Creative Legacy 1 reviewed
Creative Legacy 1 reviewed
By Admin I: This week was indeed a very busy week for all design and advertising enthusiasts with an exciting event taking place in major Lebanese universities: Creative Legacy… Pass it on.
This 4 days event is simply a forum for creative advertising minds to meet with the field’s students in a casual interview hosted by the one and only Farid Chehab (co-founder, and currently Chairman of MENA and CCO of CEEMEA of Leo Burnett) asking a series of questions that is smartly chosen to be basic and somehow “conventional” which reveals the true abilities of the interviewees and their “going out of the box” potentials.
To be honest, I only attended 3 interviews:
Areej Mahmoud(Creative Director, Leo Burnett) Mo Al Ghossein (Creative Director/Partner, Interesting Times) Jimmy Francis (Creative Director/Partner, Interesting Times) and Ramsey Naja (Chief Creative Officer, JWT).
Being biased to Leo Burnett’s quality of work in general, the edits played showed a high level of work to students that might not be well exposed to advertising, the engagement was built little by little, yet Areej’s interaction with the questions was formal and perfectionist, with one very ironic answer revealing that he cannot name a bad campaign not done by Clementine “high five bro!” The whole talk was totally rebutted my the next interview where the “Interesting times” team proved a high level of spontaneity, being very cynical answering the “idealistic” questions by Mr. Chehab. The crowd felt engaged, and answers were more “true” in terms of today’s challenges facing hypocrisy in advertising, the talk was more like “99 francs” by Frederic Beigbeder, after having a moment of “Advertising principles” by Leo Burnett.. Two very diverging approaches, both working for two separate audiences.
The second day started with Ramsey Naja, and let me tell you, the talk was interesting as content, with too much sugar in the tea, a Nobel prize and an advertising perspective that can be read in any related book. Mr. Naja was maybe very excited to inject some of his ideas into young minds, but the talk came too perfect, too ideal; believe me guys, we all know that all multinationals are “Devil wears Prada / Ugly Betty” on loop, with no polishing potentials, so let’s not fool anyone..
In the end, we would like to sincerely thank whoever contributed in that event, making it the talk of the town and a fruitful platform for all of us.
A side note:
Audiences come to such events to know “what’s beyond”, to discover a long journey of creative work, and to be exposed to a realistic perspective on advertising. Let us be more honest, and feature free minded people from all sectors next time, let it be less preachy, waaay less preachy, simply because the majority of this field’s practitioners fail to practice what they preach.
Until the next “Nobel prize” session, Oh I mean Creative Legacy session!
hello guys, loved the post. I have actually had a run in with all 3 above. Areej at my jury; harsh but to the point I wouldve pinned him to be more of a realist . Ramzi & Interesting times crew at an internship at JWT. and yes the guys are fun and spontaneous Jimmy’s only words spoken to me were “kid drop out of college & go make money” so YeH. Anyway im drifting i really juts wanted to thank u on the post & Suggest if you guys can have a section where you list all the design advert events (like a calender) that you think would be interesting to attend , would be super kool & much appreciated. best.
Thanks lili, the calender’s idea is super amazing, we might actually adopt it in a special monthly post or even a page.. we’ll see.. we’d suggest some of the events that interest us, not too cliche’ and not too pretentious since the Lebanese arts and design scene can be very diverse* .. loved your comment!! thanks