Nils Leonard: Don’t Confuse S**t Ads For The Death Of Creativity

Summary

Uncensored CMO: Nils Leonard — Don’t Confuse S**t Ads For The Death Of Creativity

Podcast: Uncensored CMO
Host: Jon Evans
Guest: Nils Leonard, Founder of Uncommon
Date: November 19, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode explores the alleged “crisis of creativity” in the modern marketing and advertising industry. Jon Evans welcomes Nils Leonard, whose agency Uncommon is renowned for culturally impactful creative work. Together, they interrogate why creativity matters more than ever, debate the industry's malaise, and share practical insights on making meaningful, memorable work in a world obsessed with technology, efficiency, and data. The conversation is candid, energetic, and full of compelling stories from campaigns that have cut through the noise, challenging the industry to aim higher.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The State and Value of Creativity

• Crisis of Creativity
  Nils believes the industry’s confidence has waned and creativity has been wrongly declared “dead.” The widespread focus on AI and business transformation is hijacking attention away from creativity:

  “Don’t confuse shit ads for the death of creativity. There are loads of shit ads, but creativity is far from dead.” — Nils Leonard [06:32]

• Rediscovering Creative Ambition
  Both Jon and Nils reflect on the need for audacity and bring marketers back to a place of swagger and creative confidence, referencing movements, not lone geniuses:

  “Movements aren’t one person. They’re a bunch of people all trying to do something where they share a kind of value, but they’re all hustling in their own way.” — Nils Leonard [02:13]

2. The Power of Narrative Objects & Experiences

• Campaigns Beyond Advertising
  Nils discusses creating “narrative objects” and experiences, which storytell a brand more powerfully than traditional ads:

  “If I could do it all again, I probably wouldn’t make an advert. I would make objects.” — Nils Leonard [07:30]

  Example: The Ordinary’s “Periodic Fable”

  • Deconstructed industry buzzwords into a provocative “periodic table.”
  • Created a dark, satirical classroom environment — “It was pretty fucking dark.”
  • Built a $10.5 million pile of cash in New York to visualize what celebrities are paid for endorsements, sparking massive public reaction:

    “I’m so grateful we did it…there were queues around the block to come see it, and it was like just a marvel at what ten and a half million dollars look like.” — Nils Leonard [11:04]

• Importance of Craft and Shareability
  Nils describes the science of art-directing an activation to ensure it travels and is referenced for years:

  “You make an object or a place, and then you ask yourself how quickly can the images and the story of that travel?” — Nils Leonard [12:23]

3. The Genius of Simplicity and Emotional Resonance

• BA “Reflections” Campaign
  Jon and Nils dive into the BA campaign, discussing the conscious choice of minimalism and subtlety—giving audiences “work to do” so the ad becomes memorable:

  “99.99% of brands could never do that…You have to own an idea. You have to be a brand that’s known and loved for you to get away…with being so subtle.” — Jon Evans [17:48]

  • Testing proved that even when only 40% spotted the brand in two seconds, the emotional impression lingered:

    “Fantasy of mine is that in five seconds someone looks at that, works it out and goes, oh, that's the most we can ask… even better, they might hold up a phone and take a fucking picture of it.” — Nils Leonard [20:36]

• Emotional Storytelling for Retailers (B&Q)
  Jon shares a personal story of loss and rebuilding, connecting deeply with B&Q’s emotional “We Will Grow Again” campaign. Nils explains that hanging a picture is not about DIY, but about care and transformation:

  “You hang that picture in that room and it changes the room. But what it tells your kid is, I care and you matter…that is massive lessons.” — Nils Leonard [24:44]

• Humor and Real Life Details

  • Example: A B&Q ad with a spirit level purposely tilted (“the whole ad was off four degrees”), showing real life’s imperfection [25:54].

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4. Disrupting Out-of-Home Advertising

• Hiscox “Rip-Off” Campaign
  Nils highlights the creative challenge and legal/imaginative hoops of spoofing other brands' ads to make a point about intellectual property:

  “As a brand, how wrong could it go? Because they insure brands. And we were like, well, other people ripping you off, other people sort of stealing your IP…and we just, it was a gift…” — Nils Leonard [28:00]

  • Difficulties with rival brands being reluctant to participate, seeing flattery as threat rather than opportunity [28:21].

• The Art of Format and Reference
  The team obsesses over creating OOH formats that become cultural games—referenced, collected, and cherished over time, like old Guinness or Economist ads.

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5. Authenticity in Film & Culture

• EA Skate Campaign
  Uncommon’s recent EA Skate work is a masterclass in cultural respect, authenticity, and in-joke—casting only true skaters (even crew), honoring the subculture’s language and flaws:

  “If you look at the film, it’s just riddled with these…how do we just stay true to that? But a real privilege to do that work, you know?” — Nils Leonard [31:19]

• JD Christmas and Youth Representation

  • 280 kids given phones to film the campaign authentically—no staged perfection, just collective youth energy:

    “We’ve never believed that youth is an idea…it’s got to be a deeper idea in there somewhere…when you really see them…they spend their lives planning, creating, hustling—it's incredibly beautiful.” — Nils Leonard [33:38]

  • Out-of-home executions resemble camera rolls, removing advertising signifiers [37:25].

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6. Entertaining the Uninteresting (BA Safety Video)

• Turning Pain Points into Magic
  BA’s safety video is extravagantly entertaining and distinctly British, intentionally subverting dull genre expectations:

  “We made an ad for the British Heart Foundation back at Gray with Vinnie Jones…your temptation is because you have a massive respect for that information, to behave in the most serious way possible. Of course, that’s the hardest way to get something into someone’s brain. The bigger the entertainment, the more chance we have of living.” — Nils Leonard [38:46; 38:58]

  • Dream is for BA’s safety video to become episodic and intrinsic to brand experience [40:21].

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7. Industry Critique: Missing Confidence & Toxic Cynicism

• UK’s Lost Energy vs. US Momentum
  Nils contrasts the UK’s professional outrage and cynical media with the US’s ambition, hustle, and belief—even referencing Trump (for energy, not ideology):

  “There is an energy in that country we don’t have…There’s a gloom here, John, and I hate it. And I think I’m trying to cling to the energy in New York that I was given.” — Nils Leonard [45:00]

• Cultural Self-Sabotage
  The UK industry is criticized for self-assassination and an anti-creative stance from industry media:

  “I struggle with Campaign and its viewpoint. I don’t think it believes in the industry…It reports on it as if it’s a kind of cynical restaurant critic watching the demise of a restaurant with this kind of beautiful sense of sadness and bitterness about how shit it all is...” — Nils Leonard [46:56]

• The Real Threat: Apathy, Not AI

  • Creatives are killing creativity through navel-gazing, social pontification, and lack of action, not AI:

    “Technology, in-housing and influencers didn’t kill creativity, we did... The biggest threat to our jobs isn’t AI, it’s apathy. If we believe creativity’s dead, if we believe it’s alive, we’re right.” — Nils Leonard [52:06]

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8. How to Fix It: Manifesting Momentum and Belief

• Learning from America
  Jon and Nils agree: if the UK can borrow the relentless, forward-moving momentum of American culture—less fear, more belief—creativity could resurge.

  “They don’t worry about passengers and critics, they just don’t. They’re like, I’m fucking doing this and we’re putting one foot in front of the other and then suddenly there’s a thing that exists.” — Nils Leonard [54:20]

• Brits Need More Than Swagger
  Nils wants the UK to be “incomprehensibly brilliant,” not just confident—a call to recapture a legacy of world-leading creative disruption (Oasis, Sex Pistols, Christopher Nolan, etc.) [59:29].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Name an agency or studio that the real world is happy exists. What it’s become, I think is our best, is a recognition of the power of creativity and to improve a business.” — Nils Leonard [51:02]
• “We made literal camera roll with all the images we might want to put, including the headlines, including the product, and then said, what if you zoomed in and out of that?” — Nils Leonard [37:08]
• “If we believe creativity’s dead, if we believe it’s alive, we’re right.” — Nils Leonard on D&AD activism [52:16]
• “AI is one word for a conversation we’ve been having for 25 years, which is everything apart from creativity.” — Nils Leonard [57:17]
• “Someone said...‘God, you guys were lucky, you’re like the last helicopter out of Vietnam.’ When I heard that, I was like, man, I just want to start another company—just to poke you in the fucking eye.” — Nils Leonard [58:32]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:57–06:20: Opening on the crisis of creativity and intent for the conversation
• 07:30–12:25: Narrative objects, “The Ordinary,” and the evolution of impactful work
• 13:18–21:49: Discussing BA, emotional branding, and system testing, with focus on simplicity and giving the audience some “work”
• 21:49–26:49: Emotional storytelling with B&Q and the real meaning of home improvements
• 26:49–29:18: Disruptive out-of-home for Hiscox, brand caution, execution challenges
• 29:54–37:08: Film/Skate culture, JD youth campaign, process as product, and innovative media executions
• 37:47–42:01: Entertaining the “uninteresting” with BA’s safety video, making ritual moments magical
• 43:48–46:17: Experiences from the US, hustling culture, and what the UK is missing
• 46:56–51:02: Industry critique, Campaign’s cynicism, defensive/apathetic industry mindset
• 52:06–54:09: The call for belief, D&AD activism, and “shut up and make” rallying cry
• 54:09–59:29: How UK creativity can get its groove back—borrowing American belief, embracing audacity/examples
• 59:29–60:01: Aspirations for incomprehensible brilliance and closing

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Final Message

A passionate, energizing conversation that challenges the industry to move beyond mediocrity, cynicism, and fear—and to re-center on the transformative power of creativity. Nils and Jon urge listeners not to confuse “the death of creativity” with a glut of forgettable work, but to double down on bold, authentic, and emotionally powerful ideas, while adopting the restless belief and hustle needed to make them real.

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If you care about the future of creative industries, this episode is a must-listen rallying cry.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome back to the Uncensored cmo. Now, one of my favorite guests of all time, Nils Leonard, the founder of Uncommon, is back on the Uncensored cmo. Now, Nils has something he really wants to talk about. At the moment, we're living through a crisis of creativity. Look at the WPP and the fact they're talking about AI all the time. Look at the closure of DDB as a brand name. And. And Nils is passionate about getting us re centered on creativity. He really believes that we need to rediscover that creative spirit. And Uncommon, they do some of the world's best creative work. So we want to sit down with Nils and find out what they've been doing as an agency and why he believes now is the time to really invest in creativity. This is an amazing episode. I know you'll love it. Here it is. One of my favorite returning guests here, Nils Leonard from Uncommon. And we're recording this, obviously, in Uncommon, which is great. Good to have you back, man.

[A]

Hey, mate, Lovely to see you.

[B]

Well, I tell this story to quite a few people because I remember last time we had a chat and we sat down, you asked a really good question of me before we recorded, which I think anyone's ever asked before. What do you want to happen as a result of this conversation? And it struck me that we spend so much time doing and delivering, we rarely stop to pause and go, what am I doing it for? What do I want to happen? I thought it was such a profound conversation.

[A]

And did you picture it?

[B]

I did. Because, you know, do you remember we did this. We got the whiteboard up, we just put on the. You know, I said, mate, what do you want to happen? And I think. I think you said, I want to work with Chelsea. Yeah, I think it was yours.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we were recording this. We were recording in 4F. Yeah, right. It's true. In a WeWork, and the world is full of four Fs, right? You know, I can go anywhere in the world, go to WeWork, find 4F, and it will look and feel and smell the same as that Where I was recording the podcast.

[A]

I was stuck downstairs for 20 minutes. You were abusive security guard.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

All the good stuff.

[B]

We've all been there, right? You can picture it, can't you? And I was like, dude, I want to have a studio, you know? And then I think you phone me up, like, a few months later and go, I might be able to help. And here we are, which has been amazing. So thank you, mate.

[A]

No, look, it was great. And, you know, right back at you or us. My dream of the studio was always that we would be this kind of factory, surrounded by people just hustling and doing their thing. It wasn't that we were just going to be this contained satellite. It was like, all the best things in the world. I'm obsessed with this. Like, movements, you know, aren't one person. They're a bunch of people all trying to do something where they share a kind of value, but they're all hustling in their own way. And I was kind of really excited at the thought of you doing that. What do you want to happen as a result of this?

[B]

Well, I'd go two things. One is something this year that has kind of hit me is being in the room where no one else is. So, for example, like, had Rawdon Glover from Jaguar, like, the world seems to go into meltdown after Jaguar did their thing.

[A]

But.

[B]

But I was able to get in the conversation with him to find out what's really going on. And so I. You know, it's a bit like every. Every creative endeavor only succeeds if you constantly reset the bar. And what I've learned in this podcast is I can't stand still, right? I can't go. This is. This is good enough. I have to. I literally, every six months, have to go, right? Where's the bar? And the bar today is having conversations with the most influential people in the world in a way that no one else can. Like Will Godara, for example, last week. Man, I was so pumped to do that conversation.

[A]

I was actually jealous you spoke to that. Honestly, he's the real one.

[B]

Yeah, he is. He's the real deal. Every damn answer to every question was just like gold. So I want to be in the room where no one else is, to have the conversations that could really change how we see the world and how marketers have the confidence. Because I think we've been in a crisis of confidence for too long now, and I want to put marketers back in that place of confidence. I think that'd be my dream for this podcast. And then the second thing is I want to make it happen in the real world, because I think there's a. I mean, we're automating everything. Everything's online, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I just think there's an energy about being together, so I want to create, like, a movement where the best marketers in the world get together, and we just have, like, one incredible pep talk, you know, an inspiration where we, you know, just get people together, Connection. Like, you Said the people you surround yourself with are your.

[A]

Yeah, your crew.

[B]

Yeah, are your crew.

[A]

I think marketers is a disgusting word, but I fantasized on your behalf coming over here today and I was like, you're a replacement for Letterman in the world of creativity. You're sat on American television. The only person that could possibly interview Michelle as she retakes the seat of power, you know, because really a lot of the stuff you're talking about now I find very thrilling. Really has nothing to do with marketing. I mean, it can do if you like, but not really. You know, it's about brand, it's about experience, it's about story, it's about meaning. I find all that quite thrilling, dude. So well done.

[B]

Well, we'll back at you, man. What's. What was. What do you want to happen?

[A]

I think we're on the cusp of doing something really, really special. I would say that, but I think we are eight studios in Stockholm, New York and London now, all jamming. We. I don't think we've ever had a better spread of disciplines in the studio. Our design practice is world class. I would argue we're moving into built environment and architecture. We're moving into filmmaking. We just did the thing with Feathers, with Benedict Cumberbatch. All the bullshit I promised myself we might do is starting. It's just starting to maybe just happen, John. And you know, you and I have talked before about deluded pictures that we paint ourselves in the future, but I think some of that is starting to occur. So I just think it's that thing where I couldn't possibly allow us to. My biggest fear is being dictated to now by the business as it is, to your point. And that can happen. You know, a business, once it gets to a certain scale, starts to tell you what to do, which is quite weird. You tell it what to do when you start. And I worry a little that we're listening to the business too much and not to what we want it to be. So I'm going to keep trying to push at that.

[B]

I love that, man. I was watching your DNA detalk recently and I love how you framed starting this business in the worst possible time in history and what you learned through that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What would you say if someone's listening to this? I mean, you're probably one of the most inspirational founders in the industry. What would you advise someone else who's listening and thinking? Because you have this amazing phrase I absolutely love in terms of create the thing that you wished existed in the.

[A]

World, which is brilliant.

[B]

Because, I mean, the way you described it, which I love is particularly in this industry, we're at the service of other people's agenda so often, aren't we?

[A]

Yeah, 100%.

[B]

And then we go, hang on a minute, I've just got this amazing creative idea. I could do this. Why does it have to be someone else's?

[A]

Well, just a massive bugbear for us. It has to be personal. I think it has to be personal. And a bugbear for us has been, not only are you in service, I think client service is probably the worst phrase ever to be invented. You know, I don't know any creative of any note that wants to wake up in service of anybody. Secondly, though, when you really think about who you're in service of in that dynamic, often there are people less ambitious than you, so what you spend your life doing is asking permission of a bunch of people who care less than you do to make your dreams come true, which is mad. I also think there's this thing at the moment where you know everyone. What would you do? What would you start? Don't confuse shit ads for the death of creativity. Just don't confuse the two. There's loads of shit ads, but creativity is far from dead. So I think starting something that refocuses on creativity in the scarcest, most powerful meaning of that word is huge. If I could do it all again, I probably wouldn't make an advert, though. I would make objects. I mean that, like, if you look at the ordinary work we've made for the last couple of years, most of the most successful famous work from the studio, it's been what we call narrative objects or experiences. The one second suit, that's the idea that you would make a product or a space or a thing that storytells a brand and its values better than any ad ever could. And I think if I could do it all again, I'd just make a series of objects for people. That doesn't mean we wouldn't have big brand thinking behind them. It's just the route to market is far more incisive.

[B]

Yeah, I love the ordinary work. I think it's as close as I can remember to a sort of 1984 moment where you go. Because I think what was so good about that is you were very clear about who the enemy was and what change you wanted to create. And he even had that vibe of, like, revolution about it, didn't it? Just Anyone who hasn't seen that work, just describe it a little bit, because.

[A]

It'S A Periodic fable.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. So, well, the Ordinary. The Ordinary are an amazing brand started by Brandon, bless him, you know, deciem and the Ordinary. And they really wanted to put a dent in the whole industry, you know, and you and I talk a lot about this, don't we? But, you know, categories in which, you know, deserve a good shake up. And he launched the Ordinary. And the Ordinary is amazing. You know, it's very much about no bullshit. It's like you pay for what you get and it works and it's great. And really, they were like, look, can you take the gloves off and can you keep getting us talked about in that context? So one of the things we made was called the Periodic Fable, which was we did a monitor of the entire beauty industry and all the buzzwords and the bullshit that it uses, and there are hundreds of them. And we found the most guilty perpetrators, like I think we found, you know, 70 of them or something, and unpack them into a. Into a version of the periodic table. Point is, when you make an object like that, you then go to yourself, well, how do we tell the world about that object? Not how do we tell the world about ordinary values? And so we were like, well, what are we going to do? And we were like, well, if we've all been learning these horrendous lessons, let's create the most psychopathically dark classroom in history. And it was. And it was pretty fucking dark. I mean, the director murdered it. But, you know, imagine we're all sat there learning these beauty lessons, you know, fat, freezing. It's kind of terrifying. And just unpack that. And so that was what we did. And the game then is, well, how shocking and how profound, provocative can you make that content in order to get people to this table? But I'm so proud of all that work. The crew that run the Ordinary are amazing. The secret ingredient. We made, you know, that pile of ten and a half million dollars in New York. There were queues around the block to go and see which is the average amount of money, you know, celebrities are paid for skincare endorsements.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ten and a half million.

[A]

Yeah. Crazy. You know, and so it was. It's all that stuff. And the subject matter is so good. We're not going to run out of.

[B]

Just to wind back a little bit, you put ten and a half million dollars.

[A]

So we took a corner store. I fucking love New York for this. You know, we made this thing called rat boot a while ago. Let me just go with me on this. Which was a boot With a pair of rats in for New York Fashion Week. Don't ask why we wanted to get talked about. I think if you'd have done rat boot in London, a geezer would have lent out the van and gone, what are you doing with those boots on? You do it in New York, you know, everyone's filming it. The film gets.

[B]

It was this New York Fashion Week or something? Yeah.

[A]

Film gets 130 million views. Crazy. It's the most famous bit of work, whether I like it or not. So we realized that New York is like this tinderbox for conversation. We were like, anything we do there is going to be, you know, much more explosive. So we're like, right, how do we highlight this fact that all these celebs are getting paid, you know, your skincare costs 90 quid, say, insane. Why does it cost £90? Well, it costs £90 because they've given, you know, Leonardo DiCaprio 10 million quid. And we were like, well, how do we highlight that? And we were like, well, what if we just showed everybody what that looked like? And so we found this corner, you know, on Grand, I think it was, and canal, maybe something. And it was amazing. It was an amazing spot. And we were like, well, what if we just put ten and a half million, you know, dollars in there the night before we did this fucking thing? And I'm so grateful we did it. We had a couple of geezers turn up in a van, security guards in Hyvid's vests, huge dudes carrying bags of cash. And we just let some of the cash fall out the top of the bags, and people were filming it, like, what is happening? And then we made this huge pile of money. But, yeah, it was. It was huge, you know, and people were queuing around the block to come see it, and it was like just a marvel at what ten and a half million dollars look like. And it is quite berserk when you.

[B]

That is amazing, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah, it's nuts again. And forgive me for waxing on it, but this. This is the science of work. Like this. So you make an object or a place, and then you ask yourself how quickly can the images and the story of that travel? So the window with the decal on it, security guards stood outside. The pile of cash. It was all critical. And you art direct that, almost like a shoot in its own right. And I think that that skill set is something I think the studio is getting really, really good at, you know, on a variety of clients. But, yeah, I'm fascinated by that style of.

[B]

Because that matters, doesn't it? Because you've got to get that so right for people to believe it. And actually for people to believe it.

[A]

But also, John, for the people that didn't queue around the block to understand it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's ironic to me that you take a different marketing model. You know, you take a public space for two days and you craft it the same way you would any ad campaign, except that has 10 times the reach because it's in every newspaper and it's on every news channel, you know, And I think that shape of work is tantalizing, you know, I think people will be talking about the secret ingredient or the periodic fable in five years, you know, my adverts probably far less, sadly.

[B]

Yeah, well, you're making. You're making things to be shared, aren't you? Trying and to create stories that people want to tell.

[A]

Yeah, we talk about reference points, man, always, you know, but I was always obsessed with this statement, you know, about the movie industry, which is like, we're not trying to win the opening weekend. That's important. We're trying to become, you know, something that people refer to in five or ten years when they think of an emotion or when they think of a subject matter. And I really hope, or the intention with our work is that the studio is muttered alongside that. You know, that's always been our dream, is that we somehow wake up and someone is having a conversation. They say our studio's name in 10 years time, you know, or 20, hopefully. People talk about the Economist word now still. You know, they talk about VW work, you know, they talk about the ipod, you know, a thousand songs in your pocket. I'm like, how do we stand remote chance of being a conversation like that? That's the game at the moment.

[B]

I love that. And I mean, Economist is a great reference, isn't it? Because they can just put out a poster that says chat gdp.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And like, everyone knows the idea, right. And that gets talked about, shared, and it's because they've owned an idea so clearly in our minds.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Format and a color and a font even.

[A]

Yeah. We're obsessed with that too. So I. I love that you spotted that. Like, we analyze all that crap all the time. When we do out of Home. We love out of Home here. When we always go hunting for a format, we don't just want to make one good poster. We're like, how do we create something that is beautiful in its own right, but almost becomes its own game to the point where the consumer and the real world are just going, fuck, I wish there were more of those and they understand it already. You have a much higher chance, I think, of being important if you do that. The OG purpose of your visit work for BA is probably the best example we've got.

[B]

And you guys as well. You focus so much on simplifying the idea. And I think the temptation for most brand managers is like, put the messages in, put the offers in there, make sure they've got the QR code. But everything you do is beautifully simple.

[A]

Thank you. I mean, in out of home, I think it's critically important. And I know people talk about the rules of out of home. Simple and consistent. The other truth there is you can be simply boring and consistently shit. And we were like, actually, we need to be inflammatory, if that's a word. Simple.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How am I simple? In a way that's remarkable, Almost arrogant with some of the work that. I mean that sincerely, like, how is it almost insulting because the rest of the industry behave a certain way to behave as simply as we could. That feeling is one we really chase. I'd also argue you and me are old fuckers, Right? Let's fantasize for a second in our alternate life that we're both in Paris in 30 years, noodling around antique shops and we find adverts from. Now, you're not going to find adverts with a fucking QR code on in there and you're not going to put them on your wall if they do have one on, you know, you're going to put up the things that epitomize the time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's the way we're trying to make.

[B]

I love that reference. It's a bit like when we grew up and you had sort of the Lamborghini Countach on, you know, on the wall. Right. You know that they were the petite.

[A]

Shops now and you see beautiful old ads. I mean, I think booze used to own a format, you know, Guinness owned a format. And I think that's the thing we're chasing is like, Christ, wouldn't it be amazing, you know, if the BA Reflections work was, you know, collectible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

In 2020.

[B]

Let's talk BA because that's obviously live now, breaking. I think Windows man, was such good work. And, you know, why change? I think that's probably the question everyone had is like, why? Why move on from what was such a good idea?

[A]

Maybe it was just a gift, you know, to. To. We were sort of looking at it and we were like, Wouldn't it be amazing if you just look the other way out the window, if you saw what they were seeing? First of all, and I love the story of that, the real world won't understand that. I mean, I think Windows was great and we could continue to run Windows, but when you land on an idea like that, I. I felt like it was a race to execute it. There's that phrase, isn't there? Rick Rubin has, which is, nobody stole your idea. I landed on that for BA and I thought to myself, there's only very few brands that could do it because your brand has to be so fucking iconic that you have been in that place where you see the logo reflected in the fuselage and whatever that said, I was suddenly terrified. And I know that's the mark of a good idea. When you see something, you're like, I'm. Now my. My terror was finding an idea. Now that I found this one, my terror is someone else doing it. And I was like, we just have to fucking make this. Yeah. And the simplicity and the truth of BA and I fly a lot. But, you know, taking you to these places and these moments you have either before you land or when you've taken off and how that feels and all that romance and weirdness going on in your head, the expansiveness and the promise of travel that that brand holds, I just think is amazing. And now, you could try very hard to try and say that in an advert, but what we tried to do is make you feel it.

[B]

I mean, that's the two things I loved. Well, lots of things I love about it, but I think you've got it exactly. Because the moment that just before you land where you've spent all your money, you've invested, you're going somewhere, you really looking forward to it, you might be meeting someone with your family, whatever. Right. That moment about to land is always when you look at. Looking out the window, you know, look at New York skylines, that kind of thing. It's that feeling you get then, isn't it? Which I just thought was beautifully captured in so many different environments as well.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then the other thing I thought was interesting is because, like. Well, as we joked about hiding the logo in plain sight, you know, but. But giving the audience a little bit of work to do, I think psychologically it was quite interesting.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And 99.99% of brands could never do that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You. You have to be. You have to own an idea. You have to be a brand that's known and loved for you to get Away. I mean, I think maybe Apple and Nike could probably get away with that, you know, being so subtle with their branding. But I think that was the, in a way, asking the audience a making something so beautiful of a moment, but then asking the audience to kind of almost solve the puzzle in their mind.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, psychologically poke them.

[A]

I think the audience do want to do work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The audience in inverted commas are as sick of being served averageness as we are. You know, they're as sick of it as we are of making it. And I think they want to be poked and provoked. You know, the things they like the most are the cleverest are the most interesting. And I don't think that idea was really that clever. I'll tell you why. Because there was absolutely nothing else. The rules of that idea are you can't put anything else on it. No website, no link, no call to action. You can't. The moment you do that, you divert the attention, you have screwed it. So the only thing they'll go hunting for is who brought me this message. Because those, by the way, are the rules of advertising, which we've established for 100 years. There is a thing on this poster. I wonder who made it. They will do the fucking work. And it's fun to.

[B]

Well, we tested it. System one, actually.

[A]

What?

[B]

What was fascinating. Oh, mate, you see that cartoon? That guy?

[A]

Oh, yeah, I know.

[B]

Although it's like having a pop at us. I just thought it was hilarious. It was something along the lines of, like, you know, what does the quantitative, you know, econometric modeling say about this one? Maybe I'll just bet, you know, have a beer and check the System One.

[A]

Yeah. Two guys. Two guys on the street discussing System One results.

[B]

I'm just.

[A]

You fucking wish, John.

[B]

Well, you know, I say, look, if they're talking about you, that's good, right? I mean, I take that. Even if it's, you know, the studio rule as well.

[A]

Mate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're good with it.

[B]

The worst thing is not being talked about, right? So the question everyone had is, well, who can tell it, you know, in two seconds, who can tell it's from BA, right? So we did the tests on this. 40% of people spotted it was BA in two seconds. And in about seven or eight seconds is how long we expose people to the ad before we ask them how they feel about it. Got to about 80% now, I actually think. Because that's below average, Right. I think that's pretty damn good. Because given that that's the first exposure and of course, you know, you've got a big media buy being shared on social, everything else like that. So I think it gives credit to your idea that actually sometimes you can ask the audience to do a bit of work.

[A]

I always say, think, well, thanks for that, that's good to know. And I'm sure someone somewhere will poke me in the eye about that. What is also interesting about that though is it doesn't necessarily describe the context in which you are making your mind up about that brand. So I think most brands go now and put up posters and go, how do 100% of people know this is immediately from us? Yep. And how do 100% of people know you're still incredibly boring and still force feeding advertising? They fucking hate them. And so I think the context in which you digest that information is also really important. Fantasy of mine is that in five seconds someone looks at that, works out and goes, oh, that's the most we can ask. Yeah. You know, even better, they might hold up a phone and take a fucking picture of it.

[B]

There you go. Which is like, or take their own version of it when they're landing and then share that and then go, I'm doing it. I'm, I'm doing a ba. You know, that's, that's what you want to get to eventually. This amazing bit of research, actually, I need to dig it out from quite a few years ago. This is actually my first kind of experience with the team at System One. This is John, the founder. He did this experiment with two banking clients, right. And on one bank basically just had this very emotional message about being with you through life, thick and thin through life. You can imagine the kind of thing, right. This other banking ad had all the, our stores are open longer, we've got better rates, here's our customer service centers. We're on every high street. It basically told you all the reasons to believe in that bank. He then went and did a survey to find out how people rated both banks on rational messages. The emotional ad that had zero messages aced it on everything. So what happened is basically that if you feel good about the brand, every question you ask about, oh, how good is customer service? All went up. The one that actually said we have good customer service, it didn't change things. And I think this is a thing that most advertisers don't understand.

[A]

A lot of our brands approach us for that though. You know, I think we were talking about B and Q, you know, a while back and I think the relationship we have with B and Q is rooted in that shift, which is somehow how do we ignite that deep emotional love for that brand? I think BT similarly, you know, apparently the pitch of the year, I think you're looking at that brand, and we're incredibly excited about that work and the relationship we have. But, you know, speaking to Alison, the CEO, and it's all about what they stand for and what they believe in, and I think it's an incredibly exciting time for them. And I think akin to the ba work. No one will see that coming.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I can't fucking wait, man.

[B]

That's gonna be awesome. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned B and Q. I would probably cite that as my favorite out of home from you and look, for partly personal reasons, but it was post Covid, we were just, you know, everyone was kind of. No one could move house. Everyone was redoing their homes. I was in a very unusual position because just before COVID we had a house fire, and I literally lost all my contents. Everything. Right. Including all the family albums that. Everything. Right. So we. We were actually living in a travel lodge with only, like, the clothes we were wearing for a few weeks. Then we go into rental, the whole thing. And what was interesting about that moment, that time. So I've got two daughters, right. And they both reacted completely differently. Like, the eldest was imagining a whole different home, a different bedroom. I want an ensuite. Daddy, I want to walk in. When you came back, she, she, she. She moved on, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The younger daughter was affected very differently. She wanted to go back. And so she was saying to me, daddy, I want to recreate my bedroom. And she was into. I think it was like tropical sort of plant design. So, you know, the lampshade, the curtains, the bed covers, they all had these, like, you know, kind of beautiful tropical plants on. It was lovely. And for her, what she needed partly of the healing of the kind of trauma and stuff, was to recreate that bedroom. And I remember searching everywhere for a particular print and a particular style to try and exactly match the thing that she had lost. And I remember literally going through B and Q, trying to find, you know, the pantone match and the design, this sort of thing. And then you went out and, man, you really got me. I was totally choked up. And I saw you're out of home about, you know, we'll grow back or whatever. I'm like, that we will grow again. Chills down my spine. That's amazing, because in the moment, that's what I was trying to do. And maybe I was in A more extreme position than most people were.

[A]

You captured that. When I first met Paddy, we had this conversation, and Paddy was the guy leading the pitch at that point. And we had a conversation and it was really. It was like, I wasn't a big DIYer and he could smell it. No shit. And we had a conversation, though, and I went, listen, I'm going to tell you what the gateway drug to DIY is. It's hanging a picture. And I'll tell you what it's really about is you hang that picture in that room and it changes the room. But what it tells your kid is, I care and you matter. And I'm going to put this on the wall to show you that you can make a change and that things can move forward. Your. Your story is even more powerful, you know, that I can rebuild this life either as a new one or the old one you love. You know, that's a huge power for a parent. That was all sat under, let's be honest, a category that had people zooming around on segues, talking about prices. And so again, I was like, this is ridiculous. There is this immense ready to burst well of fucking emotion. We have to fucking get on that. And so all the work, build a life, you know, really was that insight from the picture right back. You know, you don't paint your kid's room. You tell them that it's safe and that they can dream and that it can be anything they want it to be and that their environment can change. And that is massive lessons, you know, and you do that for your partner, you know, and so anyway, that we lost it on that and just went and went and went, you know, and it was. It again was an exercise in how simply. And there was a mix of romance, you know, I love the romance of that work. Like, you know, I'm a. I'm a bit of a saddle in that sense. I don't think there's enough of that in our world. And I love that. But there's also humor in it. You know, one of my favorite ads was Beginner, and it was just a poster with a spirit level, but the whole ad was off. We put it off four degrees. You know, it's just like things like that.

[B]

That's real life, isn't it? And this is, you know, so much of it is like, we're gonna smash.

[A]

Prices your do your DIY voice smashing prices since 1985. 54 shades of blue.

[B]

Because it's all like. But that's the category, right? And this is the insight you Guys totally nailed on. To seize the pun is it's emotional because what you're doing is deeply emotional. Your home is like everything.

[A]

100%, it's everything.

[B]

And this is what that entire category has missed for so many years.

[A]

Yeah, I think so. Apparently, IKEA are up for pitch. So if they're listening. If they're listening, this is me making a. What do you want to happen result of this conversation. Yeah, well, man, I mean, again, you know, I don't know, I feel like, right or wrong, I mean, they've had a great sort of suite of adverts over the years, but again, I think the brand is missing certainly some emotional connection to the world at the moment. I don't know why, but I feel like that's true. And they've got a very unique take on it as well.

[B]

They do, they do. So sticking on the out of home thing, the work I've seen from you recently, which I keep smiling at, I don't know if it's still running, but the Hiscox. Oh, yeah, like rip off ads. That is just so clever. I think that, you know, as a marketer, when I look at out of Home, you're constrained by. It's 2D. You've got two seconds. Yeah. You know, how do you. So how do you land an emotion and a message in that time? The Hiscox stuff does that amazingly.

[A]

Yeah. Thank you. The most disastrous campaign. That's the gag. Yeah, I mean, that's the. That's the actual gag. I mean, it's so funny.

[B]

The.

[A]

We did this whole pitch. I'm going to be really honest here. We did this whole pitch and we. Brilliant clients over there, Fee and the rest of the crew, absolutely amazing. And we had this idea which was really insurance isn't. Insurance is the story of your business. And actually the ups and downs, particularly the downs, are a huge part of it all. And we sort of landed on this massive territory and then we landed on this bit of work where the first work we did was how bad it could get. And we're like, hang on a minute, this is like crack. It just kept writing itself. There's a load of work on TV that's going to come up that I hope you're going to love. But I think, again, it's incredibly disruptive, you know, really new in that sense. And we just sort of landed right and we were like, bloody hell, how wrong could it go? And you go, yeah, there's disastrous posters. The posters fall over or they get flooded. Another thing, though, was like, As a brand, how wrong could it go? Because they insure brands. And we were like, well, other people ripping you off, other people sort of stealing your ip and we just. It was a gift, you know, to take other people's advertising codes. What got me, John, was it was incredibly difficult to convince brands to do it.

[B]

Do you mean the brands you were ripping off?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, we were like, you know, Weetabix or whoever, it was like, you know, Burger King were one of them if they're listening, sadly. But I was like, why wouldn't you know? The rules of engagement are not in any way derogatory. In fact, it's kind of flattery to be featured because it suggests you have advertising codes that are strong enough. And we were like just ringing around desperately trying to get these brands to say yes. And it was like, fuck, this is free media, dude. And load of them wouldn't. So I mean, look, we're trying to make the next phase of that work. But if anyone listening, and also for.

[B]

Anyone who doesn't realize, the idea was that you did think you were looking at a specsavers ad because it's got spec savers, colors, even says, should have gone to Hiscock's, obviously being the PA off. But it does look like a specsaker. Yeah. And then you've got the reveal.

[A]

Yeah. You know, if someone steals your ip, then come over here. Yeah, I think that's right. But yeah, it was just killing me, you know, we were like Burger King. Even our friends, actually we just discussed at B and Q were too nervous to do it and I was just like, man, that's just a no brainer. So, yeah, it just got me. So we're looking for the next phase of that. So if anyone's listening fancies that. Great.

[B]

Actually, talking to Specs, I think one of my favorite out of home. This is where owning an idea can be so powerful. I don't know if you saw this a couple of years ago now, but Specsavers took a massive billboard out of Sydney airport and just put welcome to Melbourne.

[A]

Yep. So I. There was a. I don't know if I should say. I'm saying it. Fuck it. There was a rumor that they were going to do a parody of our Reflections ads.

[B]

Really?

[A]

And one of our creatives here immediately got to, you know, welcome to Glasgow. And it was over the Maldives. And then we got to, you know, welcome to whatever. And it was like, we just like, fuck, man. Please, please do it. I don't know if they get it. Yeah, we were like, yeah, let's go. Yeah. Great brand, man.

[B]

They've done some amazing stuff. So out of home. Let's move on to film as well.

[A]

All right.

[B]

I'd love to talk about some. Some of your film work recently because it's been absolutely amazing. We talked about the ordinary, of course, which. Which was. Which is incredible. Now, as a. As a former skate boy from the kind of 80s that grew up on the bones brigade, most people listening what you're talking about. Yeah, but your EA work, man, I just thought that was exceptional. But what I love about it is it shows your respect and understanding of culture and how you kind of really understand culture in a kind of a deep way. Because that film is just oozing absolute respect, that culture. And it had. It was no actors, right?

[A]

No. Zero. Yeah, Everybody, even genuine skaters, everyone had to be scared. Even the crew, you know, like the guys holding, you know, the cameras and the lighting and everything. Everyone was a scare. Everybody.

[B]

And that really came across. All the tricks, the camera angles, the jokes. Yeah.

[A]

The grain of film was shot on. Yeah, it was good. I mean, the other thing, I think. Thank you for seeing that. We love that work, dude. It was a massive privilege. I grew up skating Harrow skate Center, Bay 66, South Bank.

[B]

Yeah, south bank, yeah.

[A]

All that. Love it. And the other thing we were obsessed with, though, is also remaining true to the game. So if you play OG skate, which is fucking brilliant, frankly, candidly, with the client hat on, the fuck ups in the game were some of the best bits. So there'd be like a board stuck halfway through a wall or a player stuck upside down in a trick, and it'd be glitching away and you'd be like, oh, man, it was kind of cool. And so if you look at the film, it's just riddled with these as well, you know, where we were like, how do we just stay true to that? But a real privilege to do that work, you know? And again, starting to scratch at it. There's more to come there, but I just fucking love that. I mean, you know what?

[B]

And the great thing about skate culture is anything can be skated. You know, skaters are amazing at finding a little railing somewhere and then turning it into, effectively a playground.

[A]

I tried to get my kids skating. I thought it was such a good thing. Looking back, I mean, how creative could it be? You know, you basically look at the entire world as an opportunity, you know, for somewhere to have fun. The other thing, indirectly, skate culture taught me is music and film and fashion. You know, I grew up around that and one of the guys, you know, who used to skate Harrow when I was there was a guy called Nick Arecchio who started Death Skateboards. I think one of the most iconic British skate brands, you know, going. And if you look at it, it's a birthplace of some of the coolest brands, the brands we pay most for. Supreme and palace, you know, a skate brands, man. And I just think it's nuts that more people haven't looked at that community as an act of creativity as opposed to just, you know, if you don't know skating, you assume it's as rebellious. Fuck you. It's absolutely not like that at all. Yeah, you know, it's really not a lot of the time. It's a bunch of kids who, probably, being honest, don't have that many mates at school, probably don't have massive crews who come together and really find a very new energy with each other. I think it's incredibly beautiful skate culture.

[B]

Oh, it's amazing.

[A]

Yeah. So it was good. It was good to see that film. And, you know, some of the people in that film are just berserk, by the way. But it was great.

[B]

Really cool. Love that a lot. Moving on. We're calling this kind of come up to Christmas and big fan of your JD work. Oh, yeah, it's very, you know, I mean, again, Christmas advertising has become a successful cliche, I'll say, because it's become a cliche, but, you know, for all the right reasons. But you take a very different lens or you see things through a different lens in the kind of creative work you're doing. And what I love about what you've done there is how you kind of turn the camera onto the. Onto the community. Rather than kind of have perfection, as it were, or the stylized image of what life is like, you kind of bring the community.

[A]

Well, we started with J. I love that brand. And an immensely powerful and brilliantly run brand, by the way. Jd, Massive respect to the clients there and the business they built. When we started working with them, it was so easy and so tempting just to go, look, Christmas and this time of year don't look like the adverts, they actually look like this. And we started to make that kind of work. The last project was really the culmination of something we were trying to do a few years ago, which is we've never believed that youth is an idea. I always thought, this is interesting, by the way, John. People get to a place and they go, it's going to be cool. It's all about the youth, it's like, great. What's the idea? The youth isn't an idea. There's got to be a deeper idea in there somewhere. Azeef Kapadia had a conversation with once, I had this idea about the Premier League and I was like, oh, Zif, you know, could you give me some advice? He made Senna and he made Amy, you know, amazing filmmaker. And I said, can you give me some advice, please? I've got this idea, would you want to direct it? And he said, what's the idea? And I said, 20 years of the Premier League. He went, cool, cool, but what's the idea? And I was like, oh, fuck. And then he went, listen, he said, when I made Senna, I was like, you know, right. I talked to the board and I was like, right, we're going to open up and I'm going to, you know, Senate. And then they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? And he was like, well, the idea of Senna is not his death. The idea of Senna is his rivalry with Prost. That's the real idea of Senna. And I was like, fuck. And I went back to the drawing board, had my ass politely kicked by a brilliant filmmaker. Forgive me long segue, but J.D. we were like, actually there is this amazing insight under this, which is we've never seen more footage of ballied up youths. We've never been more afraid. Again, almost like back to the 70s and 80s of our youth being positioned in ways that destabilize everybody. And, you know, we've never had less hope for them. And yet when you really see them, and particularly this insight around they spend their lives on their phone, you, when you really understand what that means, they spend their lives together, they spend their lives planning, they spend their life sharing and making, creating and hustling. It's incredibly beautiful. So we were like, well, what if the idea was actually, you know, that if you were looking for the future, you only have to look on the phones of the young. And so we gave it to like 280 kids. We gave them a phone, literally a JD phone, like a production pack. We're like, right, go, go shoot it. Load of stuff. Obviously we couldn't feature, but what an amazing project, you know, and an amazing kind of approach to make some work. We've always believed this, John, that the process can be as important as the story, you know, and I think the, the authenticity of that process rings out in the work. You know, the fact we did that for real, you know, then let Us make the kind of film we wanted to make.

[B]

And you're going to have 280 kids out there proudly sharing, like, with all their friends, right?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So you're almost creating a viral moment.

[A]

Just in it, trying to approach production. And, like, when we feature some of the more famous people in that work, you know, you look at Paddy the Baddie and they're featured in the same way, you know, And I think that's really cool as well. Like, we're not sat there going, you know, and then we switch to a beautiful anamorphic lens so we can feature Maya Jammer. It's like now everyone is featured on the mobile, you know, and everyone is shot the same way. Cole Palmer in that is. I fucking love it, you know, so that work is going down really well and, you know, that partnership is just amazing. There's so much work coming. The other thing I want to highlight, though, which most people won't spot it is the out of home or other media. It's all. It's all a photo reel. So we literally were like, what if we tried our hardest for that work to be as faithful to the media as possible? So we made literal camera roll with all the images we might want to put, including the headlines, including the product, and then said, what if you zoomed in and out of that? How beautifully could you make all your work? So there's a film we're going to see which shows the process of that, but it's then an exercise of just cropping in and out of that camera roll, which I think is so, so cool. You know, there isn't actually any type over the top, it's all in the roll. And that's going to work in store, that's going to work everywhere else. So, again, I just think we're making some of our most original work for that brand.

[B]

That's really cool because, I mean, I know it sounds a basic observation, but sometimes when you put type, you actually put almost a barrier that's right up.

[A]

Well, you say this is an advert. Yeah. There was this thing you were going to enjoy. That's why the BA work. Again, back to that is so the purity's almost part of the idea, the trick for a brief second, isn't it? Is it not being an ad? Yeah, if you can.

[B]

Well, actually brings me to one of my other favorite things you've done, talking about ba. It's a safety video.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Because it's like I was doing this is can last year collaboration, Adam Morgan, on the cost of being Dull. And he had interviewed, I think it was a mining company somewhere. And what he was fascinated about is that when they do the safety briefing before.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Before basically all the, you know, miners watching the safety video is the, is the difference in life and death, is that important? And, and they said, they said something to him along the lines of, we can't afford for this video to be dull.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Literally. Right. And it occurs to me that the genre of safety videos historically, I mean, there's been a few kind of breakouts, but traditionally is the most dull thing you'll see on in Flight 7 in Flight Entertainment is after the safety video, not before it. You know what I mean? And I love the fact you took that and just completely inverted it and went extravagantly entertaining.

[A]

I mean, it's an old strategy, but it's one people still don't use enough. We made an ad for the British Heart foundation back at Grave with Vinnie Jones about how to deliver cpr. It's called Hard and Fast. It's not as hard as it looks. And the real insight under it was ironically.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

When you're trying to dispense very important, critical, life saving information, your temptation, of course, is because you have a massive respect for that information, to behave in the most serious way possible. Of course, that's the hardest way to get something into someone's brain. So, you know, with that work we realized the bigger the entertainment, the more chance we have of living. There was a 999 call I still got on my hard drive to this day that they recorded where someone said, I'm doing it. I'm doing the staying alive bit. And that's one of the things I'm most proud of in my career ever. Someone in a moment of mortality might remotely have remembered something you made and it used it to save a life is fucking huge.

[B]

That's huge, man.

[A]

Fucking massive. And you know, when I look at the safety video, I was like, the opportunity is the same there now. You know, we were just like, God, how many ways can we do this? My fantasy for the ba work we've done is that it's episodic. So, you know, I really love. People do love that video. I see them. I'm obsessed as well, by the way. I'm incredibly needy. I get on a fucking plane and I look around. When that plays, I look at everybody. Are they watching? Are they smiling? Best one ever. About six months ago, someone nudged their mate and goes, you've seen this, you've seen this. And he had his headphones on. And he was like, what? He's like, have you seen this? He's like, yeah, it's great. I was like, brilliant.

[B]

I love that.

[A]

But so we're trying to make it episodic now, of course, money's a factor and all the above, so we're trying to produce it all in clever ways. But there's another one in the. In the making now, which I hope people will love. And it's all about, you know, how many places can this appear? And, you know, how many of these can we make?

[B]

I mean, it's obviously entertaining and that.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's a lot of it. But it's also incredibly British as well, which is the other thing, isn't it? It's just like almost a Downton Abbey spoof. I mean, you couldn't. No one else could do that, right?

[A]

It wouldn't.

[B]

It wouldn't feel right, any other airline to do that. And I think the ownability, the idea as well.

[A]

And there are other. If, you know, if you follow that thread, John, there are other things that could only be British and only be British Airways. So that's where we're headed. But I can't wait, man. I love that work. It's exciting. Also, it's an accepted part of the ritual. I'm not invading your fucking life, you know, with that. I'm not, like, appearing somewhere you don't want me to be and trying to force feed you a message. Like, we all have to watch this video. We know we do. We all kind of go, oh, God, here we go. And at that point, the expectation is nil. Here we go. This fucking safety video I have to sit through before I can get my gin and tonic. And you're like, well, God, if the expectations nil, we can only win. How fucking much can we win? How much can we surprise someone in that moment? That's the game.

[B]

Yeah. Well, going back to our friend Will Godard, actually, he talks a lot about find the most painful point in the customer experience and turn it into a magical moment. And it's inverting that moment that we.

[A]

All go, oh, God, do that through the whole brand experience, you know, we try to do that. I think British Original is one of our most successful ideas in that sense, in that you get on one of those planes and there's a menu and it says, our original British Menu. And it talks about the originality of the recipes and the chefs and the food. You push the seat back and there's a section called British Originals. You know, like, we've become a category of movies on your plane. I look at that and go, that's the sort of work we're trying to aspire to when you talk about building a brand. And I think that's exactly right, mate. We love looking at the pain points in a category and the pain points, you know, in life.

[B]

My one request is, right, can you just ask them to sort the app out, please? You must get this all the time. Can we have an original app?

[A]

Then everything's done, then it's coming. I mean, what I would say is, I really, I really mean this. I think, you know, that whole quote about nothing kills a, you know, great brand, like a bad brand, like great advertising, whatever it is. They're not those guys, you know, they are, they have made massive headway and I think the success of the BA work and our partnership is also mirrored by the ambition and the execution by the way of their improvement. It's coming. They are just such a critical brand to people. And I, you know, I was with one of the clients the other night and someone just thought it was their God given right to walk straight up to him and, and have a go at him about stuff. That's like someone stopping you and going, you know, that podcast with Nils is a bit shit, you know, when you're with your family or when you're out. And I sort of just took a beat and I thought that's kind of out of order, you know, it's a bit like they're on their way, man. If you look at the sways they're making and the work they've done and the brand they've built and the airline they are, they're still, I just think, an incredible business. And you know, I'll just ask anybody in that position, myself included, by the way, just to take a beat before you sling the shit. Them, it's on the way and I think they're doing a great job.

[B]

It's also a measure of the love people have for the brand, actually, because if people didn't care, they wouldn't. Right.

[A]

I completely agree.

[B]

It's partly going back to what we're talking about earlier. There are very few brands with that kind of iconic status expectation of what they're gonna. Yeah, experience. Right.

[A]

That's why it's a privilege to, to, you know, be doing what we're doing with them, you know, and I think there's some design work coming for those guys. Again, I'm, you know, these are dreams of the studio to work on brands like this, you know, I feel the same about bt, by the way. You know, anything with British.

[B]

I was gonna say, man, we just need to get you Jaguar.

[A]

Then I got the complexity.

[B]

Talking of travel, though, you've just come back from a year in the us.

[A]

Two years.

[B]

Two years in the us I'd love to know what your experience of, well, a setting up the studio out there would be, how that's gone. And also, what are your observations in terms of the kind of culture and where creativity is at?

[A]

Oh, man, I love that. It was huge. It dawned on us as a bunch of founders that if one of us didn't go out there and try and set up the studio, it wouldn't necessarily work. You can hire good people, but our version of good is different. I think it taught me more about the UK than the us I missed the uk, Obviously, I'm passionately British and all the above, but we are the most professionally outraged race on the planet, and not in a motivating way. You know, everything is a problem and a reason to rant and get on social and moan. And I think there's a really interesting insight and, you know, around the change of power over there, around Trump, around the energy of that. That was really, really interesting, you know, and I'll just spit some stuff here and everyone be like, oh, my God, Nails is a Trump. I. I'm not. But there is an energy in that country we don't have. There is an energy running through the decisions they're making. You know, love or hate that guy. He's important and he's pushing and he's doing things that others aren't. Best way to describe it, you know, the suing the BBC, isn't it? Which is horrendous. The best way to describe it, though, is Keir Starmer wakes up one morning, he's going to sue cnn. Do they give a shit? No. It'd be a laughingstock. And that just is a mirror to me about where we are, and I find that incredibly frustrating. I miss the energy and the creativity and the ambition, frankly, of this country, and I think that's gone missing. So horrendous segue, isn't it, telling a Donald Trump story. But you get what I mean, And I think that's what it's taught me. There is still in New York City a hustle that is incredible. I think there's an artfulness and a romance, like I say, and a depth to the work we do here that they can't possibly capture. But I also think there's an energy and A hustle and a momentum that we can't capture, particularly here, I think. And this is weird. Go with me on this. There's a gloom here, John, and I hate it. And I think I'm trying to cling to the energy in New York that I was given. Even our artists are reflecting it. You know, Dave is an amazing artist. I fucking love Dave. But is he okay? Like, his latest album is fucking. It's a lyrical masterpiece, but the geezer's forlorn.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, and it's a bit like, fucking hell, man. Like. And I kind of just think it's reflected in our culture, in our tv, you know, And I really think we need an energy shift and we need to believe a bit more.

[B]

I couldn't agree more. Matt, A really good friend of mine actually went up a business in LA about seven, eight years ago, and I was saying to him, well, why you go to la? And then, how's it gone? And he said the moment he landed in LA and he told anyone about his business idea, everybody wants him to succeed, literally. And he said, I come back to London and everyone wants me to fail. And I just think, like, we talk ourselves out. I mean, it's like. So our supposedly most respected industry title chooses to have a Turkey of the Week. I mean, what the hell's that about? You know what I mean? It's like, literally, I would rather undermine great work than see people succeed.

[A]

I think it's really upsetting, dude. I think the industry in general here, you know, I'd love to talk about the D and D work we're doing in a minute, but the industry in general here is brilliant at beating itself up to the point where it assassinates itself. You know, I struggle with being candid. Fuck it, you know, Campaign and its viewpoint. I don't think it believes in the industry and I don't think it wants it to win. In fact, it reports on it as if it's a kind of cynical restaurant critic watching the demise of a restaurant with this kind of beautiful sense of sadness and bitterness about how shit it all is, and we're all scurrying away trying to make it work. And I find that incredibly, it hurts. I really care about this industry and the people that work in it. And I think if the most important or supposedly important magazine in our industry hates it enough to have a turkey of the week. And by the way, the turkey of the week, if it were about divisive work, I think it would be interesting. The truth is that the real turkey of Our industry is all the work in the middle that we're all just trying to skip. And so actually, if you were featuring, I would argue the worst work in the fucking industry would be all the work that nobody gave a shit about, of which there is far too much. So I just worry about the viewpoint of the whole thing. And I think Uncommon hasn't benefited. I think from the viewpoint of that. In many ways, other people have talked to me about it. I get a text a week going, why do those guys fucking hate you so much? It's quite weird, but I do think it's. I do think it's strange and I think it's a bit sad. And I watch the guys at Breaking and Entering in the States. Fuck who? Impossible not to love those two.

[B]

Yeah, the energy is insane, isn't it?

[A]

Impossible, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But also, you know, what's behind it all is that you can see the cynicisms and the smarts and all the above, but what's behind it? Always a fucking love of the industry and it's hustle and it's change. And I just think that there's a mistrick here, you know, Build the brands you wish existed. Well, my God, I wish there was a title here or a platform here that believed in what was sitting underneath this industry, which isn't about advertising or marketing, it's about creativity. And that the British sense of that word is more necessary than ever before.

[B]

Yeah, let's talk about that. Because, I mean, I slightly bored myself last night on ChatGPT, analyzing WPP's shareholder statement last week.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I mean, you've got quite a lot. Well, there are two things that struck me, right? One is AI was mentioned more times than creative.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the context that is, every time AI was mentioned, it was mentioned alongside transformation. Every time Creative was mentioned, it was mentioned alongside production and media as a service. And so I thought, that's interesting. Like even the biggest, supposedly biggest, you know, kind of holding company in our industry, although I don't think is anymore, now the share price has gone down, probably, like, probably, you know, third or fourth. I thought that was interesting. And then the next thing I read is McKinsey coming in to do a big strategic review. I'm just like, this is the end, man. WPP. WPP. Hi, I'm McKinsey.

[A]

McKinsey. To help them be more like McKinsey.

[B]

Exactly. Right.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But like, when did creativity leave the building? Right? It's just like wpp. Years ago. Yeah.

[A]

You know, years ago. I mean, I think it's a critical shame. I'm gonna be tell you a story I shouldn't tell you. When we quit, I had a conversation with Mark Reed, who'd just taken over because Sorrel had just gone as well. I said to him, look, I said, I always do this. I said, look, I'm just gonna give him my gut on it all. I said, if I were you, I would refocus on creativity. There isn't a holding group talking about it. Everyone was headed toward AI. This is years ago. And I said, no one really knows what WPP means. Wire and plastic products, literally. The problem might be the name. I said, so why don't you rebrand as we proudly present, and why don't you just stand for a belief in your product? And I think he sort of denied about it and then went off and, you know, I don't know, started a new data company and fired a load of people at Landor. But I think. I just think they've missed a trick. And I think now dragging that business toward trying to be a McKinsey when there's a McKinsey in the world and asking McKinsey for help to do it is indicative of not really understanding what the fuck's for sale and not really believing in it either. And I think that's quite a scary place to be.

[B]

Well, let's get to inventing the brands you wish existed, because to some extent that's why you exist.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Is that rebellion against the wpp?

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, it was fuel. It was fuel when we started for sure. But it also was the mirror on a state of play and a state of affairs that we thought we could make something new in which is name an agency or studio that the real world is happy exists. What it's become, I think is our best is a recognition of the power of creativity and to improve a business. Hopefully people look at our business and go, that's good. But also the businesses we work with, you know, we do some work for D&AD at the moment, and they asked us for a position on things. And I think DNAD are one of the last great believers in creativity at its best. You know, the ipod has been in that book. You know what I mean? The things that really matter have been awarded and recognized in that book. And so we landed on this position which is actually there's all this talk of creativity is dead, you know, and it's dying, and there's talk of AI killing it, and there's talk of in housing killing it, and there's Talk of all this stuff, I think the truth is that creatives have killed it. You know, I really mean that. Like every time we wang on, every time we spend time on LinkedIn writing a thought piece instead of making something, every time we listen to an out of work planner tell us that AI is going to kill us, we are fucking killing it. I wanted to read you this because I wrote this better than I could say it. We talk like proud reporters on a slow motion car crash. Thousand word essays on LinkedIn mournfully posted late at night about how our castles made of beanbags and free Haribo are falling down around us and about how fragile creativity is. Except it isn't. Yes, we're the passengers on the bus falling at a thousand frames from the bridge. Problem is we're also the drivers. Technology in housing and influencers didn't kill creativity, we did. It dies. Every time we spend more time wagging on social and every time we start believing our jobs are content solutions. Shut up and make. The biggest threat to our jobs isn't AI, it's apathy. If we believe creativity's dead, if we believe it's alive, we're right. And I think D&AD is a force for that is just. I really believe in that brand and what it could be. And so, you know, I'm on the board, the advisory board of dnad and I think coming out and trying to make a stand for that is going to be great. So there's some billboards we've blagged in Times Square that are gonna be pretty punchy. I cannot fucking wait, man. I cannot wait. We got Times Square. I can't wait. You know, do not confuse shit advertising with the death of creativity.

[B]

Can't fucking wait. Can't fucking wait.

[A]

It's gonna be good. That is insane.

[B]

Yeah, it's good now, dude, you've just come back from America. We talked a little bit about Trump and the energy. I totally agree with you. I spend a lot of time in New York these days and objectively, I look at New York versus London, I can't find much to love about New York compared to London in terms of history and cleanliness and all those things, right? But man, the energy and the aspiration and the appetite to do stuff right is amazing. So let's just like turn ourselves into Americans for five minutes. What do we need to do, right, to put creativity back, building on your DNA deprecation. What do we have to do to get this? And maybe in the UK as well, because we should be the global Hub of creativity.

[A]

I think it's our last great industry. I mean, I would say a few things. Like when you watch a brand change its category, it adopts behaviors and often you assume that those are just created to fuck with the category. Often they're stolen actually from a different place. If we were going to steal anything from New York, it's the relentless sense of momentum. They don't worry about passengers and critics, they just don't. They're like, I'm fucking doing this and we're putting one foot in front of the other and then suddenly there's a thing that exists. And I think if we could steal anything, it's that just forwards, man, that bulldoze thing. You know, everyone's like, trump's bulldozing the world. He is. But annoyingly, whether you like it or not, you're gonna talk about that guy in 50 years. And I think that our businesses here and our brand could do with that, you know, and we'll do it our way. Don't get me wrong, you're never able to take something from one place and put it into another perfectly. But I think that sense of belief in momentum and doing something and just pushing and making it happen until it's real, I think it's is huge. They try, you know, and they pivot and then they shrug it off. Very thick skinned, you know, professionally thick skinned, I think. And I think there's an openness. I'm just going to be honest as well. About tried it, didn't work. Tried something else, didn't work. You know, we're so navel gazy here all, oh God, we failed and I fucked it and it's my one go. And it's like it's never your one go. You know, the US can teach us that. I think lots, you know, I just think really as well, I'd call it belief, Brits would call it delusion.

[B]

Yeah, the mindset's the biggest thing, I swear. Because also you think in America, like, if you've got a good idea, people will fund it and people will help you be successful. I mean, the generosity of helping open doors and introduce you to people, that kind of thing.

[A]

There's a given, there's a taught respect and, and support for a hustle, you know, American sport, okay, my, you know, I went there and this is like the difference. So my middle son, I turn up varsity soccer, which means he's playing for the college team. It's a big deal over there. At the start of every match there's a big Billowing flag and they all sing the anthem. I was like, fuck, this is cool. 200 people watching the match every time. Soccer, right? Football, college. And he plays and he trained five times a week. He is a good football player, right? But he turned up there and the press and the level of physicality and level of energy was berserk. These kids run, I mean, run for 90 minutes, you know. I just went to a match with one of my other boys in Regent's park and I was like, everyone's throwing up on the pitch. They've all been on the vapes the night before. They've got acres of space, you know, like. And I was like, fuck, go with me on this. But the way they work, right or wrong at college, the belief in the hustle, the belief in the grind, the belief in the job and an inbuilt respect for it. And I mean genuine respect. Like, when Finn started, he was hands on his hips, like, borderline throwing up on the center circle. And everyone was like, get your kid a treadmill. And they were half joking. By the end of the season, you know, their best player held on the shoulders of the parents. God, what a journey Finn's been on. And they fucking mean it. Almost made me cry. I was like, everything I thought was a load of old shit about their values was actually their values. And it hits. And so I just think here, that belief that not just like, people are hustling, but, like, what do you need? How far can we go? What do you want? You know, impact, not sort of politeness. And I would just say, as well, on the creativity point, it sounds incredibly simple to say it. Do you really believe that's the most valuable thing you have for sale? We ask ourselves a lot of questions here. And you can see, as I said to you, about the business driving itself, sometimes the business tells you what to do, as opposed to you telling the business what to do. But I think the industry can do that too. And the industry constantly wants you to sell other things. The latest, cleverest thing. AI is one word for a conversation we've been having for 25 years, which is everything apart from creativity. And I'm like, how much do you really believe it's worth? And how have you manifested a business that just does that to the best of its ability? It will never be the same as everyone else doing it because it's such an expensive thing. But I just think, just I look at the UK and I think, where are those businesses, you know, that really believe that aren't cynically just Trying to cash in on a dollar before it all goes wrong. Someone said to me, uncommon. God, you guys were lucky.

[B]

Lucky, Yeah.

[A]

I was like, okay, cool. And they didn't mean in the success, but they were like, what did they say? You're like the last helicopter out of Vietnam, you know? And I was like, what are you talking? Like, what, you think it's that the last helicopter out of Vietnam? When I heard that, I was like, man, I just want to start another company.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just to poke you in the fucking eye.

[B]

That is so British.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, it is. You know. Gosh, you just made it out in time. I say, good luck, old chap.

[B]

I mean, yeah, mate. On that bombshell, look, here's the creativity and, like, thank you for everything you're doing, man.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

It's been so inspiring watching what you do and being a part of it.

[A]

Vice versa, dude. Congrats on it all. Congrats. I'm really.

[B]

I love these shots. Always living, feeling so optimistic. And look, we. We need you. We need dnad. We need, you know, we need the belief back. And let's get that swagger back in London, you know? Well, UK shouldn't say London, but, you.

[A]

Know, we had something. I just. Sorry. We had something better than that. I think we were terrifying, you know, the Sex Pistols, Oasis, our filmmakers, you know, Nolan, like, never mind swagger. We were like, terrifying. Incomprehensibly brilliant. That's what we need. You know, I kind of want to go one step further. I want the UK to regain that an out and out belief that we are just echelons above what other others are doing. Anyway, sorry, got it. Right.

[B]

That is the perfect place to end, mate. Thank you.

[A]

Bye. See you later. Thanks, John.

[B]

Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored cmo. I hope you enjoyed that.

[A]

If you.

[B]

If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do I'm over on X CensorCMO or on LinkedIn where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.