The Youth Of Tomorrow: dentsuMB's Jas & Geo hold the future of the industry in their hands. Where will they take it?
Historically, the youth of today have been the change-makers, leaders of tomorrow and navigators of the future.
This new feature, about the youth of tomorrow, highlights and promotes young, fresh, innovative, creative thinkers who are new to the industry and helping guide and direct the creative to come.
With an awe-inspiring crowd of brilliant young creative talent out there, Creative Moment wanted to find out more about who they are, what they think and what part they want to play in the future of the industry.
In this series we talk to up-and-coming creatives with something to say.
Welcome Jas & Geo.
Otherwise known as Jasmine Nandoo and Georgette Fischer, this creative duo are recent graduates, currently working full time in their first employed role at Dentsu mcgarrybowen.
Born in 2000 (yes, you heard right) they qualify as members of the digitally savvy Gen Z, the first social generation to have grown up with access to the Internet and portable digital technology from a young age, sometimes referred to as ‘digital natives’.
Having studied creative advertising at Lincoln University, Jas & Geo (although with different creative partners at the time) both attended a creative workshop and decided to pair up shortly afterwards and work together. It was only a few months after that they began their roles at Dentsu, just last September.
Creative Moment spoke to Jas & Geo to find out how these 21-year-old creatives of today are going to contribute to the creative work of tomorrow
Creative Moment: Why did you decide to work in the creative industry, and how did you get to where you are today?
Jas & Geo: We both found the industry through our Creative Advertising course at the University of Lincoln. Despite one of us being from London [Jas] and one from the Midlands [Geo], we both found the course after pursuing our passion for photography. Unfortunately, we were criticised for focusing too much on the ideas and not enough on the technique!
Before we became a creative team, we went down to adam&eveDDB for a workshop and met Simon Lloyd (now CCO at DentsuMB), where we presented separate ideas to invent a new ice cream. Despite absolutely bricking it we both managed to come across fairly cool (a miracle) and Simon followed us on social media after that workshop.
Then, when we partnered a year later, we started posting on socials—Instagram and LinkedIn mainly (although we’ve realised now that there’s way less waffle on Twitter), getting loads of helpful advice and tips, and got a placement, and then full time gig with Simon at McGarryBowen through that!
CM: Can you tell us about your first major piece of work that aired this month for Heniz and ITV?
J&G: We were lucky enough to have a crack at a big account in the first couple of weeks of the placement.
Alongside senior creative team Katie Bradshaw and Ryan Griffiths, we were asked to write scripts for a new set of Heinz sponsorship idents for ITV Weather. Throughout our degree at the University of Lincoln, we were reminded that puns are somewhat of a red flag—but puns were a requirement of this brief (in your faces Dave and Andrew!).
As well as writing the lines in the initial stages, we learnt that you had to write a brief for just about everything for the shoot—and not just for the food. Hand models, voice-overs and props—from kitchen surfaces to the type of cutlery used!
The shoot quickly came around. I think we were mesmerised by the amount of effort that went into everything, and the food secrets (no, we shan’t reveal them) were also fascinating to see. Having never been involved in post-production before, we found the grade at Hogarth Studios to be one of the most exciting parts. One of the main things we learned was the amount of time everything took. But it was well worth it, because it all looked amazing!
It was a great opportunity to get to know and work with Katie and Ryan, as well as the legend that is Sue Higgs. They taught us many invaluable tricks of the trade. We had little knowledge about shoots and production, but with the teams' help, we overcame any challenges that were new to us.
CM: Can you talk about your favourite piece of creative work of all time—something that blows your mind/work you admire or respect, and why you love it?
J&G: One of our favourite ads has got to be the Coca Cola ‘Try Not To Hear This’.
It’s a brand that has one of the most well-known visual identities in the world, with its iconic red colour, cursive font and even bottle shape. But, now it also has a sound identity—a game changer.
It’s brilliant because it’s low-key interactive. It’s not passive. It makes the consumer actually stop and think.
One of the greatest parts about it is, even if you absolutely despise Coca Cola, you know exactly what sounds they’re talking about. It’s almost like it could be a TV ad, because we can hear the ad and see it moving inside our heads. The copy dares you not to think of the sound, but your brain defies it and does so anyway. And it’s so simple. There aren’t any extravagant attempts to grab our attention.
Truly *chef’s kiss*
CM: Where do you think the future of creative is?
J&G: The Metaverse seems to be taking over at the moment and we’ll be honest, we’re still trying to wrap our heads around it.
Technology is improving everyday and we do think that it will play a significant role in the future of creating with the likes of AI and VR. But saying that, technology seems to have become easier to bypass. We only have to wait 5 seconds to skip a YouTube ad, we can fast forward ad breaks on TV, we can avoid ads if we want to. Technology is a wonderful, yet dangerous game —we have to be careful how it evolves!
We don’t think that traditional means of creating will go anywhere either. A good idea is a good idea, whether that is in a print ad or an Instagram story. The format might change, but the simplest creative ideas can take any shape (or so we’re learning).
The likes of print have been around for ages, they probably won’t vanish just like that. There is definitely a real appreciation for print out there still, not just in ads but in general. We all thought film cameras would disappear when phone cameras developed, and yet polaroid's are still all the rage. The same with fashion, older trends have a way of resurfacing (we LOVE a good pair of flares!).
What we see for the future of creativity is just more opportunity.
With technology evolving, the chance for us to create work as creatives only gets bigger. And for us as a new team, the more work, the better!
CM: What do you believe the creative industry is missing right now?
J&G: The creative industry is missing diverse talent.
As creatives, we claim to understand ‘people’. But when it comes to it, what they really mean is ’straight, white people’. There isn’t enough representation, in agencies, or in creative education. Students are being taught how to “think outside the box”, but when it comes to the industry, the same boxes are getting ticked.
We've created “The Unboxed Collection” which aims to unpack the industry’s current way of thinking, starting with education. We are not all the same, and we should be thinking about the perspective of all kinds of people - not just ourselves.
Our programme sets a brief which has a different target audience, whether that’s women with afro hair, drag queens, or people who identify as non-binary. With these briefs we can actively research all kinds of people, not just the ones we’re used to seeing in the office. And not just as an extracurricular or ‘side hustle’ work. We should be doing this already. You can take a closer look at one of the briefs here.
Diversity is more than a tick-box exercise, and it needs more discussion.
CM: Where do you see yourselves in 20 years?
J&G: Probably still on screens the way this is all going!
We imagine we’ll be sick of each other when we’re in our 40s… maybe we’ll have split and become Creative Directors! And hopefully by then, we can catch up on all the ads we’ve missed 20 years prior to our births that everyone keeps referencing… We’ve got our work cut out for us!
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