Tear up the brief and use your instinct to create memorable ads

Nick Southgate

Toshiba's timesculpture ad has been described as “breathtaking and mesmerisingly watchable”, and “an ad that has the industry taking notice”.

When a campaign gets this sort of attention, people ask about the creative process behind it. In this case, it was far from traditional; indeed, following a traditional process would have stopped the ad ever being made.

This article is about why that didn't happen and what we've learnt from it.


The advertising industry has a series of complaints as old as the industry itself: media is changing; consumers are changing; clients are changing and, consequently, agencies must change. Each is a cliché worn thin and tedious.