Unite V [The Write Up]

A few days ago we packed ad peeps together in a trendy basement in Shoreditch. It looked every bit like an underground party but we were there to do business. And business we did.

The 9^th of May 2012 saw the fifth installment of our bi-annual portfolio event where we put grads and industry folks together in casual settings like pubs and clubs and let the magic happen.

While we’ve always aimed for an open event, as the number of entries increased year on year [a whopping 92 this time] we’ve had to put a selection procedure in place in order to make sure every creative gets enough attention. The top 20 teams/single creatives were chosen for the night – to present their books and well, themselves. Each of them had 2 minutes on stage to show us what they had, while comedian Eleanor Conway acted compere for the evening. This was a new format that we tried this time, so we didn’t really know what to expect, but we definitely weren’t expecting dancing clowns, auction of a body part, or a guest appearance by Yoda himself! Kudos to the grads for taking up the challenge and for being total rock stars on stage. ‘Best Performance by a single’ went to Ben Brassett for the hilarity he provided, advertently and inadvertently. Rob and Sam were picked as ‘Best Performance by a team’ for auctioning a part of a leg for a tattoo of the highest bidder’s choice. It was snapped up for 70 quid, not the actual leg obviously.

Amongst all the laughs and beers, ideas were shared and business cards exchanged. As the event is getting more and more popular the industry presence is steadily increasing. Industry folks from many top agencies joined us to meet the best of young talent, including peeps from Mother, LBi, Work Club, Publicis, Iris, Albion, Inferno, Adam & Eve, RKCR, Creature, Lean Mean Fighting Machine and many others. Every year the event becomes bigger and busier and this time the place was truly buzzing. The ad crowd was very impressed with the quality of work presented and the twitterati seemed to lap up the performances. Various crits and placements were talked about, which, we’re sure, are progressing further as we write. We are in the process of creating a site that showcases the work and contacts of Unite V creatives, agencies watch out.

Unite has always been all about connecting and most importantly, learning. So we’ll leave you with a few points to remember for Unite VI, which will be happening before the end of 2012.

• Bring your book and yourself – creative directors are interested in you as much as your ideas. Talk to them, tell them more about you, your side projects, your dog, whatever.
• Run your own edit – events like Unite are very much like speed dating. Bring your best not your baggage. Pick only your top 4/5 ideas for the night.
• Explore your idea – when you have a cool idea go the whole hog. Don’t stop at a few posters or an app, show its full potential, explore it in different ways.
• Remember what you’re up against – you’ve to make sure the creative director still remembers you the next morning, after seeing the top 20/25 books and downing a selection of beers.
• Think big, think deep – the industry is expecting radical thinking from you. You’ve no clients or planners to hold you back. Think big, epic. But also think like future professionals.

Without doubt, Unite V has been the most electrifying Unite yet. The night ended at midnight and that’s only because many had last trains to catch. Thank you all for coming down. We hope the connections made at Unite V will go a long way in helping both grads and agencies. We’ve already heard of many successes from the previous Unite events.

[See more Unite V pics in our Facebook album. Big shout out to Andrew Attah for the clicks. And a HUGE thanks to our sponsors apple&ink and Iris.]