David Droga, the man with more Cannes Lions to his name than any other creative (or agency), finally arrived in Manila. By his own admission, he was seven months late, having backed out of the Kidlat Awards last March.
But last September 11, he appeared before an audience of 400 at the Asian Institute of Management. He quietly dazzled them with the work of his eponymous Droga5 and with a few bon mots in between.
“I want to work for brands I believe in and do work that is less disposable.”
Ad people think of themselves as storytellers, but Droga believes the day that stories have a start and a finish within a 30-second spot is over. From Droga5’s campaign for Million, a school program that rewards good grades with cellphones, to The Great Schlep, the Florida-centric movement for Obama, his team strives for ideas that can be spread around the Internet, creates movement, as opposed to being disposable and disappearing the minute the media budget runs out.
“Think of an idea first before the execution.”
Whoever has ever been subjected to the creative ideation torture known as The 40 Boxes can lay the blame squarely on Droga. In his defense, he believes that a great idea can easily be recognized even from a list of scribbled paragraphs, as it did when they were brainstorming for Puma Underwear. Moreover, thinking outside of the context of execution leads to ideas than can be used in any number of great executions, like the Tap Project.
“Sometimes the most obvious things are the most creative…and restraint is a good virtue.”
Still on the subject of The Tap Project, he makes a case for the simplest, most straightforward ideas. He reminds creatives that in the drive to very clever, what is right under their noses is often overlooked.
“I’m a big believer in not having an agency style.”
When Droga5 created the Air Force One hoax, it worked very well for graffiti artist Marc Ecko. Usually an agency does some iconic work and every client then says, “I like what you did with X. Can you do that for us?” Eventually, Droga says, the agency ends up giving everyone else fake versions of another client’s DNA. Not a good idea.
“We wanted to be witty from the neck up, not from the neck down.”
While all of the campaigns he shared with the audience were very smart and on the money, the women in the audience disagreed with him on this one. After his talk, they cajoled him into taking off his shirt, to wear a Team Manila tee presented by The Creative Guild.
Needless to say, after all the mind candy he had dished, his Filipino fans wanted a little eye candy, too.
