Finky/proactivity etc.

News reaches my eyes of the interesting genesis of an ad (it’s quite old news, so bear with me if you’ve already heard it):

The guy who did the cool Steve Jobs memorial version of the Apple logo also did the Cannes Grand Prix-winning Coke poster.

That is interesting in itself, but what’s more noteworthy is how it happened: the Steve Jobs visual was done by a Hong Kong student. Graham Fink, ECD of Ogilvy China (Coke’s ad agency), was so impressed with it that he flew down to meet the guy to ask if he’d work on the odd project for him. He then gave him the Coke brief, and here we are.

Nice one, Graham. Few CDs would be so proactive, and look how it paid off.

The same thing happened again recently when design student Ricky Richards sent Finky an idea for a chair made from Coke bottles. That didn’t happen, but the Santa ad you can see in his portfolio did, and is now up for Clio and One Show honours.

Lesson: proactivity works just as well for CDs as it does for students.

In fact, it works well for everyone.