AQA: Have a bottom drawer.

dave dye

10 years ago

As a rule, I like campaigns that can only be used for the client they were written for.
Take ‘Compare The Meerkat’, if that client doesn’t buy it you chuck it in the bin.
It’s a good test of whether it’s own-able.
If you can swap the logos for competitors and it works just as well, generally that’s a bad sign.
But, not everyone has something unique to shout about.
Sometimes you find yourself on the same brief for different clients,
sometimes exactly the same brief but in a completely different category.

THE ECONOMIST.
I had whilst working on The Economist at AMV/BBDO that was just perfect for them;
The Economist gives you knowledge > the knowledgeable have less questions > The Economist are making the question mark extinct.But I could never quite put it over in a way I was happy with, it always seemed a bit too basic, and as clever was almost a mandatory on an The Economist brief.

ASK JEEVES.
Cut to a couple of years later, Ask Jeeves came to talk to us at CDD.
They were a search engine, I presume the name came from the idea that you type in what you’re looking for and Jeeves goes to fetch it.
We had a thought that was just perfect for them; Ask Jeeves a question and he’ll answer it, he’s basically making the question mark extinct.
Jeeves could literally go around killing question marks.

True, he’d have to run around committing murders left, right and centre, not exactly on brand, but ironically it might make him more likeable, stop him being such an unctuous little twat.
For a start, he could kill one on the homepage in a new way every day. He could be seen fleeing from the murder scene on posters.

The idea came together really well, so we got a fancy illustrator to do some fancy roughs to present at the pitch.
It turned out the Ask Jeeves bods weren’t keen to turn their brand icon into a murderer. Weird?

BBC.
Sx months later, the BBC asked for some trailers for BBC Learning.
BBC Learning? What to do? What to do?
Bingo! We had a thought that was just perfect for them; Learning = knowledge, becoming knowledgable means asking less questions, making the question mark extinct.
Bingo!
Draw it up!

They liked it.
While they were liking it their budget was pulled.
Flip.

AQA.
Another six months or so go by, we have a chemistry meeting with two tech chaps, they tell us about their new ‘‘It’s for mobile phones, text any question you like to 63336 and you’ll have an answer in minutes, it’s called ‘AQA’, it stands for ‘Any Questions Answered.’’
THANK YOU GOD!
service, turnup Primrose Hill to ask us whether we’d produce some advertising for them in exchange for some equity. (A tiny, weeny, little bit of equity.)
THANK YOU GOD!
First, they needed a logo.It was rejected in favour of an inferior idea that will pop up shortly.

ADVERTISING.
Ironically, considering we had a campaign reading and sitting in a drawer just waiting to be used, we ignored it.The logo and ads were rejected.
I didn’t mind the ads being rejected but thought the logo was strong.
Certainly better than where we all ended up.
We thought the advertising stripped back, minimal clean, minimal and would jump out from the clutter of newspapers, they thought it was boring.

We go again, let’s have another look in that bottom drawer.
Surely this is just perfect for them; Their whole business is answering questions, they are literally making the question mark extinct.
We delicately removed Jeeves from the executions.

ILLUSTRATOR.

We then set about thinking up some new executions.
Now that Jeeves had been ditched we restricted ourselves to only two scenarios; the murder or the disposal of the body/question mark.
This new found freedom was great, for a start they needn’t all be murders, the culprit could be Mother Nature.
They could also be a bit more esoteric:

They could be post death set ups.

We presented them.
‘Don’t get it?’

‘Too violent.’ (But it’s a sodding question mark!)

‘Don’t get it?’

‘Don’t get it?’

‘Er…?’

‘Too depressing.’ (But it’s a sodding question mark!)

‘Don’t get it?’

APPROVED.
We started with the campaign with the ideas that were easiest to get.

Then they got a bit cleverer.

You had to think about them a bit more, but when you got it, it was rewarding. A bit.
Take this one, inspired, or robbed, depending on your point of view, from a scene from a film ‘Kentucky Fried Movie’, where a white man is dropped into a ghetto, I think it was Harlem?
Here’s the first rough.
Client: ‘What’s with the blood…and RATS? Bit scary.’
(But it’s a sodding question mark!)
Final version. (As you can see, we cleaned up the ghetto.)