Hefer announced last week that he will be vacating his position as executive creative director at Lowe Bull, which he has held for the past four years, to give his full attention to the Farm. It’s an idea that has been brewing for some time, and Hefer believes the time is right to release it on the world.
In a nutshell, Animal Farm is a creative collaborative, a meeting of unlike minds and diverse opinions, a collection of talking heads that aim, between them, to solve business challenges in a completely non-traditional manner.
“Far be it for me to criticise my advertising brethren and the way the system is run. I love advertising. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the system. But I have this crazy idea to do things differently. To toss out the humans, and bring in the animals and let them run riot!”
Hefer believes that the current business paradigm, run by ‘humans’, is stifling creative thought.
“The primary aim of Animal Farm is to bring creativity back into business. To give original thinking the respect it deserves, and to help place a value on real ideas,” he says.
He also believes that creativity is not, and should not, be relegated to so-called creative professions, nor should creative thought automatically be owned by the clients that wrote the brief. Original creative thinking is being abused and undervalued, far too often the process takes over and the thought has to toe the line. This in turn gives rise to the depreciation of creatives and their value in the process. Without them the world will stagnate.
“Creative thought is what makes the world go round. It’s the beast in all of us that just needs to be set free,” he says.
Animal Farm will operate as a collective, outsourcing its ‘thinking heads’ not only to business (and not only in the communications sphere) but also to advertising agencies.
“Animal Farm is not an advertising agency, and it won’t have traditional advertising teams on its books. Using traditional advertising people would generate traditional ideas. We will source a variety of creative thinkers, the like of illustrators, engineers, economists, directors, web designers, product designers, architects, editors - whatever it takes - to solve a client’s problem.”
He adds that the Farm, in addition to tackling branding and communication challenges, will also tackle organisational problems.
“Often, a client’s problem exists within their own organisation. This can be tackled in a creative way by employing the skills of someone that can find a far better solution from outside the organisation but with full access to all the major players and knowledge within the structure,” he says.
And often, it takes an idea from left field to cut through years of red tape, internal politics and plain old baggage.
“It’s the whole analogy of not seeing the wood for all the trees,” says Hefer. “Sometimes it’s just easier if you’re on the outside looking in.”
Animal Farm will work on a project by project basis, much as production companies do. It will not operate in competition with advertising agencies, but rather seek to collaborate with them, not having the traditional client service department necessary to retain large clients directly.
“Animal Farm is all about collaboration - with clients, with agencies, with creative thinkers. It’s about working together to bring the most relevant creative solution to fruition,” says Hefer. “I really want to focus on original work that breaks through with something relevant and that does make a difference.”
Animal Farm opens its ‘gates’ for business in June 2007. Founding clients include Lowe Bull and Lowe Worldwide.
“Maybe that’s what we all need - a breath of fresh farm air and the smell of revolution in the morning!” concludes Hefer.
