By Alex Bottner

Inspired

I was inspired yesterday by two things.

1. I am blown away at how freaking good everyone’s presentations were for Team GB, and how far Hush has come as an agency in just under a year. I’m excited to see what we’ll be doing by the end of the year, because every week, the standard of work keeps getting better and better.

2. Mike’s mini masterclass. He showed us a talk from Dominic Wilcox, an artist and designer who started up Little Inventors, a programme that makes kid’s inventions a reality. They can draw up anything, from a four-person scooter to a tennis ball with adjustable throwing speeds and a team of designers will make it for them. No idea is seen as too crazy or wild, and kids get to learn from a young age that their ideas have value. I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous that this programme didn’t exist when I was a kid, although a pilot programme has been launched now in Canada.

My dream as a kid was to be an inventor. I used to spend most of my time in the basement of my parent’s house thinking of new products and trying to make them out of cardboard and construction paper. As I got older, I didn’t think I’d be able to create anything because science and maths didn’t come naturally to me.

I had no idea that advertising could give me the possibility to come up with new products, apps, and innovations. It makes me feel like a kid again.

Before joining SCA, I had such a narrow-minded, Madmen-like view of what advertising was. I thought advertising was limited to making posters, commercials, and radio, and that you had to talk to people in an ‘ad-y’ way. SCA teaches us how to solve problems and how to make products and brands relevant to people’s everyday lives.

I never thought that I’d be able to come up with concepts and product ideas, but at SCA, we’re encouraged to think of new tech and platforms to reach people in a way that feels relevant to them. If you have a good idea that could solve people’s problems and that communicates an idea, that counts as advertising. If a client really likes the idea, they can find a way to make it a reality.

The possibilities are endless for how you can reach people.