For the launch of this year’s Axis Awards, Convenor Steve Cochran (who’s also CCO of Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand) wrote a poem that spoke to the event’s 2022 theme: ‘A Kind of Magic Show’.
Creativity in the commercial world is often referred to as ‘the magic’.
“Bring us some of your magic,” says the CMO down the Zoom call.
“It just needs a bit of magic,” reads the strategist’s brief.
“But where’s the fu*kin’ magic?” asks the plucky young suit in the
creative review.
Yep, we’re undoubtedly in the magic industry.
It’s this magic that our clients come to us for.
It’s (mostly) what they pay us for.
Magic is the bit they can’t do on their own.
Or that their freelancer cousin seemed unable to do.
Magic is the mysterious, unquantifiable and surprising thing great
ideas have.
It’s the unique solution to a problem.
It can be found in the strategy, concept, execution and delivery.
Magic can come from individual brilliance.
Or from the secret chemistry of many.
Magic is what makes this industry fun, interesting and
ever-changing.
It’s the thing we creative types get up for every day.
And it’s why we bother with all the other malarkey around it.
This year, our Axis theme celebrates what creativity is truly about.
A kind of magic.
It’s this kind of magic that marketers from Rockit, Samsung, New Zealand Blood Service, Global Women NZ and others who received recognition at this year’s awards had in mind when they were seeking exceptional solutions to their unique brand challenges. But before these brands and their creative partners get into what makes for truly magical creative, let’s let Steve set the scene:
“‘A Kind of Magic Show’ was our theme for this year’s Axis Awards, and the reason for this theme was two-fold. The world right now is a more complex place to operate in, but we didn’t want to dwell on the challenges and
