COMPUTERARTS.CREATIVEBLOQ.COM- were seamlessly woven into a genuinely uplifting
narrative concerning sport.
Subsequent campaigns adapted the concept to
explore mental strength in the face of adversity and
fear (‘It takes someone strong to make someone
strong’, Rio 2016) and acceptance in the face of
prejudice and persecutive (‘Imagine if the world
could see what a mum sees’, PyeongChang 2018).
Inspiration can strike at any time and according
to Arnold, more often than not this will happen
when you’re more relaxed, rather than straining to
find a breakthrough sat at your desk. “Making a cup
of tea is good. Your brain is like a computer: when
you stop programming it, it carries on working,”
she believes.
“And don’t go to the internet for ideas,” urges
Arnold. “You’ll get sucked down a rabbit hole, and
because you’re specifically looking for stuff, you’ll
end up with tunnel vision.” She reveals that her
best ideas often come following a trip out of the
office – bookshops in particular.
“I love the photography section, and especially
the illustrations in kids’ books. They’re fabulous,
very simple. Flicking through stuff that might
have absolutely no relevance to what you were
doing helps you think outside the box. It’s a
randomisation idea process, rather than selecting
snuffling for truffles, if you enjoy the process and
you unearth the reward.”
“Brilliant ideas are tenacious. They hang
around and refuse to be squished down,” agrees
Baxter. “When you spot a great idea lurking
amongst the doodles in a notebook or sketchpad,
you generally feel that initial lurch of excitement.
You may well move on to other ideas through your
design process, but you return to the good ones –
or they return to you.”
Hoffman gives the example of W+K’s long-
running Olympics campaign for P&G, not on
the face of it an easy brand to link with sporting
achievement. The solution was beautifully simple:
behind every world-class athlete is a mum who
believes in them, and has brought them up for
greatness. “It was the most relevant, authentic
angle,” she says.
With the tagline ‘For teaching us that falling
only makes us stronger’, the initial campaign
for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics tracked
several athletes’ journeys from early childhood
to Olympic glory, their mums always there to
pick them up whenever they fall. P&G, in turn,
was the ‘Proud sponsor of mums’. All of a sudden
FMCG products such as nappies, detergent and
shampoo – the everyday ingredients of growing upSPECIAL REPORT SEPTEMBER 2019
“STRIP IT BACK AND
THINK: HOW IS THIS
IDEA THE BEST IT
POSSIBLY CAN BE?”
ROSIE ARNOLD CONSULTANT
Above For P&G’s
Olympics
sponsorship
campaign, W+K
had the genius
idea to make the
athletes’ mums the
stars across a
whole series of
inspiring and
uplifting ads.