Creative Networks; Sir John Hegarty

I offered to help Bridget out on the Creative Networks team and help with the event on this week where the guest speaker was Sir John Hegarty. I'll be honest, wasn't familiar with who he was or what he did, so checked him out. Turns out he's responsible for many campaigns including Vorsprung Durch Technik for Audi, that Laundrette ad and the Flat Beat, featuring the little yellow guy Flat Eric, for Levi's.

I think it's always a little funny when you make a point about how nice people are, it's almost as though it’s a surprise, like you didn’t expect them to be so nice, but I do have to make a point about how Sir John was such a lovely guy!! He was a great speaker, really got his messages across and delivered a fine balance of cracking jokes and pretty interesting facts and figures.
His talk was all about why he believed the advertising industry was a great thing to be a part of, particularly at the moment.
One point that stuck out for me was about technology and its effect on the media/advertising. Sir John made a few references to campaigns the company were recently working on or were in the making, and how they had released them onto YouTube to test out the audience responses and the hits over time to see whether the campaign was up to scratch or not and if it seemed to work in the public domain. He made it clear how impressed he was with the growth of technology and the massive opportunities it provides - challenging other beliefs that technology is having a negative impact on the creative industry.
It is really great how quickly things can get around now on the internet, with people folowing on Twitter, updates on Facebook, then links to YouTube... and all of the web is available now in your pocket with the advances of mobile internet technology. It's pretty mad when you start to really think about it and how quick everything is going. I guess this shows the benefits of networking as well, especially online, and how the right community can spread your work and your name quicker than any other form of advertising or marketing.