Tony on Digital

When I went to my Watford interview Tony said 'most digital ideas I see are shit'.

He said that if an idea works in traditional, it will work in digital. Don't start with the medium, start with the idea. That's something Dave Trott's said before, and I fully agree.

But does that mean you shouldn't shape the idea to the kind of media that's being used?

What about CP+B's 'Sacrifice a friend', Forsman & Bodenfors 'Ikea Facebook Showroom', or even Nitro's 'Best Job in the World'? These are all campaigns where the medium was central to the idea and its success.

If want a place on the course, I suppose I'd best learn what Tony wants first and deliver that.

After all, he knows his stuff.

In passing, he mentioned the recent 'Rage against the X-Factor' campaigning.

He said 'is it going to win any awards? No. Is it going to create a lot of publicity? Yes, probably.'

I think his point was that he doesn't want to see ideas which depend on the medium doing all the hard work. Especially not in your book.

There's no idea behind the Rage campaign bar 'sticking it to the man'. Nor is it the kind of campaign you can sit down and write in a room somewhere, expecting people to get on board. When this kind of thing happens, it just happens... it's highly unpredictable.