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Cracking talk last night by Sir John Hegarty. The theme was '10 reasons why now is the best time to be in advertising'. Here's the 10:

1. Technology is the liberation of creativity - Oasis album launch

2. Agencies can create media opportunities - Audi TV

3. Agencies can create programming - Axe GameKillers

4. Agencies creativity can be the media - Smirnoff Tea Partay

Budgets, use them wisely. BBH put it all into production rather than media and launched it on YouTube. It went massive.

5. Agencies can persuade clients to be brave - XBOX

BBH found a way of getting clients to buy risky work. In this instance he showed us the XBOX ad. Basically he said it would have been hard to convince the client to go with this straight from a script. So, within production budget, they made 4 different ads - put them on the interweb and monitored the publics reaction to the ads. Client could see which ad was working best and then that ad gets broadcast on TV. Brilliant.

6. Agencies can tackle growing social issues - Banardos

“The largest advertiser in the UK is not a brand; it’s the British Government. In advertising, we have a fantastic opportunity to change habits, solve social problems, and influence mindsets.”

7. Technology has always been a spur to creativity, now more than ever. MySpace
see all about it here http://bbh-labs.com/a-kind-of-magic-myspace-music-fan-video

8. Agencies can expand their influence with clients.

It's no longer a TV ad, press and radio. There was an Audi R8 spider diagram that went something like this:

Internal comms

Product placement

Factory TV

Interactive TV

Online

Outdoor

Press

TV

Microsite

Web banners

Magazine PR

9. Agencies can make products.
BBH have a something called Brand Lag where they look for gaps in the market and make products. For example, walking a dog at night is time when women feel uneasy. Enter the ila LEASH, a dog lead with a built-in flashlight and a piercing 130dB alarm at the ready.

10. Agencies can use the recession to be more creative

I think was the 10th - you can imagine what was said.

So finally, what a great evening. Insightful, inspiring and nice to see a bloke, who probably has more in has wallet than I have in my bank account, who's created some of the most memorable ads of all time, is running one of the most successful agencies of all time, be so down to earth - there's a few people who could learn from this approach. Summed up in his response to a question from the audience:

Audience member "John, would you hire a 44 year old who wanted to be a creative?"

Sir John "I'd hire a farting dog as long as it was good"