• by Larissa Faw , May 13, 2014

Who says good creative takes months and months of work? Havas Media's Mobext division has developed Brief24, a rapid prototyping event where clients present their real challenges to a team of designers, developers, and strategists, and come out 24 hours later with a mobile app prototype.

"Rapid prototyping makes possible solutions more real. It breaks the cycle of inertia so that rather than discussing a problem, clients have the prototype to internalize with colleagues which then creates internal momentum to create things more quickly,” says Wendy Roberts, Marketing and Communications Manager, Havas Media. "The risk is low and the reward is very high." 

The concept is basic but effective. "We know that many brands have their own challenges. In this event, we simply asked what some challenges were and we work with them to boil down one challenge to a simple brief so that the teams can digest and ideate from," says Phuc Truong, Managing Director, Mobext, U.S. 

Then, "It's our version of a hack-a-thon," says Truong. "In a typical hack event, many teams volunteer their time to work on one brief in 48 hours and at the end, there's one winner. Our event has five teams, five briefs. The teams are paid to participate and we carefully source the talent. The product strategists are from the Mobext team as well as some designers and developers. Rather than 48 hours, we wanted to do it in 24. Some people work well under tight timelines... and so far the output / prototypes have been great."

Indeed, these events attract a diverse roster of participants, including a 16-year-old whiz kid and few with traditional ad agency experience. "We wanted to bring in fresh talent whose thinking represents unique perspectives" says Roberts, adding that the recruitment process includes college campuses and online tech forums. 

Thus far, Mobext has hosted two all-nighters. The first one included Yellow Tail Wines. The April 12th – 13th event included Nature's Bounty, Avocados from Mexico, Choice Hotels, and Tyson Foods.

At the same time, these events demonstrate Mobext's abilities to Havas Media clients and potential new ones. "Many clients don't know that we have full service capabilities in-house," says Roberts. 
Now, it is getting easier to entice brands to sign up as participants, says Truong. "Given that the first event went very well, we have a model to base the future events from as well as the output and marketing collateral [such as] video, output, client testimonials."

Some clients applauded the effort. "It could take months to make things happen so when you have the opportunity to do this in 24 hours, you have to do it," says Avocados of Mexico's client Alvaro Luque. "You have to take the opportunity."

Looking forward, Mobext anticipates hosting three events each year rotating between New York City and Boston. "However, we are very happy with the format and intimacy of keeping it small with a maximum number of brands per event," says Truong.