Who needs a crystal ball?

The biggest problem with being ahead of your time.

Is nobody knows if you are right till after the event.

And if you mention it, you can’t help but smack of “told you so”.

But surely a track record of future gazing can only be measured by empirical data? So instead of a list of told you so’s, here are a few case studies to conclude that Jane Evans and Giant Leap do have evidence to back up their claim of being able to predict future trends accurately and creatively

In 1990 Jane was hauled into her Managing Directors office and asked “What drugs are you on?”

She had been asked by a drug company to predict what sort of ad they would be running in the year 2000.

This is what she presented:

Lots of beautiful images of flowers and bottles and a woman with needles sticking out of her back.

VO: “If you have a headache, you can use aromatherapy, or bach flower essences, or acupuncture.

The beautiful images fade.

VO: “But if you want to get rid of it in 18 minutes, take a XXXXXOL

Pack shot of XXXXXOL

To the client what she had presented was a flight of fancy, there was nowhere in his frame of reference where alternative treatments could become mainstream, so he accused his 28 year old suit-wearing creative of being a drug crazed hippy – the only rational explanation.

We defy any 28 year old today (suit wearing or not) to not own at least one bottle of essential oil.

In 1992 a large film manufacturer asked the multi national agency Jane Evans was working for to create commercials to show where they could be in the digital age. Jane Evans wrote this script:

Open on a desert in Arizona a large pillar of rock rises in the air. On top of the rock a Native American dances, he wears a mask in the shape of an eagle and the tassels on his jacket make wings as he waves them in the air.

The Native American turns magically into a magnificent eagle and soars through the pillars of rock in the desert.

We cut to see two boys sitting under a tree, they are watching this film on a XXXXX device.

BOY: “Woah that’s really cool – but couldn’t you have made it an F one eleven?”

The client didn’t get it.

CLIENT. “So you’re telling me that kids are going to be able to make their own special effect movies?”

JANE: “Yep”

CLIENT: “I don’t get it, I just don’t get this whole digital thing.”

He picks up a cup of coffee.

CLIENT: “This I get, I understand this is a cup of coffee, now what is this in the digital age?”

JANE: “Well, it still is hot, and wet, it still smells amazing and tastes the same ­there’s just no cup.”

I wonder if now when he takes photos on his mobile phone and downloads them via Bluetooth if he understood what she was trying to explain.

In 2001 we told our beer client to start writing blogs. They didn’t start till five years later and still haven’t found how to do them properly  (Call us guys, we still have the solution!)

In 2005 we told a jeans company to create more than a campaign of posters and tv ads

In 2005 we started producing holographic campaigns and email chains and mobisodes and snack tv, branded entertainment ideas.  If the empirical data is to be believed – they will be the essential marketing tool of 2010, which is next year.

So if you want to work with a company who knows their way around the new media environment – call us now.

We don’t want to say “we told you so”.