All the tutors agreed that this was a vintage year for the AIA Diploma – due of course to the talents and hard work of our students. But there was one thing that really made a difference this year – a great client.
During the Diploma students work on a live brief – and at the end they present their insights and ideas. This year we were lucky to have Hemma Gooljar (in the centre of the pic’ in pink) of Smartworks– a great and highly relevant charity that helps women get back to work. It offers free interview appropriate clothing and interview preparation for women who are out of work or on zero hours contracts.
The brief was to develop a plan to launch the new Bristol office for a small budget.
What Hemma did was to make it possible for all the students to visit a Smartworks office, meet the people who volunteer and hear the stories of the women whose lives are transformed by that vital boost of self-confidence required to win a new job ( many had applied for as much as 30 jobs without getting shortlisted- that’s gotta grind you down!)
This was no mean logistical exercise – it requires effort to organise such an experience for a large number of people. Often this doesn’t happen on projects – too difficult, too time consuming, too busy
But, thanks to Hemma, boy did it pay off. Most of the students made the visit and it shined through in their ideas and the conviction with which they presented.
The timeless lesson for strategists is this:
Get out of the office. Nothing quite beats the live experience of a product or service as well as its customers and the people who work for the brand. You nearly always learn something that you could not get from looking at a screen or just reading a report. The live experience is also the essential stimulus which triggers an idea that feels right for the brand.
If you look at any outstanding work the unsung hero behind it will nearly always client who made it possible.
Some things don’t change – but they can get forgotten in our world of private screens and messages
joinedupthink 