By Rachael Simoes

Burger King stole my idea

Here we have it, lads. The best campaign of 2020. In my book almost a year before its release. And before I considered coming to the SCA. One might even ask “Rachael, why are you at the SCA?” Well, I do ask myself that every day, multiple times a day, sometimes crying as I do so. But alas, let me do this school a favour and let them put me down as one of their alumni on their Wikipedia when I become famous.

A lot of people had a lot of strong opinions about this campaign. Is it genius? Is it brand suicide? I, personally, do not care. It is this kind of work I want in my book, though. My favourite work is absolute dumbness and brands using their voice for good. I’m talking old Tango ads or Ben & Jerry’s. Anything in between may well be good, heck, may actually make people buy the product like ads are meant to do, but they won’t make me jealous that I didn’t make it. And I guess with Ben and Jerry’s stuff it isn’t crazy creative leaps, it’s more just being with the shits. But Tango ads, boy. 

On my latest book crit I got a pretty below-average score. But I was perfectly ok with it because I know I took some risks that could’ve worked or severely failed. While there were some that absolutely did flop, some of the more risk-ay ones got some sweet mentor respect. Uri said, on strategy, “When you got it you really got it, but when you failed, you really…” Mike said that the art direction and copy were all over the gaff but that we were “one of the few books taking risks and we should keep going”. Shouts out to Mike, real recognise real.

One of my favourite campaigns in my book right now is for Ali Express. Ali Express, while being a vendor on Amazon, sells very cheap and realistic bootleg designer items online. The idea of the campaign is “Practise Being Rich”. Although the craft is iffy at the moment, the ideas has only been praised. It’s felt amazing and right to do something that relates to my personal life, do something dumb with it, and for something that can’t but should be advertised. 

I got the motivation to do it when Pete (Cain) told us that our book isn’t bound by reality and we should do some stuff that isn’t typically advertised, using divorce solicitors as an example. I recently had a chat with my mentor from Commercial Break, James Hillhouse, that gave me confidence. He had reminded me of the Burger King campaign I made (while on CB btw) and said I should be proud that it’s actually something the brand did on their own accord. He said that although I’m not as confident as these rich white kids I go to school with, I have something a lot more valuable than them. That he needs to see more of me in my book. Man, shout out to James. Real recognise real.