The Brand Agency’s Banton and Stephen help young minds embrace the power of persuasion

Let this go on the record: pitching for new business isn’t nearly as sweat-inducing as presenting to a classroom full of highly gifted students. The Brand Agency’s Lachy Banton and Niall Stephen proved this theory to be true when they were invited to Perth College as guest speakers for the latest Imaginarium workshop for gifted girls of very high ability. Banton and Stephen report on their experience.

The Imaginarium runs during the school holidays and is a place where young minds can expand; and innovation, curiosity and creativity are encouraged. The theme of the day was “the power of persuasion”, so we decided to speak to the students about the power of using persuasion for good, creative problem solving and what to do when you hit the wall in idea generation.

To break the metaphorical ice with our crowd, we began with a simple question: who knows what advertising is?

What followed was a series of answers and comments, all propelled by a sense of annoyance towards our beloved craft. We had to admire their honesty, and quite frankly they were right – most ads do get in the way of their leisure time. But what we wanted to highlight to the students was that advertising doesn’t have to just be ads that interrupt Adventure Time, it can be big world-changing ideas that benefit us all.

This presentation was not going to be a one-way conversation, and that was exactly how we wanted it to go. So after we’d told the girls a little about ourselves, what our roles entail and showed them some work that really inspires us, we challenged their divergent thinking with an alternate-uses game. 

We expected strong literacy skills, good manners and a healthy taste for learning – after all, this was a room full of gifted students. However, those expectations were quickly exceeded when we witnessed their lateral, unfiltered thinking in action. Let’s just say that Perth’s future creative departments are in safe hands.

Truly inspired, this got us thinking: why are these kinds of thinkers so rare to come by in a world that’s clearly aching for problem solvers?

You could argue that it’s the result of a constrictive curriculum pointed towards a small set of careers that favour memorisation of facts and procedures. But the reality seems to be more around ignorance surrounding the potential of creative thinkers. If you can draw as a child, you’ll be told that you can’t make a living as an artist. If you can write, perhaps a career in journalism is for you? 

The truth of the matter is that our society doesn’t know what to do when they are thrown a person who thinks outside the box – it’s scary because we like to put things into neat little boxes.

But let’s not play the blame game. Life doesn’t come with instructions, so it’s only natural for society to create its own. The key is to identify these creative thinkers, help nurture and develop their talents, and outline alternative career paths that will guide them in the right direction to solving some of the world’s big, scary problems.

Or maybe just make the ad breaks a little less boring.