Make Work for the Moment, Says Helen Weisinger

How would you describe and reflect on 2015 for the industry, creatively speaking?

It’s been great to see such positive movement with brands and organisations finally standing up for diversity on many levels, gender, ethnography and education. From great advertising with Sport England’s This Girl Can, celebrating active women, no matter what they look like – to The Great British Diversity Experiment, cultivating diverse workforces, different races, backgrounds, ages and sex to develop richer work – as well as of course WACL, to which I am a proud member, supporting, inspiring and encouraging women in the industry to speak up.

Lots of talk about programmatic and is it the death knell for creativity? As Felix Morgan, an innovator at Brave said, programmatic will fan the flames of creativity but people will always remain the creative spark.

Finally, watching how businesses responded to the hacking scandals (think Ashley Madison and TalkTalk) and how brands recover from the organisational backlash that ensued (shame on you, Volkswagen). Don’t forget, with radical connectivity goes radical transparency.

What about your company’s creative performance; how much do you think you’ve grown this year?

We’ve not just grown this year, we have catapulted. Big up our very own HeyHuman female creative director, Shnoosee Bailey. Our work has not just sharpened under her leadership, but our creative output means that we sell to women (and men) in a way that people want – our Slimfast and Dove work prime examples.

Additionally, building on the extensive work we've done in the area of neuroscience; we've now developed a Brain Friendly Guide. Why? Well, with an abundance of messaging but a poverty of attention, we believe that the creative rules and triggers have changed. So our guide (which incidentally all our planners and creative teams are trained in) helps us develop creative work for our brands that is neuro optimised.

Meanwhile, Brave has produced an awesome, industry-leading creative tool, The Bravery Index. It’s a biometric tool that measures consumers’ real reaction to creative work by providing a rich understanding of the emotional effectiveness of the content. Ultimately, it helps our clients make brave decisions because we de-risk the creative and commercial decision-making process.

What has your own best personal achievement been in the past 12 months and why?

The seismic shift from Hey Who to HeyHuman. 

I am so proud of what we've achieved in getting our brand known - from speaking about neuroscience at Ad Week, Cannes, SXSW and Social Media Week (to name a few) - to articles in The Guardian and Bloomberg - to my personal favourite, an article in Forbes with Dan Machen, our Director of Innovation – thanks again Bruce Rogers, chief insights officer at Forbes.

Wearing my WACL hat, hosting a debate at the House of Commons, with my co-chair Karen Fraser, from the Advertising Association. It was titled A Woman’s Place? The Portrayal of Women in Advertisements and we debated the motion that advertising lags behind reality. The motion concluded in favour.

Finally a personal one, hosting an intimate dinner for my dad and a bunch of his octogenarian mates to celebrate his 80th birthday with the legendary Stephen Jones, Welsh fly half.  My dad is a man who has loved Welsh rugby since God was a boy - and to use his words "I will take that memory to my urn".

And looking ahead to 2016, what are you most excited about in terms of the industry and advertising?

We work with International clients such as Dove and Sony for whom we bring neuroscience to life in our work not just as a theory and a science, but make it actually a practical discipline so that clients get to see the benefit. We are very excited to continue doing this in the next year.

It’s good to see the industry finally catching up on neuroscience. We will continue to lead the charge as we have done on this for the last two years. Watch out for the book!

Give us an example of a strategy/approach from a brand you’d like to see more of in 2016…

I’m a massive fan of moment marketing and that’s why I love Barclays BPay despite not being a Barclays customer. The way Barclays are developing smarter human banking through a clever interface, not just comms, excites me. I’d like to see more examples of campaigns that talk not just at that moment but are designed specifically for that moment.

Which campaign, piece of work or moment will you remember this year for and why?

Reaction on Gogglebox to the Paris attacks. For all the divisions that are built up in the media, (think Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins), it restored my faith in humanity that 99 per cent of people are good.

What’s your New Year’s resolution, workwise or other?

If a great idea doesn’t get sold, don’t let it die - stick it on Kickstarter instead.

What one piece of advice would you give to the industry to take with it into 2016?

The world has gone through a revolution yet agency worlds haven’t – we’ve just rearranged the furniture on the deck of the Titanic vs. building a new boat. We’re still acting as though we are living in a lean forward world, when actually the reality is opposite. In a world of partial attention, stop focussing on what brands want to say vs. what people want to hear.

What do you hope you’ve achieved by this time next year in terms of work?

That our work and our thinking continues to improve at the same pace. Plus, of course, we’d love that recognition with an industry gong or two.