Announcing our Tongaler of the Month...ideator extraordinaire, Troy Kelly! Read on to find out about his thoughtful creative process, his amazing hiking adventures and that time he was mistaken for a certain celebrity ALL day!
Izzy Francke: What is your creative and/or writing background?
Troy Kelly: I’ve always loved writing and art, and I can spend inordinate amounts of time covetously admiring a well turned phrase in a book or on a poster. WAY back in the day, it was my high school English teacher (hi, Mrs. Cooke!) who quietly responded to my surely ill-fated plans of pursuing a degree in computer science with words that shifted my entire life plan. “Do whatever you want, I just see you in something like advertising.” Boom. The simple, pseudo-advice of your favorite teacher can have quite the impact. It’s nearing two decades since that moment, and since graduation from college I’ve worked in advertising and interactive design.
IF: I couldn't agree more -- I'm so grateful to my favorite teachers! How did you find Tongal?
TK: Oddly enough, I found Tongal almost right after it launched, but at the time I thought “No way is this legit. I bet they’ll steal your ideas and you’ll never see a dime.” (I was strangely fixated on the notion that someone might steal my ideas back then, as if each person only gets a set number and so they must be vigilantly guarded. Sometimes it’s hard to understand your past self.) Time went on, and one day last year my husband of 14 years, Richard, shared an email with me that he had received which promoted Tongal’s Elias video competition. The klinker: the winning prize was a Tesla! But… wait, Tongal? They’re still around? Richard entered the Elias competition, and slowly we both began to drop in and out of various ideation competitions. One day he received a call announcing he had WON the Elias competition. We’ve pretty much been irrevocably hooked ever since. What keeps me coming back (besides the sweet prizes) is the great opportunity Tongal provides to dip a toe into a brand’s creative process without the commitment to become deeply involved in iterative rounds of work. I think coming up with 5 ideas as quickly as possible helps keep me sharp and nimble, and the character limit, which I initially loathed, has helped me become a more concise communicator. (If you can believe that after reading all of this!)
IF: That's fascinating. We're certainly glad you had a change of heart! When you’re not Tongaling, how do you spend your time?
TK: My day (and night… and weekend…) job keeps me pretty tied up most of the time, but whenever there’s time I love to cook, especially Indian food. I read and listen to audiobooks almost continuously, mostly sci-fi and fantasy, but before all that reading starts to sound impressive you should know there’s some real crap in there. Some of it’s pretty good, but… yeah, a lot of it’s crap. It’s like junk food for the brain and I can’t get enough. Once or twice a year my husband and I try to set aside 10 days or so to pack our absurdly large hiking backpacks with supplies and water and do some long distance backpacking in the Grand Canyon. Usually in the dead of summer because people around the world avoid that intense Canyon summer heat and there’s nothing quite like being in the middle of a vast, open, bewilderingly beautiful wilderness and hiking dozens of miles without ever seeing another soul for days at a time except for the person you love! I’d say I really recommend it, but I don’t want to start a rush and begin running into other hikers. So… it’s terrible. Don’t go. Danger, Will Robinson.
IF: That sounds breathtaking (I'll take your word for it though, it's a bit too intense for me...) You’ve come up with a ton of awesome and winning Ideas. In your opinion, what makes a good idea?
TK: The key element of a good idea is that the idea is clearly communicated. At times the strict character limit can make complex ideas difficult to convey, but often I find that restriction forces me to boil the idea down to its core essence, like a thick syrup. Every now and again I’ll see another Tongaler’s winning idea get picked and I’ll think to myself how that idea was almost identical to one of my ideas… except that clever, clever person communicated their idea much more clearly than I did. When it happens it’s very instructive and I try to apply that clarity to future submissions.
IF: Wow, your insight and attitude are admirable! What’s your creative process like? Where do you get your inspiration?
TK: I mentioned that I read a ton of books, right? Good. I also listen to a whole lot of podcasts, mostly science and real-life stories. And I read a lot of news, but only the fun stuff that interests me like photography, cooking, travel, science and the like. I save political news for when I’m too happy and need to leaven the good vibes with a little ennui. For me, the key to inspiration is having a slurry of new-to-me things I’ve RECENTLY heard, and read, and seen floating around my mind like little asteroids. Then when I read a Tongal creative brief, I wait for the strikes to happen. "When This Thing I Heard" slams into "This Other Thing I Read", and then both collide with "This Core Message" expressed in the creative brief, I’m already halfway to an idea. Usually what you’ve got by then is close but not quite right for the goals listed in the brief, so then you’ve got the task of carving and polishing that misshapen lump of brain-space ore into something shiny and presentable and 140 characters or less. I almost forgot to mention…other Tongalers are FANTASTIC sources of inspiration. I already know what ideas I’ve come up with for a project, but eventually being able to read the creative, thought-provoking winning ideas of other Tongalers is a steady source of inspiration.
IF: We love that you find fellow Tongalers inspiring (we know the feeling!). We were impressed by your recent win for the Bengay Retail Activation Project! You won both the Positioning phase and the Retail Activation phase (and took home $1000!). How did it feel to win twice? Do you prefer one Idea over the other?
TK: I was absolutely thrilled to win the first time, and the second win was electric icing on the bacon wrapped cake! I think between the Idea and the Activation, I prefer the Activation more… maybe that’s because it paid more so it has a dollar halo around it. Am I that shallow?
IF: That's not shallow...bacon-wrapped cake sounds delicious! Plus, you deserve to be proud. One of my favorite Ideas of yours is “Listen Up, Adult Me” for the Strawberry Shortcake Story Project. Can you tell us a little bit about the process of writing that one?
TK: I had already submitted one or two ideas which were very different from this one but of a theme with one another, and going in I’d decided that I wanted a fresh perspective for this idea in case the other direction just didn’t resonate with the client. So I read the brief. So I read the brief. So I read the brief. That’s not a typo, I re-read the brief several times until I keyed in on a few of the goals that seemed like they had juice. It’s hard to recall exactly what they were, but they had something to do with empowering girls and reminding them of their own potential. I thought what an interesting goal that is. Why is that even a goal? Why isn’t the potential of all girls a given that we take for granted? How is that possible when half of our population is composed of women who already KNOW how much potential they have now and had then as girls? That’s when the idea began to form around the nugget of how somewhere in our development we forget our own potential once the culture we live in begins to work on our rapidly growing minds and senses of self.
IF: I agree, and it's wonderful that your Idea reflected those points. What’s your favorite Idea you have ever submitted?
TK: I think that changes from Project to Project, and it’s usually the ones that don’t get picked. Currently the one that comes to mind is for the Aussie project. It was something about women running parkour through a city and leaving shimmering, waving trails of hair behind them, much like the light-trails left behind the bikes in Tron. At the end of the scene, the camera would zoom far, far above the city and we’d see that the women had formed the Aussie logo out of their hair.
IF: What would be your dream Project on Tongal?
TK: I’ve had a closely guarded Payless Shoe Source idea in mind for over a decade which I would just LOVE to see brought to life. That and a “The One That Got Away” Tongal-sponsored video project that resurrects some of those gone-but-not-forgotten ideas that DIDN’T win the ideation round but would have been so good and so fun (I imagine quite a few Tongalers would be chomping at the bit for a shot at this one).
IF: I love that Idea, and fingers crossed your Payless Shoe Source dream is realized! What are your daily must-reads?
TK: I’m a big fan of news aggregating apps which allow you to define your own areas of interest. I set 30 or so areas of interest and troll the news every night. It keeps me from getting sucked into social media too much (yes, Nanna, that IS an amazing salad, thanks for the share!) and exposes me to new and interesting info every night.
IF: That's very smart, I should do that myself. Tell us a fun fact or surprising hobby about yourself.
TK: I was once hounded through the streets of New York by a homeless man who was convinced I was Macaulay Culkin. He kept shouting “When’s Party Monster coming out? Macaulay! Macaulay! When’s Party Monster coming out?” over and over.
IF: Haha! That is both amazing and terrifying...I'm glad you're here to tell the tale! What’s next for you, on Tongal or otherwise?
TK: Eventually I’d like to start competing in the Script or Screenplay phases that frequently appear, but finding the time for such involved work has been a challenge up to now.
IF: Do you have any advice for other Tongalers who want to be stellar ideators like you?
TK: Sometimes the first idea that pops into your head is The One and is surrounded by rainbows and clover, and sometimes the first idea that pops into your head is the same first idea that popped into a thousand other heads. If an idea feels too common, either reject it and think of something that feels more uncommon, or work on communicating it so perfectly and clearly that it will stand out above the other similar ideas submitted by fellow Tongalers. And read the brief! Read it at least twice, and try to use it as a filter to strain out elements of your ideas that don’t belong.
It's been great getting to know you! Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions so thoughtfully. We're looking forward to seeing your next great Idea on Tongal!
