Love our work: Andy Flemming on the fluid nature of creativity

When a brand hands over its identity to a creative agency, it can be a daunting undertaking.

To trust that the end result not only reinforces the original identity but also offers something new is a lot to ask.

Bear Meets Eagle On Fire received this trust from auto insurance company ROLLiN’ and was able to do its duty by developing a series of campaigns that were incredibly creative and strategically extremely effective.

Andy Flemming, 72andSunny Australia’s creative director and self-proclaimed “Lieutenant Wordy McWordSpurt”, explains what makes the campaigns a creative feat and why it ultimately made him a little jealous.

LBB> First of all, why do you like this particular work?

Andy> When you look at the work of ROLLiN’ Car Insurance, you are witnessing the birth of another great Australian brand. To the sounds of Tina Turner’s majestic ‘Proud Mary’, we see a family stranded on a motorway with four flat tires. A nightmare. And then, as Tina breaks into the line ‘Rollin, rollin, rollin to the river’, we see Australians of all ages emerge from their homes, the pub (even the local bowling alley!) to pass tires from one person to another in a huge chain of camaraderie until the family is rescued.

And then, in one mighty Australian shove, the huge crowd of tradesmen, Olympic swimmers, islanders, children, drag queens and football players shove the car together until it rolls down the hill and into the sunset.

Jack Thompson says, “Keeping Australia Rollin,” as the logo rolls a few times in a humorous “Whoosh! Whoosh!” sound that will obviously become a famous piece of aural branding.

It’s expensive. It’s epic. It’s Australian and it’s probably what anyone else would have done.

Bear Meets Eagle went for a giant rapping, rolling ball of fluff that gets fantastically muffled every time its mouth hits the floor. I was sick with envy – how dare they try to be funny, memorable and awesome, instead of human, optimistic and quintessentially Australian like everyone else’s brand guidelines? Just to make matters worse, the sequel doesn’t even have the yellow thing in it. Come on. This isn’t playing by the rules, folks. If you stick that thing everywhere, you’ve got long-term brand ownership. Instead, they went for a hallucinatory mix of 1978 and Rick and Morty when Jermaine Clement was in it. When I was in London, the

The true test of great work was, “I wish I had done it.” In ROLLiN’s case, all it takes is a quiet, tortured but clearly audible cry of undisguised jealousy. THAT’S how you build a brand – fearlessly and with enormous joy.

Wanker.

LBB> What do you think makes a great job?

Andy> Sometimes I look at photos of idiots in sweaters around their necks on the stern of a yacht in the Mediterranean raising their glasses of rosé to the camera and I just KNOW they were never in this business for the joy of creating – that moment when a line or a scribble on a notepad sets the brain working, because damn it, it does.

And that’s why ROLLiN or something similar is so important. It doesn’t behave like advertising or the expectations that the industry somehow has. And that’s why occasionally great work slips through the roof, while the rest is thrown out into the world by those with limited experience in creativity, spoon-fed by brand consultancies who can smell the desperation and naivety that inevitably leads to a huge and restrictive brand bible.

LBB> Do you think it is important to look beyond your own agency when looking for inspiration?

Andy> NO.

Yes, that was a joke.

LBB> How do you refine your own creativity and how do you encourage the creativity of the team around you?

Andy> Be the kid you once were. You never changed. Your sense of wonder never changed. You just stopped asking stupid questions and playing video games. Be eccentric. Be stupid. Be hungry.

Soak up everything you can see, read or hear – the crazier the better. Go to libraries and look at books about design, food, cars, movies or album covers. Immerse yourself in the world of the internet. Look at obscure stuff and wonder how or why it made it there. When you soak up the world, you fill your limitless mind with ideas and the absolute best part is when two of them get together on Tinder without you even knowing it.

That’s why I do this job, and that’s why I still play video games, read a book every few days, and watch every movie I can find. And when a few human sponges get together, there’s nothing like the great weirdness that can result.

Enjoy every minute of the ride. As my dad always said, “It might be like digging a hole in the road.”

LBB> And finally: What does creativity mean to you?

Andy> See above.