Day 2: Tuesday June 20th 2023

After a busy first day of the festival, the morning of day 2 started a little later. Once I was ready and had my bag packed for the day, I went to Copenhagen Coffee Lab for breakfast and a caffeine boost. It was the perfect fuel to get me going for the second day!

Talk #1: Ground and Air Workshop - Optimising the Psychology and Physiology Behind Creative Performance

  • Performance psychology

    • Building physical, mental, and emotional fitness ensures success and elite performance (no matter what the domain)

  • Flow State and Flow Cycle

    • “In flow, the human organism is functioning at its fullest capacity. When this happens, the experience is its own reward”

      • When in flow, the person is present, focused, time slows, and there is a loss of sense of self

      • This can happen in a variety of domains: running, cycling, gardening, giving a presentation at work, etc.

        • Although it is not common in professional work, it is possible

    • Macro Flow: The full flow experience; lose sense of time, time slows, outside noise is gone, not much thinking involved, just doing that activity

    • Micro Flow: Good conversation, ideas bouncing back and forth, conversation flows naturally and smoothly

    • When in flow, it was found that executives enhanced their creativity by 500%

  • 4 Stage Flow Cycle

    • 1. Struggle: Heavy learning/loading phase (i.e. solving a problem, research, generating ideas)

    • 2. Release: Taking your mind off of it (i.e. walking, gardening, nature immersion)

    • 3. Flow: In the zone (i.e. Returning to the initial activity and finding your flow)

    • 4. Recovery: Switching off and tuning out (i.e. quality sleep, good nutrition, massage)

      • It’s crucial to struggle better AND recover better

      • You should be moving from struggle to resting the mind

      • The Flow Cycle mimicks the Creative Cycle

  • Flow Blockers

    • There are numerous flow blockers out there, and unfortunately, many of them are common in our day to day lives:

      • Distractions (i.e. social media and cellphones), negative self talk, interruptions, lack of time between heavy load tasks, lack of reset time

  • The Mind

    • What you tell yourself matters (i.e. “I don’t know if I’m good enough”)

    • Negative self talk can affect your outlook and overall peformance (i.e. doubting yourself)

  • The Body

    • What you consume matters (i.e. distractions, food, conversation, music)

    • Pain (i.e. injury, fatigue, aches)

    • Stimulants (i.e. coffee, tobacco, sugar)

  • Environment

    • People around you

    • Deadlines

    • Phones + other distractions

    • Temperature

    • Lighting

  • All 3 (mind, body, environment) have an impact on your autonomic nervous system and parasympathetic nervous system

  • Maximizing Flow

    • Maximize flow in 90 minute sprints

      • For every 90 minutes of work (with no distractions or interruptions), take a recovery break for 15-30 minutes (walk, nature immersion, etc.)

    • Practicing these habits consistently everday is how you maximize

      your success and reach your highest potential

Takeaway: This was one of my favorite talks of the festival. The speakers were so into what they were teaching us that it made me excited to learn. I had only heard of the Flow State before but never knew what it was in depth, so it was amazing to hear the science behind this from experts. After this talk I was able to talk to Jim Brown, the founder of Ground and Air, and hear a bit more about the type of work he’s doing. I’ll definitely be reading up more on the Flow State and implementing their tips into my life.

Talk #2: Feed the Need for Creative Thinking Speed

  • Patterns, structure, and logic all make for efficient creativity

    • Order and structure help come up with creativity

    • 81% of Grand Prix winners use identified patterns

    • Despite the worry about AI, it’s important to remember that tech enables opportunity but it is creativity that enables value

  • Structural Fixedness

    • A cognitive bias where we can only see an object as its whole and cannot see how the object can be broken up or put together differrently

    • It is an automatic system in our mind that hinders creativity

    • In order to be more creative and think of new ways to use something, we must override the automatic systems of our mind

  • Functional Fixedness

    • A cognitive bias that does not allow us to see an object’s use in a different way than it is typically used

  • Creativity

    • We need to tell the mind how to think rather than waiting for an idea to arise

    • Creativity requires seeing things that aren’t there

  • New tasking

    • Assign a new task to an existing resource in a system, or which is in contact with the system, which is not expected to be performed by that resource and which helps illustrate the brand idea (i.e. Glade - Scent by Glade; Heinz Hidden Spots)

    • So, don’t give into intuitive thinking when trying to come up with a new function for something that ALREADY exists

      • Instead…”Restricted Universe:” Use what is already there in a new unexpected way

        • Break down components of something that already exists and think of a new.unexpected purpose

        • Don’t add another task, we only want what’s there and to “repurpose” the function of an item/feature

    • A system can be: media / platform / device; product / service / brand / process; world of consumer; other brands / competition; POS / event

    • Tip: List it to crack it! (bottom up) OR List it to crack it! (top down)

    • Tip: Consider combining tasks of resources which have associative visual similarities

  • Replication

    • Idea: Replicate an existing common practice / solution/ feature addressing a specific situation / challenge in one content world onto…an unexpected new content world facing a similar situation / challenge

    • 2 types:

      • Import: from another content world

      • Export: to another content world

    • Biomimicry: inspire and learn from nature

    • Tip: Consider importing / exporting from / to another category (i.e. replicating (export) temporary shelter (physical world) onto a website (digital system)

      • Digital -> Physical

      • Virtual <- Tangible

Takeaway: This was one of my favorite talks of the week. Ravid Kuperberg was incredibly passionate about what he was talking about and I was immediately engaged. I enjoyed him explaining some of the psychology behind the creative blocks we sometimes experience because it not only validated some of my own frustrations, but provided concrete ways to work around these mental barriers. It was also inspiring to know that so many of the techniques he was talking about were being used actively by Cannes Gold and Grand Prix winners. He broke everything down by definition and function, and I appreciated that he provided so many examples to go along with what he was saying. Since so much of the material he was presenting was new to me, seeing them be used in the real world and in the advertising industry solidified what he was saying. After this talk I will definitely be using these techniques to better improve how I tackle creative challenges in my own work.

Talk #3: What I’ve Learnt - Accenture Song, adam&eveDDB, and Weber Shandwick

  • Ariana Lopez

    • Was put down because of her strong hispanic accent, told that she wouldn’t make it far because no one could understand her

    • She didn’t let that stop her though, she made it far in the industry and is still doing great things to this day

    • Ariana believes in the power of being different and that different is beautiful

    • Her lessons:

      • For work to work, brand love must translate into business growth

      • Brand love is essential, but not enough

      • Our job is to help the world of business go round

      • Give another look at what may sound ridiculous at first

      • Lead with your accent, or in other words, the thing that makes you unique and different from the rest

  • Richard Brim

    • Feeling is one of the most powerful and important tools we possess. Go into a project and ask “what do we want people to feel?”

    • Feeling is what AI doesn’t have, and that is our superpower

  • Tom Beckman

    • Content is king, Context is King Kong

    • Creativity is rebellion

    • Our job is to look at the seed and see the flower

    • Déjà vu -> Vuja De (to experience something familiar as if it were strange and unknown)

    • Retrofitting: the addition of new technology or features to older systems

      • It’s the only way to live, and to do branding

Takeaway: I enjoyed the variety of the speakers and what they were saying. Even though they were all talking about creativity, it was refreshing to hear how each of them excelled in the industry using different techniques and their own uniqueness. All of what they shared was vastly different from one another yet all came together at the end to create a toolkit for creatives and advertisers. After this talk I left with so many tools and outlooks that can be applied to all different kinds of work. It helped me to see that rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, using my own unique capabilties partnered with well-known advertising principles can be the foundation to great success.

Talk #4: Havas Cafe Talk

  • The talk began with the panel discussing their past work as a company

  • Each speaker then went around and shared wisdom that they would tell their younger selves:

    • People over projects; The relationships you make in the industry are more important than

      the work itself

    • Never stop asking questions and being curious

    • Be patient and keep working because eventually you will find your place and your people

  • Later, they discussed their new Dr. Rick for Progressive campaign

    • I really enjoyed hearing their thought-process behind this campaign because while it is a new direction for the company, it still stays true to their comedic and light-hearted roots

    • It will be interesting to see how Progressive, once commonly associated with Flo, now will be seen with their difference character Dr. Rick

    • I hope in the future there will be a collaboration or something done where we see Flo and Dr. Rick together!

  • At the end of the talk, students were able to ask the speakers questions ranging from career advice to what their person favorite campaigns were

Takeaway: This was one of the first talks that I saw outside of the main center and it was nice to be in such an intimate setting. We got to sit near some of the top people at Havas and hear their journey from a young person trying to find their footing to who they are today. I found it inspiring to hear where they started and the advice they’d give their younger selves. I had a great time hearing from some of the minds at Havas and appreciated all their advice for being a young person getting started in the industry.

Talk #5: F*CK AI, Let’s Go Analog with David Shing

  • Simplicity is the key to great ideas - start simple so you can get big

  • Pencil and paper will always be king - sketch, sketch, sketch! Put your ideas on paper before you start putting them in digitally

  • We don’t need to be afraid of AI

    • AI will not take creative’s jobs - it needs creative minds to make it function!

    • Creatives have the power, we just have to remember that especially in the midst of AI madness

    • Learn what your creative niche/skill is, harness it, and then learn how AI can help you evolve that skill

  • The power of Mind Mapping - it allows you to illustrate your ideas in simple ways so you can get to solutions faster

Takeaway: This talk was an absolute whirlwind but in the best way possible. Instead of talking at us, David Shing talked to us. He immediately started engaging with the crowd by asking questions and getting their thoughts on the future of the creative industry. He was blunt, unapologetic, and entirely himself which was so refreshing to see. He cursed a lot and spoke 100% from the heart. David then talked about the foundations of design and the importance of working with pencil and paper to come up with ideas. After some time, he then asked us to complete a mind exercise and then showed us how he would approach it. One of my favorite parts of the talk was when he had us pass our papers to the person next to us, and then have us complete the drawing they started. It felt great to connect with a complete stranger over something as simple as a drawing they started and we finished. I loved seeing how the person I handed my paper to finished my drawing because it shows just how different all our thought processes are, yet how valuable they are to creating new and exciting ideas. This talk, personally, really helped to quell some of my fears with AI and it taking over the creative industry. It reminded me that creativity has to come from us, the creatives, and then we input those ideas into the system. It also reignited my passion for analog design and using simple tools like pen, paper, colored pencils, etc to execute an idea.