Enjoy the dig
Our (add)thropological approach to world-class creative
“Enjoy the dig!”
It’s how Chief Creative Officer Wayne Vieira ends every creative meeting—empowering teams to appreciate the vulnerability, toil, happiness and heartbreak of the creative process in order to uncover ideas that are truly valuable. Like any archaeological dig, ours are often filled with a lot of dirt (metaphorically speaking). But buried deep within is that proverbial gold waiting to be plucked out of obscurity and formed into something spectacular.
As a result, The Dig has become the very heart and soul of our creative process.
Dig up insights and truths
Recognizing the limitations of insight-less ideation early on, The Dig helps us understand the problems consumers feel they’re up against, and how a brand can help solve them. To understand those problems deeply, we encourage creative directors, designers and writers to get outside of their heads (and offices) to visit places and talk with people directly, paying attention to people’s articulated and unarticulated needs, hopes, wants and fears.
What we’re digging for are the elusive insights and truths with the power to inform an idea. While the definitions of each are widely argued, we keep it simple: insights are quantifiable, truths are emotional or observational. Both lead to great ideas.
Let the sparks fly
During The Dig, we come together for what we call a Campfire, where we share what we’ve found, build on one another's observations, stories and ideas, and try to uncover those insights and truths. Anything we find that feels like it has the potential to be interesting but we aren’t quite sure what to do with yet we call “sparks.”
For instance, when we helped launch a new product for a leading car seat manufacturer, during our Campfire we chatted about hundreds of sparks, like:
- First-time parents doubt their abilities
- Every 32 seconds, a child is involved in a car accident
- Car seats typically expire after six years from the date of manufacture
- Toddlers are squirmy; they rarely go into a carseat without a fight
One truth we agreed on is that parenting is hard on the body. More concretely, we discovered the insight that one year after childbirth, 77% of moms still reported back pain. We also learned that the repetitive movements of motherhood, coupled with exhaustion, can lead to injuries not unlike those of competitive athletes.
Informed by these sparks, our creative team brought the car seat’s 360º rotational features to the forefront by positioning it as “the kinder car seat”—a car seat that’s kinder to parents’ bodies, so they can spend more time focusing on the feel-good moments of parenthood.
During another Campfire, we uncovered a paradox in our client’s positioning. A luxury jewelry brand, they were encouraging customers to mix and match pieces from their collection to develop an authentic style. But the truth is: Women almost never wear one jewelry brand exclusively, opting instead to mix and match pieces from multiple brands with thrift store finds and family heirlooms to create their personal style. Based on this truth, we proposed the brand do something no one else does: feature its jewelry alongside pieces from their models’ personal collections, along with the stories behind each piece. The resulting creative was distinctive, personal, and truly authentic.
Embrace human-centered design
By enjoying The Dig, we stay committed to discovering and shaping the extraordinary ideas that lie beneath the surface. It keeps us committed to a process that celebrates curiosity, discovery and innovation, so that every campaign we craft or brand we build is deeply rooted in genuine human experience and truth.