do you think the general public are aware of adaptations of Typography when engaging with an Ad?
I don’t think they care about it- or are aware at all. If you’re not interested in that world, you just take on information. If something looks beautiful then people are more often to keep it and engage with it further- rather than being a nasty leaflet for example which gets binned instantly.
Q: “Do you feel typography will ever have the same power as visuality?”
Not unless the type was inherently visible, such as a large piece of type for instance. But even then, its often the physical message being said- rather than the font used. We did a font here called Eco-Ryman, specifically designed to use less ink. All through thinner stroke weights and tighter kerning- that was just an idea generated here, which we were able to produce and is now available for anyone to buy. It shows how a font can make a big difference.
Q: “How often do you get the chance to engage with projects like Rymans?”
I didn't have anything to do with that- but we work on everything. I’m working on a social responsibility piece for GSK which is rewarding. Theres always things which make you feel good, I definitely value social responsibility.
As long as you don’t pollute the world with bad advertising, you’re not fulfilling your responsibility. You either have to do something beautiful, entertaining or contributing a positive message to society. If you can do good, do good. If you can’t, make it funny or beautiful.
Q: “When you’re problem solving in a professional capacity, how many idea’s do you normally come up with to pitch?”
Normally you go with 3 routes- the client also likes to see a choice. You don’t just go with one idea, people like a choice rather than feeling backed into a corner.
Q: “Influencing human behaviour sounds like a big job- do you have anybody that looks into the psychology of how consumers ‘read’ what you’re putting out there?”
I’m sure there are- planners get all the statistics from research provided by external companies. They do the research into the target markets, knowing what is popular and what is not. To do this job you have to be naturally switched on in knowing how people tick, not everything has to be backed up with statistics etc. You may have to think like a denture wearer to write an ad for a denture wearer, you definitely have to put yourself in different persona’s to do the job.
Q: “Would you say that writing is a big part of your job?”
I’d say it started more design than art direction, potentially its the current briefs I'm working on which requires a lot of writing. I’m doing a lot of TV scripts so you have to consider the voice over, background actors etc, where as if I was working on a nice little print campaign, I would be working a lot more collaboratively with photographers etc. Theres never the same job twice, you are definitely required to have lots of different skills- hence the job title ‘creative’. Traditionally you were an art director or a copywriter- we like doing both.
Q: “How would you go about getting into more of a Fashion/Art direction side?”
You just kind of learn it on the job- just get into an agency and you collaborate with some brilliant people.
Q: “Would you say that Grey take on a lot of modernist values, being progressive and for a social mission?”
Yeah I’d say so, we’re very progressive and we all care about the right issues. We care about current topics, such as women etc.
Q: “I’ve heard that advertising is notoriously a male dominated culture, do you think that is still the case?”
I do- I look around and you can fit the woman in the industry in one room, whereas you could fill a tower block of men. I feel like it is definitely getting better.
It was raised that often woman want a job that doesn’t require getting down and dirty sleeping on peoples floors and eating pot noodles during placements. Perhaps women just have a higher level of self respect and don’t want to slum it anymore- especially after completing a 3 year degree and potential foundation year.
Q: “What placements did you do?”
Well I put my brothers address down because he lived in London, so they didn’t think I was too far away. I feel that everything is still slightly London based, especially when it comes to advertising. The concentration is still London. I do feel that Leeds and Manchester don’t really have the ties with the advertising agencies down south. Often people who get seen and have the opportunity to be involved in crit’s are kind of feeder universities, such as Buckinghamshire, Foulmouth etc- still all very southernly based. Often people who have studied at these universities end up working for us or working in advertising, hence how those ties are made. There is still a North /South devide- there is a barrier- you can’t just nip between the two (but actually you can).
Kate was really interested in what I was doing, and asked me what direction I was thinking about going in. We’d previously discussed how I didn’t feel like advertising was for me.
“You can have a great idea but if you don’t put it out there- you won’t do anything”
Q: “I’m confused on what direction to take, especially with regards to getting into the Fashion Communication?”
I don't really know anybody in fashion- you just have to do placements hopefully. Thats the foot in the door, you have to be keen and useful, its about being hungry. I know it sounds devaluing by working for peanuts but its so competitive, you have to please them in whatever way you can. Its such a glamorous world, theres always the pit falls.
After asking to see some work, and looking through my portfolio she asked if I would ever be interested in being a photographer- something I hadn’t gave any thought to.
Q: “With the dominance of social media as a form of self promotion, how did you go about getting your work out there?
It was all books, sending our books out to people. Some people have a digital book to introduce ourselves, but with a physical book you have the flexibility to thumb things or change things around- or even rip pages out. When its all polished and digital there is less possibility for engagement.
Q: “How do you think the consumer response differs from digital design to physical tangible design- eg: Large scale type in the middle of a street, compared to a pop up on a website?”
There has definitely been a drop off of print ads- Its slowly fading out. A quick turn around with digital. It is dying out in a touchy fleely sense- look at Instagram. Its essentially an art gallery. Its basically print just not touchy feely.. its not “dead” but it is dying.
Q: “How would you say the industry measures success?”
Awards. All awards. We won a Canne Gold award for the Fat Cats campaign, which is what everyone aims for. Cannes and D&AD are still dominant.
Q: “When you were in my position and bit lost of what to do, what did you do?”
The D&AD Course saved my life. I was very lost. You learn on the job, but if it wasn’t for D&AD then I wouldn’t of done the placements and be here now.
Q: “So, is a degree even needed anymore?”
Here they’re trying to get away from that, its about aw talent and passion. It can be harnessed on the job, it seems like a crime to get into all that debt. There is little diversity too as it is about of rich kids playground, you’re going to need parents helping you so you get the same type of person- its not very diverse. The whole industry is trying to bring more diverse.
Kate: Is being a stylist an area for you?
We work with photographers, they always have stylist that comes along and helps them. You hire the photographer and they have a team of stylists that makes it look good.
Often photographers and illustrators come and show us their portfolios because they want to use them for a next campaign- the things that you’re showing me is not too dissimilar to things photographers and illustrators bring.
You need to try some things before you settle on a career, especially your generation. There is no such thing as a job for life anymore, and thats exciting.
Q: “What do you think the importance of freelance is?”
I never did freelance. Its the same as placements, just a foot in the door. You don’t want to get the first job, you need to network with people and meet people and figure out what is best for you.
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Kate said it was okay for me to keep in touch, and said she could hopefully point me in the direction of more useful people. On the day I visited Grey, I also wanted to visit Harlequinn Studio's- a visual merchandising specialist, however time restrictions meant the meeting fell through.
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