Brand Strategist & Author Peter Wilken

Summary

Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Brand Strategist & Author Peter Wilken
Release Date: April 24, 2025
Host: Terry O’Reilly
Guest: Peter Wilken, Brand Strategist and Author of Dim Sum: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands

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Introduction: Welcome to the Show

Timestamp: [03:05] - [04:24]

Terry O'Reilly opens the episode by introducing Peter Wilken, an esteemed figure in the advertising industry. Peter’s illustrious career spans roles at major agencies like Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, and BBDO, with significant stints in global markets including London, Singapore, Manila, and Kuala Lumpur. His tenure as the head of BBDO Asia Pacific saw him overseeing operations in 14 markets, collaborating with renowned brands such as Coca-Cola, BMW, Disney, IBM, Kodak, P&G, and Visa. In 2002, Peter co-founded The Brand Company in Hong Kong, which grew to become the region’s leading brand management consultancy, before relocating to Canada in 2007 to establish Dolphin Brand Strategy Corporation. His latest work, Dim Sum: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands, encapsulates his extensive expertise in brand strategy.

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Brand-Centered Management: Redefining Brand Strategy

Timestamp: [04:24] - [05:57]

Key Discussion Points:

• Superficial Branding vs. Brand-Centered Management: Peter challenges the conventional perception of branding as merely visual identities and communications. He introduces "brand-centered management," emphasizing that a brand should embody the core values and promises held in the minds of customers.

Notable Quote:

"If your brand is what you wish to stand for in your most valuable customers' minds and you can articulate that in a way that's really compelling, differentiating, credible, that you can deliver against, why would you not want to use that to drive everything your organization does and says?"
— Peter Wilken [04:32]

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Branding vs. Brand Building: Understanding the Distinction

Timestamp: [07:32] - [08:34]

Key Discussion Points:

• Branding Defined: Tangible elements like logos and visual identities.
• Brand Building Defined: Creating and owning unique associations in consumers' minds.

Notable Quote:

"Branding has always been the notion of what you do with your cow. This is Peter's heifer. But you put a branding iron on it and you mark it so it's yours."
— Peter Wilken [07:37]

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The Intangible Attributes of a Great Brand

Timestamp: [08:34] - [12:11]

Key Discussion Points:

• Emotional vs. Rational Branding: Peter argues that brands thrive on emotional connections that often override rational justifications for purchasing decisions.
• Impact of Digital and AI: The rise of performance marketing and analytics is shifting focus away from emotional brand building towards measurable short-term metrics.

Notable Quote:

"Brands are built on emotional attachments with the heart... The best brands try and create a balance, but they are the strongest associations of the heart leading the head."
— Peter Wilken [09:20]

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Creative Quality in the Digital Era: Suppression and Decline

Timestamp: [12:11] - [16:10]

Key Discussion Points:

• Decline in Creative Quality: Peter expresses concern over the low quality of creative outputs in the digital marketing space, attributing it to formulaic approaches and reduced emphasis on innovative ideas.
• Suppression of Creativity: He likens the current creative suppression to historical societal constraints, emphasizing a move towards conformity that stifles individual creativity.

Notable Quote:

"Everything's about the quality of the work and the work drives the business."
— Peter Wilken [27:36]

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Managing Creativity in Agencies: Nurturing and Protecting Talent

Timestamp: [36:48] - [44:19]

Key Discussion Points:

• Recognizing and Celebrating Talent: Peter underscores the importance of identifying creative geniuses within an agency and fostering an environment where their ideas can flourish without ego interference.
• Encouraging Edgy Campaigns: He shares an example of granting creative directors the freedom to present bold, unconventional ideas, even if they risk being rejected or causing controversy.

Notable Quote:

"Great creative work is inversely proportionate to the number of people involved in it. The more people that you get in with opinions, the more you chip away the sharp edges and you get an average to them."
— Peter Wilken [18:55]

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Client Triangle: Categorizing Clients for Strategic Management

Timestamp: [46:55] - [50:13]

Key Discussion Points:

• Top Triangle Clients: Dream clients who value and champion creative excellence, driving both business success and award-winning campaigns.
• Push the Peanut Clients: Well-intentioned clients who desire improved creativity but are often hindered by rigid control systems.
• Bottom Sector Clients: Large, formula-driven clients who undervalue creative ideas, often resulting in unsatisfactory collaborations.

Notable Quote:

"Agencies get the clients they deserve and deliver."
— Peter Wilken [56:30]

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Handling Non-Performers: Maintaining High Standards

Timestamp: [44:19] - [46:44]

Key Discussion Points:

• Ruthless Efficiency: Peter advocates for swiftly removing underperforming employees to maintain a high-performing team.
• Impact on Talent: He emphasizes that tolerating mediocrity demotivates top performers and can lead to a decline in overall creative output.

Notable Quote:

"The best way to demotivate your excellent people, your stars, is to tolerate mediocrity."
— Peter Wilken [45:45]

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The Danger of Success: Avoiding Complacency

Timestamp: [34:59] - [36:20]

Key Discussion Points:

• Success as an Impediment: Peter and Terry discuss how monumental success can lead companies to resist change, resulting in stagnation.
• Shifting Priorities: The focus on short-term profitability over long-term brand building can hinder innovation and adaptability.

Notable Quote:

"Success can undermine your absolute success."
— Peter Wilken [36:20]

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The Power of Storytelling: Engaging Audiences Across Ages

Timestamp: [54:19] - [56:24]

Key Discussion Points:

• Universal Appeal of Stories: Both Peter and Terry highlight how effective storytelling transcends demographics, captivating even young audiences.
• Structuring Ads Like Stories: Emphasizing the necessity of a clear narrative arc in advertising to maintain engagement and interest.

Notable Quote:

"You can't bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them into buying it."
— Peter Wilken [55:27]

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Conclusion: Embracing Calculated Risks for Stronger Brands

Timestamp: [59:45] - [61:11]

Terry wraps up the conversation by emphasizing the importance of calculated risks in successful marketing. He commends Peter Wilken for his insightful contributions and encourages listeners to explore Peter’s book, Dim Sum: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands, which serves as a valuable resource for brand managers, marketers, and creative leaders.

Final Notable Quote:

"Be interesting. And that's not easy."
— Peter Wilken [55:27]

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Key Takeaways

1. Brand-Centered Management: Move beyond superficial branding to integrate brand values deeply into organizational practices.
2. Emotional Connections: Foster emotional attachments with customers to build strong, enduring brands.
3. Creative Excellence: Prioritize high-quality, innovative creative work over formulaic approaches to stand out in a cluttered marketplace.
4. Strategic Client Management: Categorize clients to allocate resources effectively and maintain creative integrity.
5. Maintaining Talent Standards: Remove underperformers promptly to preserve a motivated and high-performing team.
6. Embrace Storytelling: Utilize structured storytelling in advertising to engage and captivate diverse audiences.
7. Calculated Risk-Taking: Encourage bold, creative ideas even at the risk of initial rejection to drive meaningful brand differentiation.

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Recommended Reading:
Dim Sum: Bite-Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands by Peter Wilken – A comprehensive guide for brand strategists and marketers seeking to enhance their brand-building efforts with practical, actionable insights.

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Stay Connected:
Follow Terry O’Reilly for more behind-the-scenes content and insights into the advertising industry.

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This summary distills the core discussions and insights from the episode, providing a comprehensive overview for listeners and those who haven't tuned in yet.

Transcript

[Sydney O'Reilly]

Hi there, Sydney O'Reilly here. We regret to inform you that the Rejection Podcast is back for its sixth season and Terry and I have some fun episodes to share with you. This year we'll be telling the stories of Yellowstone, Josh Allen, Bill Hader, Monty Python, Billie Holiday, and Canada's own Alanis Morissette. It's jagged little Rejections this year on We Regret to Inform you. Hope you'll join us.

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[Podcast Production Voice]

This is an apostrophe podcast production.

[Peter Wilkin]

We're going to show you our big new Studebaker. Start the car. Mamma mia, that's a spicy meatball.

[Podcast Production Voice]

What love doesn't conquer, Alka Seltzer will.

[Indeed Ad Voice]

What a relief.

[Terry O'Reilly]

You'Re under the influence with Terry O'Reilly.

[Podcast Production Voice]

Have you ever watched Mad Men? Peter Wilkin was part of the tail end of the golden era of advertising. He ran agencies for Ogilvy, Leo Burnett and bbdo, working in places such as London, Singapore, Manila and Kuala Lumpur. His last corporate role was as head of BBDO Asia Pacific based in Hong Kong, overseeing offices in 14 markets across the region. The advertising world provided Peter with a unique perspective into creative thinking across a spectrum of clients and cultures. He's worked with major brands such as Coca Cola, BMW, Disney, IBM, Kodak, P& G and Visa. He co founded the brand company in Hong Kong in 2002 which grew to become Hong Kong's leading brand management consulting firm. He moved to Canada in 07 and founded the Dolphin Brand Strategy Corporation. And Peter has an interesting new book out titled Dim Sum Bite Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands.

[Interviewee]

In your book you put forth the concept of brand centered management, which I find very interesting. So define that for us.

[Peter Wilkin]

I mean typically what we had found was that most people related brand to what we call the superficial packaging of brands. Your visual identity, your communications, your advertising, your design not to do it down hugely important, but the tangible stuff that you can do. Whereas with brand centered management it was basically saying look, if your brand is what you wish to stand for in your most valuable customers minds and you can articulate that in a way that's really compelling, differentiating, credible, that you can deliver against, why would you not want to use that to drive everything your organization does and says? And most brands or people's perceptions of brands are driven by the experience of the product or service. Those are the things that overrule everything else. Not the communication, not the identity, not the design, but all the strategic tools at the time. At the heart of your brand enables your promise, your overarching commitment to your customers. To deliver an experience that was, as I was saying, compelling, you had to kind of interest people into it. It had to be distinctive, differentiating, hard to do. It has to be relevant above all else.

[Interviewee]

I've always said to my clients over the years that a brand should articulate what it stands for and stands against. And I noticed you used the same phrase in your book, which was interesting because I've never really heard a lot of people say that. And here's my thinking and tell me if you agree. What brands stand for can sound the same, faster, cheaper, better, all the same terminology. What you stand against is infinitely more interesting to me. And the example I use of course is Apple. What Steve Jobs stood against was concentrating computing Power in the hands of corporations, Is that something you subscribe to, what you stand for and what you stand against?

[Peter Wilkin]

Absolutely. In fact, the way you find what you stand for and being able to articulate it in a way that isn't just generic, you know, we stand for product excellence, we stand for incredible customer service, we stand for highest quality. You know, all of that generic kind of stuff, it's much easier to start with what you stand against. And it's kind of human nature to be able to be critical and critique things. So, yeah, I totally agree with what you stand against. And sometimes that's the best thing for a kind of aligning culture. In our tiny little agency in Ogilvy Philippines, when we started off, we were an out and out creative hot shop and we stood against creative mediocrity. And we were not ashamed to put it up and highlight it. Nobody did that. It wasn't polite. We did. And we said, this is what mediocrity looks like. You know, if you want it, go somewhere else.

[Interviewee]

What's the difference in your definition, Peter, between branding and brand building?

[Peter Wilkin]

Oh, that's a great question. I still find people get very confused with it and there's enough jargon in our world. As you know, for me, branding has always been the notion of what you do with your cow. This is Peter's heifer. But you put a branding iron on it and you mark it so it's yours. And it's the tangible design and logos and identity that you own that's associated with your brand. That's the branding part of it, with your logo. Very different from brand building, which is building that territory in the mind. I was talking about earlier, the perception in the mind. That's what a brand is. It doesn't exist in a tangible format. It's a set of unique associations that are in the mind. And I talk in a book about defining what your territory is and really owning it, and that as the means of defining what a brand is and orienting all your organization's activities around that.

[Interviewee]

I agree with that completely. And most marketing in my mind exists to differentiate the product in a busy marketplace. In your book, you talk about the intangible attribute, which I think is a very interesting aspect of a brand. For example, you talk about the fact that Volvo owns the word safety and that Paris owns the word romance. Talk to us a bit about that, about that intangible aspect, because there's an MBA mantra, which I've always hated, which is if it can be measured, it can be managed in other Words, they ignore the intangibles of a company. Right, so talk to us about the intangible attributes of a great brand.

[Peter Wilkin]

I'm a great believer that at the end of the day we can have this debate about it's not important unless you can measure it, which we'll get into left brain and right brain thinking and whole brain thinking and individual thinking preferences. There's a whole school of thought that believe and feel that way that will never be persuaded otherwise. The other school of thought is brands are built on emotional attachments with the heart. That's where I belong. That's where the bias is. The best brands try and create a balance, but they are the strongest associations of the heart leading the head. And some things that you can't explain that the rational left brain thinkers struggle with. I mean, you've got classic cases like Mercedes. At the end of the day, you don't buy a Mercedes for anything other than to kind of say prestige. I've arrived, I've achieved my goal, here I am, look, I'm driving a Merc. But if you ask the owner who's bought it, they'll say, oh, 100 years of fantastic technical German engineering, you know, great deal. My dealer friend gave me a number on it I couldn't refuse. Blah, blah, you know, this is going to give me so many more miles, all the rest of it. So it's not necessarily what people say or justify about their purchases, but it's the emotional things that really can. When we think about that in life, it's not the same for everybody and it varies in different degrees. But the most important decisions we make in life are made with the heart and then justified by the head. Where you work, who you choose to partner with and marry for life or not, or divorce, where you choose to live, how you choose to kind of set up your purpose. It's heart driven. So it's quite interesting now because we're entering into this area of brand marketing versus performance marketing, because with the advent of digital and AI and measurement, I think the balance is tipping the wrong way. There's this obsession with measuring everything. If you can picture this, I have an image in one of my presentations of Count Dracula, the puppet moppet one, and it says it's the things that you can't count that count. Right. And I still believe that very much. But we're moving into an era now of analytics and performance marketing measuring everything, clicks likes which are meaningless. I do think it's meaningful if it's driving business awareness, attention, closer affinity to Your brand that converts. So don't get me wrong, there needs to be some kind of balance between the emotional attachment, long term brand building, irrational affinity, if you like, with your brand, and also being able to measure short term performance.

[Interviewee]

It's an interesting point you're bringing up because with algorithms, I call them the submarines of marketing, where they kind of hide and track you and then pop up just when you're going to make a decision. And there's a lot of business being done with algorithms, but it's kind of the math men versus the mad Men.

[Peter Wilkin]

That's a really nice way of putting it.

[Interviewee]

And it bothers me because there's not any brand building going on. It's really just opportunistic poaching going on. And I worry about that. I worry about the future of creative departments in advertising, let alone AI. By the way, before we even get to that conversation, what do you think about that?

[Peter Wilkin]

I feel that the quality of the creative output in the digital arena is really low.

[Interviewee]

I agree, I agree.

[Peter Wilkin]

It is the biggest single factor that drives impact, awareness and attention. And yet everybody's following the same kind of formula. But the creative idea, a thought that really makes you work in this, you hardly ever see them. And yet that was the biggest, most valuable determining differentiator between great creative agencies and Avridge.

[Podcast Production Voice]

My wife owns a retail store where we live, and she attended a chamber of Commerce event recently where there was a guest speaker. The speaker's whole point that night was that branding is dead and not to waste any time on it, instead rely on Facebook and algorithms. That was the message to all these business owners. And it breaks my heart because that kind of thinking is not building any brand differentiation in the marketplace.

[Peter Wilkin]

We go through phases as societies. I think of what I would call great creativity and suppressed creativity. Now it's like Cromwell started off. If we take it all the way back to Oliver Cromwell in the 1640s in England, he started off with the right intent in mind, which was the people need a voice in parliament and need a say. You can't just dominate it. But when he actually gained power and took control, the people themselves couldn't control, or rather went way, way too far. So it began with dressing conservatively. You know, you don't want to be cavalier, you don't want to have colored feathers in your hair. You know, let's go brown, let's go gray, let's go more subdued. And it gradually got more and more pervasive. And the communities were kind of taught to say, this is how we should behave and put pressure on each other. So in the end it was no singing, you know, certainly no singing on Sundays. And it became incredibly impressive so that you couldn't do anything to express individuality or creativity or flair. And I feel we have got a little bit like that. And not to say there are always exceptions and people who are going to shake their tail, but there's lots of things that are saying, conform to the norm, don't push boundaries, don't insult people. And nobody wants to really be rude. But you also, if you want to take a position and be very clear and have defined boundaries, you either are black or white. And I sense that there are eras that we're entering into and we're in kind of one now of what I would call very suppressed creativity.

[Interviewee]

But I think what you're saying is that there's no priority right now on being creative or creativity. The priority is really on the other stuff we've talked about, which is performance. I get tons of emails from listeners every week, Peter, but here's the perennial email I get and it always makes me laugh. And I've been getting this email for 20 years and the email is, love your show, still hate advertising, which always makes me laugh. But what I think it proves your point is that people don't hate advertising, they hate bad advertising.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yes. Yeah.

[Interviewee]

And most advertising is bad.

[Peter Wilkin]

And Terry, you are so right again, I don't know whether I put this in the book or not, but it's one of the things I feel as an industry, it has really failed to move its quotient up. And there are always exceptions. There's always the top elite, 2 or 3%, you know, the Cannes Gold award winners who do outstanding breakthrough creative work. And they tend to be the same consistent small group.

[Interviewee]

Yes.

[Peter Wilkin]

10, 20, 30 people who are doing all the brilliant stuff. But over the last 30 years, I would say if you measured the advertising crap quotient, I mean, stuff that is mind numbingly boring, stuff that doesn't interest you into listening at all, has gone from probably 70, 75% when I first started to about 90% now. It's gone down, it's gone backwards as an industry. So I don't blame anyone for saying, you know, I don't like advertising, but for most people it's an unwelcome intrusion. And again, in the book I say you've got to justify the intrusion if you're breaking into somebody's call or program. So you've either got to be entertaining or educational or enlightening or Uplifting, surprising, something that adds value without trickery. It has to carry a relevant message too. If you're not any of those things and you are just mindlessly bashing people about the head, it just gives you a headache. Especially now with Netflix and the diversification of so many media channels. Now they set up bulk deals so that you're getting repetition levels of commercials and ads that are poor in the first place that are 30 times higher than they should be.

[Interviewee]

Yeah, there's more clutter now than there ever was in the traditional era of marketing.

[Peter Wilkin]

Absolutely.

[Interviewee]

I want to get your opinion on this. So I was a writer in advertising agencies for 10 years. So I worked at DDB and Chiathay before. I then co founded a production company where I became a commercial director. So in my writing days, Peter, I would fight for my work and I had a pretty good batting average because I really believed in what I was doing and some great people around me that would help me fight for great ideas. When I became a commercial director, I got to sit in a room with hundreds of advertising agencies and I was shocked at how often they would fold before their clients when there was a critical aspect of a commercial being discussed, that there was no one in the room with a spine.

[Peter Wilkin]

Oh, absolutely.

[Interviewee]

You have to have that fight in you to fight for the great work.

[Peter Wilkin]

No, absolutely. I always used to say great creative work is inversely proportionate to the number of people involved in it. So the more people that you get in with opinions, the more you chip away the sharp edges and you get an average to them. But I learned fantastic, valuable lessons. I remember Ogilvy as a tiny, kind of scared little junior executive being sent back by one of the creative seniors who terrified me to go and sell a full stop.

[Interviewee]

A period.

[Peter Wilkin]

A period. Yeah. And I bloody well did. I got on the bus, I went back to the client, I said, this is important. And I came back and I learned a valuable lesson.

[Interviewee]

Wow.

[Peter Wilkin]

And I carried it through. You fought for what you believed in. I remember when we had our agency in the Philippines, which built an fantastic creative reputation without being arrogant. You know, you need to send messages to your own people about what you fight for. Yes, we did some fantastic work for a banker pitch. We were a small agency at the time. We were hungry. We could really do with the business. We did some amazing work. It was a normal setup pitch with three or four agencies pitching. And we went into the room and this was a standard bank. You can imagine it was huge, long director's table, and we had set up The TV monitor. We'd actually done some ads, TV ads, as well as concept boards all around one end and sat there, waited. The clients came in. There was a whole bull of them, six or seven of them, and they went right down to the other end of the table. And I said, guys, can you come up here? We've got work to show you. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You come to us. I said, well, you're not going to be able to see what we've got here. And there was about 10 of them. I said, who's making the decision on this appointment? We looked around and said, oh, we all are. And I looked around and I said to my creative partner, these guys aren't for us. Ogba used to say he had that great story about.

[Interviewee]

Yes, I remember it. Ringing the bell.

[Podcast Production Voice]

That is a classic David Ogilvy story. At a pitch for the Rayon Manufacturers association account, each advertising agency was allotted 15 minutes to make their pitch. And at the 15 minute mark, a bell would ring. Ogilvy walked into the room to see 12 people sitting at the boardroom table. He asked how many of them would be approving the ads. When all 12 raised their hands, Ogilvy said, ring the bell, and walked out.

[Peter Wilkin]

There was a whole group of people, but culturally, you could already see they weren't about to collaborate. They weren't interested at all in the quality of the work or the thought that we'd put into it. It was going to be a you come to us on bended knee kind of thing, which wasn't the way worked. It wasn't going to be a good cultural fit. And David and I, my partner, David Guerrero, at the time, I turned to him, I said, david, I think we should walk from this. He looked at me, said, absolutely. So I politely went up to the leader and said, thank you. Thank you for the generous offer to present our work. We're going to politely decline. You couldn't believe it. And we picked up all our stuff, walked up out of the room. The next agency pitching was gray, and it was run by a great lady. And she looked at me, she said, what's happening?

[Interviewee]

Wow.

[Peter Wilkin]

I said, we politely declined. They're not. Not for us. You know, within 20 minutes, that was out within the whole industry. We walked out of the pitch presentation, but our guys felt a million miles high. So, yes, to your point, fight it for what you believe in.

[Podcast Production Voice]

When we come back, we talk about a surprising fact about Steve Jobs.

[Peter Wilkin]

Race the rudders. Race the sails. Race the sails.

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Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching over Roger, wait.

[Peter Wilkin]

Is that an enterprise sales solution?

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[Terry O'Reilly]

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[Interviewee]

It'S interesting, Peter, that I worked for Chiat Day.

[Peter Wilkin]

Brilliant, brilliant agency, by the way.

[Interviewee]

Yes, and I worked with the wonderful Lee Clow, probably one of the great creative directors of our time. When Shiat had the Apple account, Steve Jobs met with Lee and his team every Wednesday for the entire day. So they would sit down, review work. Jobs never wanted work to be shown to his subordinates before it got to him. He wanted no filters. So they would sit all day in the boardroom, go over all the work that Shia had done for them that week. Then Steve Jobs occasionally would take them into Apple's very secretive rooms where they were working on new technology so they could see what was coming up. And I thought to myself, you know, I can't imagine another CEO of a billion dollar company spending one day a week, full day with their agency. Yet I believe that was one of the biggest reasons Apple is now a trillion dollar company is because he was a brand centric CEO.

[Peter Wilkin]

Well, yes, that's exactly what I've done. I call them Chief Brand Officers, CEOs who are also Chief Brand Officers, they're 2 and 1, they do still exist, but they're rare as hen's teeth. And I think when you go back and you look at how different the world was then, in 25, 30 years ago, agencies were true strategic business partners to their clients. The advertising campaigns that we developed were almost like byproducts. So the ideas that were developed to help drive the business, and that's coming back to brand centered management is why the power of your brand drives things like product development and service enhancement and improvement and how your people operate culturally within your business. Whether they walk the talk, you know how you improve your systems and structures to enable you to deliver against your promise before you do anything. So that's all changed now. And with the diversification, the specialization and strategic positioning went off to the management consultancies. McKinsey took that Bain & Co. And they became great knowledge aggregators. The brightest people were bought in house into the clients. So which was good in part and bad in another part. I still think you need that objectivity to get outside of your bubble. But the agencies kind of sold out. And of course it started with the media. But the strategic people who were the most expensive kind of came second.

[Podcast Production Voice]

That's an interesting point Peter makes. Advertising agencies have outsourced so many of their services now. I read a book called Madison Avenue which was written by Martin mayer back in 1958. At one point he lists all the services ad agencies offered their clients. Beyond writing an art direction, that list took up four full pages. Single spaced. Ad agencies back then even had test kitchens where they would try and come up with new food products or improvements. Campbell's Hungry Man Dinners came out of an ad agency test kitchen because the agency wanted to advertise a hearty soup that could be eaten with a fork instead of a spoon. In other words, it was a unique selling point.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yes, there are a few agencies that provide that big strategic thinking, but it's parcel of Most of them are large distribution warehouses for generic ideas. And it's sold on quantity and cost. I remember when I was running BBDO Asia Pacific, I was very, very much a believer in our mantra, the work, the work, the work. So all about the quality of the work and the work drives the business.

[Podcast Production Voice]

There always seems to be one incident or one seismic moment that persuades an entrepreneur to go out on their own. I call it the fist slam moment where a person slams their fist on the desk and says there has got to be a better way. Here is Peter's fist slam moment.

[Peter Wilkin]

At that time we entered into or were Pushed into what was then the biggest pitch in the world, which was Dana Kreizler who basically said we're going to consolidate into one of U2, FCB or BBDO. And so I was called in and summoned along with all the other regional heads to pitch meeting in Detroit. Flew all the way there, whatever it was, two and a half days or a day to get there. And we gathered around and had two days in which I did not say a single word. Which is quite an achievement in listening to how I can wrap it up. But the same with all the other regional heads. Not a word. The only thing was a show of strength to say we can call all our people in to do whatever you want. There wasn't a single conversation about the work, the work, the work. It was the deal, the deal, the deal. And it totally disillusioned me. We won it. FCB kind of went down. We survived and flourished, blah blah blah. It was all good news, it was all backslapping. But for me it was the first dagger in my heart and my soul that really triggered me to say I need to do my own business now and set up my own company. And that's where brand companies started coming in.

[Podcast Production Voice]

Apple's famous commercial titled 1984 was a foundational strategy for Steve Jobs for all time, which as we mentioned earlier was about taking computing power out of corporations and putting it into the hands of the individual. That was a great disruptive, rebellious message that really fueled Apple. But now Apple is that big corporation. I was interested to ask Peter, how does an Apple go from disruptor to being establishment and still be relevant?

[Peter Wilkin]

It's a great question and I mean this is the great circle of life if you like. Apple started being anti establishment. You know, less than 4% of users were doing it and only them in the creative industries. I knew it well. I was one of the first to use those little gray bricks with a little ball thing until Ogilvy1 IBM and we were forced to use IBMs. Ah. I still worked at home on my Mac and its positioning and Jobs as kind of personality was all anti establishment. But the trend zig. So now what has become of Apple? It's a huge behemoth and successful but yes, it is establishment and I would say whilst it still maintains amazing quality control on its products and I'm still an Apple user here, there are many parts of it which upset me. You know, the built in obsolescence of having, you know, 13 or 14 different iPhones. Do we really need that? No, it's not this is the bean counters taking over and running by numbers, not running by soul. And already the generation behind us treat Apple as IBM. It is big establishment, it's in control.

[Interviewee]

Bigger than IBM now.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yeah, bigger. Crazy. So hugely successful. And will that tanker suddenly turn around or collapse or sink? No, not for a while. But has it lost its mojo and its momentum, between you and me? Yeah, kind of. I think Sony was one of my clients. Now. Sony, by rights should have had the iPhone. I mean, they had the Walkman, if you remember. They could have had iPads. They should have totally owned and dominated flat screen tv. They were in a position and creatively with Akio Morita as a kind of very, you know, right brain creative leader as well, to be able to dominate in areas in which they were already pushing down the paths. But to have that true innovation, you need a bit of luck, you need a bit of Tinkerbell fairy pixie dust, you need the stars to align. Otherwise Apple is just into lines of product extension and then you know, copying things. The Apple Watch is a copy of the other guys who originally came in with volume monitoring, you know what I mean?

[Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Peter Wilkin]

So that they can pick it up and because they've got that force of gravitas and resource behind them, they can push and take over that hill if they want.

[Podcast Production Voice]

I remember driving in my truck one day. At the time I owned a Ford SUV and virtually every function was on a touchscreen and it would just freeze constantly. And I remember being with my young daughter at the time, this goes back a number of years now. And when the screen froze again one day, she said to me, dad, don't you wish Apple made cars? And I thought that was such an interesting line coming from the mouths of babes that even my young daughter wished Apple, who was such an innovative company back then, would get into the automotive business and disrupt it. That was the kind of reverence there was for Apple during the Jobs years and still could.

[Peter Wilkin]

So a last thought on that. I have found that innovation comes from the fringes, it comes from the boundaries. It doesn't come by committee. You know the old famous Ogilvy quote such in all your parks and all your cities, there are no statues of committees. And I think in the book I do put out one of the techniques that I've used for trying to kind of generate innovation, which was what I call rebel spaceship, where you literally send Luke Skywalker craft out into the unknown universe and most of them crash and burn and die. You never hear from them again. But that's where the true innovation comes back. It comes back from the fringes of rebels doing things that are contrary to what's been there or having expertise in a completely different category, that they apply knowledge to people who've been saying no forever and the stars are aligned, the timers are right. So big organizations, when you get into behemoth stage like Apples and others, but they're not set up for that.

[Interviewee]

This is a topic I've wanted to tackle on our show. There's also the danger of success, that so many companies attain a level of success, you know, a big, big, big success, and then they get afraid to change. So they rinse and repeat, they become suspicious of change, they don't evolve and then they stagnate. And I think that's an interesting aspect of business, that success can be an impediment.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yeah, it's a great point. And absolutely I agree with you, Terry. Success can undermine your absolute success. Because we were talking earlier about those people who align with Apple because they feel themselves that they are a little bit rebellious, not necessarily comfortably anti establishment, but they don't follow the crowd, they're black sheep. That kind of no longer applies. So your success has actually driven away what was your core base of advocates, if you like evangelists in the first place. But there are other things as well. You know, the way that we're geared up, particularly in the Western world, is still towards archaic legal mandates to be able to, you know, deliver profitability and represent what is to seem to success to shareholders in financial terms, which drives short term quarterly profits rather than saying this is something for 20 years time. This is where we're falling into problems with big infrastructure where we can't get a handle on how we manage climate change and things like this because our systems are still geared up towards that. Short term cost management controls rather than investment for high risk, for high return.

[Interviewee]

Tell me something Peter, because you worked for some great shops in your time and oversaw a lot of creativity, even though you're a strategic guy, how did you manage creativity? You mentioned Pixar earlier. I think the best book I've ever read on managing creativity was Ed Catmull's book called Creativity Inc. The president of Pixar. Tell us how you manage creativity. How did you nurture and protect your creative teams at your agencies?

[Peter Wilkin]

Great question. The first thing that I was very clear about was even though I was a suit and a creatively minded suit, cursed with the ability to be able to recognize brilliant creativity and work and art like a theater critic, but not be able to do it myself. So the first step in success was recognizing that was my weakness, if you like, but also my strength. I couldn't do it. I was unequivocal about what the agency stood for and who the senior players were. And that was the creative milking cows, the people who were delivering the brilliant ideas without boosting their egos beyond what was required. It was very clear what we were doing and what we stood for. And that was in the caliber of the creative work that we produced. I made it also clear that everybody in the agency, whether they were labeled creative or not, that was the end goal. So their contribution towards that, if they were selling it or adding it or making the role easier or facilitating it in any way, that really added value. So first of all, it was the respect and it was a celebration and the reward. I was fortunate to have brilliant relationships with my creative directors. And we had one thing which I used to call playing the joker, you know, the crater department who would come and say, look, we're doing brilliant edgy ads. You guys are screwing up selling them. You're just not being able to sell them. And sometimes, and you'll be witness to this, those edgy ads didn't even get out the agency door because they were kind of pre censored. This is going to be too insulting. We're never going to do this. Whatever. I can see you nodding ahead so you witness the same thing. So I took that filter away and I said to David, who was a creative director at the time, here I'm giving you a joker. You can play this joker once a month, as long as it's legal, decent, honest and truthful. You can pick one campaign idea a month. We will go all out to sell it. It will be the account management group's challenge to sell your idea and unfiltered. And by God, we did some edgy stuff. We wouldn't always win, we wouldn't always sell. But the act of doing it showed how important it was and occasionally would get them through. So if I can give you an example, one that was really brave. We had a small account, but a visible one called Trust Condoms. This was in the Philippines, in Manila, and that was the big dominant condom brand, you know, equivalent to Durex or Trojan or whatever it is now. And it was a German based business, expat. And bearing in mind this is a Catholic country where contraception is frowned upon, where the average age is 19 and the young parents who've been suppressed by their parents are pushing it onto their children. So we Knew we'd done our homework. It was a big media issue that these young, 15, 16, 17 year old children wanted access to contraception. They wanted knowledge more about how to prevent STDs and all of this, but they were being denied by parents and the church and the government. So we had this fantastic expat German client. He was coming to the end of his tenure. He had like four or five years stint and he was three and a half years in and going through that exercise, our creators came up with this amazing campaign based around the different flavored types of condom. So I went to this client and I said, look, we've got a really great idea here. It's going to create a huge amount of noise, but you're going to get fired and we're going to get into a lot of trouble, but it'll be a lot of fun, let's do it. And he looked at me and he said, are you crazy? I said, well, look, you've got a year left. I want this. He was a single guy. I said, what we can do with this campaign will make more of a difference in the 10 years than anything you can do or your predecessor will do if you're willing to do it. And I knew we had support with the media. Anyway, he went for it. Great for him. He went for it. Wow. And so we launched, bearing in mind you're not allowed to advertise contraceptives, we produce a television commercial very cheaply with this glass bowl with a woman's hand whipping cream up as she was reaching an orgasm, so that as she was climaxing, we dropped this strawberry condom in and it said, trust strawberry condoms. You supply the cream. And then we had a whole series of these ones with melts in the mouth, not in the hands for the chocolate one, you know.

[Interviewee]

Right.

[Peter Wilkin]

And it was amazing. It was picked up by Chris Tarrant in the UK on his shows. It was run all around the world, it was banned everywhere. Huge awareness. And of course our German friends ended up seeing out his full stay and left. But it was a tremendous example of what you were talking about, of courage and determination, honesty in terms of being able to sell ideas that we knew were going to create trouble. But it happened exactly as we predicted.

[Podcast Production Voice]

When we return, we talk about something I was really bad at. As a manager.

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[Interviewee]

When I was running my company, one thing I thought I was really bad at was not getting rid of bad apples or non performers quickly enough. And the reason I didn't was because I had this false idea that I could turn them around.

[Peter Wilkin]

No.

[Interviewee]

Which never really worked. Talk to me about how you handled that when you came across a non performer at your agency. Peter Or a bad apple. Because bad apples can really do a lot of damage too. How did you deal with that?

[Peter Wilkin]

To be honest, when I look back now, and especially with the kind of norms now, I was ruthless. I was actually quite ruthless. The worst things were not necessarily bad apples, but people with good attitude but no competency. Those were the worst. Those were the hardest. Bad apples were easy because they stood out and as you know, they could quickly destroy the whole barrel. Very, very quickly. Different agencies were a little bit more ruthless than others. BBDO Burnett's were really kind of strong on this, but every year we'd have what we'd call scraping barnacles, which was you identified the lowest performing 5% of people. God forbid that you were in that because it would be you and you took them off and you have to scrape the keel of your boat to keep moving fast through the water. Otherwise you gather them on. And it's so easy to be complacent, especially if you're doing well to not tackle that. But no, we dealt with those really pretty quickly.

[Podcast Production Voice]

Getting back to Steve Jobs for a moment, he had an interesting philosophy that A level performers don't want to work with B and C level performers. And you risk losing the A performers if you won't weed out the non performers in your company. I wondered what Peter's thoughts were on that.

[Peter Wilkin]

Again, one of my things is that the best way to demotivate your excellent people, your stars, is to tolerate mediocrity. And let's not kid ourselves, not everybody's going to be a creative genius. And you don't quite know who you've got in your orchard. Occasionally that dull tree that's been producing nothing absolutely blossoms. You think, where did that?

[Interviewee]

Knocks it out of the park.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yeah, anything. Wow, that's amazing. By the same token, you've got older producing classic, brilliant creative geniuses who can have a couple of really bad fallow years. It doesn't destroy their creativity the third year they burst back into life again or whatever. So you've got to be able to understand and find that balance. When I was saying, you know, Rufus and getting through with people, I would always try and give people a chance to succeed. But if it was blindingly obvious that they were not going to fit, often the organization would reject it like itself, you know, I wouldn't need to do much. It would be obvious.

[Interviewee]

Talk to us about your client triangle because this plays into what we're talking about right now, where you would separate your clients into three distinct categories. Talk me through that.

[Peter Wilkin]

That was a really simple way of establishing how we operated and managed. What would have been apparent contradictions about fighting fiercely for creative work that made a difference and tolerating work that was just good. Not every client is going to be what we call top triangle. So if you can imagine your triangle with two lines on it, the top triangle were the dream clients. They were the ones who appreciated, championed and encouraged you to deliver brilliant work for them. Award winning work, and not just for the sake of winning awards, but it tends to be those that are winning awards that are getting noticed, that are driving awareness and business for the clients. And those were like precious gold dust. You would celebrate them and make sure that your resources were geared towards continuing that. The second layer were what I Would call well intended, worthy, largest kind of school who want to improve their creativity but are often stuck within their own kind of control systems and management systems that kind of prevent them from doing that. And for those, we would say bring them along, try and give them the encouragement. You know, they may not win the league every year, but they can win a cup, they can win this, they can win that and they can get a taste of what it's like. There was potential there, potential there to push the peanut. And so that was the push the peanut sector. And then the bottom sector were ones who wouldn't know a great creative idea if it came out and bit them in the bum. Don't value it particularly anyway going through the checking the box exercises. Yes, don't want any screw ups. But they're not really bothered about improving it or pushing it. They're not believers. They weren't. And those tended to be the large, big, internationally aligned clients, The Unilevers, the PNGs of this world who had their formulas and would occasionally hit something but more often than not were screwing the agency. And unless you were making, I'd said profit, that allowed you to operate at the higher levels. I would say, why are we doing this? I had huge fights internally with the worldwide directors of these big accounts who hold a great deal of power and sat in the corridors of power in London and Amsterdam or wherever they were, throwing down these thunderbolts. And I remember getting this call once saying, peter, Peter, you've got the lowest worldwide ranking from your Unilever client for the work that you've just done. And I said, oh, that's a relief. And he said, oh, what do you mean? And I said, well, thank God it wasn't a kind of monkey's mushy middle nothingness. At least somebody's got a point of view. And what had happened was we had produced for them the most Unilever like ad to launch Liptonized Tea with a young team and really pushed it. You can imagine they had all their formula in their boxes. We threw all of that out the window. We had the wrapper iced tea wrapping out the Read my lips Lipton iced Tea. It went gangbusters. Blew everything up, won everything you could. Got an amazing notices and there was no denying that it was a huge success. And it was a huge success because it broke the rules, not because it followed the rules.

[Interviewee]

I think P and G is one of the great stories of our industry. I remember a time when P and G would say to their agencies, if you win an award on our business, you're fired. And then a director of marketing came into P and G and changed the culture of that company so completely that the Cannes Advertising Festival named them the advertiser of the year. A few years ago, P and G was winning all the awards. So it's even possible. This is so inspiring. I think it's actually possible sometimes with the right force of personality to even turn around a behemoth like P and G. Absolutely.

[Peter Wilkin]

And you can do that. Culture is the one of the most all pervasive things. It's really difficult to control and manage because it has so many aspects, but it can change in the wisp of somebody walking in the door with a different attitude and a different refinement. I had a question for you, by the way. I was fascinated. I mean, the Apple stuff that Chiat Day was doing was revolutionary in its time. The great, the big brother one that launched it. Is it a myth or is it the truth that Jay Cha actually funded and ran that in the super bowl against the client's wishes because they were so nervous about it?

[Interviewee]

That is true. Steve Jobs loved it. Was loved it, but the board hated it. The board wanted them to sell off all their super bowl ad time they had bought. Jay Shiat, God bless him. Although I had my issues with Jay, God bless Jay, because he told the media department, sell off the ad time, but don't try too hard. So they sold off part of their ad time, but saved enough to run 1984. But Lee Clow of course, championed it. Jay Shia protected it and it launched Apple. For all time.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yeah, for all time. But you were talking about ballsy decisions and fighting and things like that. That a million bucks in those days was huge.

[Podcast Production Voice]

Huge money.

[Peter Wilkin]

Huge money that would bring agencies down, you know. So I mean, kudos, Chapeau, because it takes real courage to defend and champion your ideas and to be proven so right.

[Interviewee]

Yes, that was the great end to that story that Shiat and Lee Clow and Steve Jobs were proven so right. At the end of the day, it was a big ad directed by Ridley Scott. I always say it's such a landmark ad in our business because it a was really the start of epic blockbuster ads for the Super Bowl. People forget that prior to that ad, everybody just ran their normal advertising in the Super Bowl. It was just buying time. It wasn't creating for the bowl. Right. And then us creative people, I remember sitting back thinking, oh my God, television commercials can feel like movies that they can have Hollywood production values. I mean, that opened all of Our eyes. But there was amazing storytelling in that commercial. And, you know, it's interesting, we get hundreds of emails from listeners who love our show, Peter. And they are between the ages of 6 and 12. For the longest time, I could not understand that. Why would anybody, 7 years old love a show about advertising on the CBC? And we keep getting all of these emails from kids who love the show. And I would occasionally get to meet them. If I was doing a presentation somewhere or doing a book signing somewhere, I would meet them and I would meet their parents. And when they brought their kid up to meet me and they said, you know, this is Barbara, she loves your show. I go, how old are you? And she'd say, eight, for example. And I say, why do you listen to this show? And I would look at the parents, why does show? And what they said was interesting. They said, it's the storytelling. And I thought that was so inspiring to underline the importance of storytelling that why would a 7 year old want to listen to our show, which is all about marketing, when it's in fact the structure of a story that's so alluring to even children?

[Peter Wilkin]

Yes. And the best agencies do it brilliantly and naturally. I have to say, at the risk of embarrassing you, I love your show because it's so beautifully researched and told in that wonderful storytelling way. There's always a character, a protagonist, there's always a conflict of some sort. There's a resolution, a solution, and there's a consequence, but you can never tell. It's so cleverly woven together. You have a magic gift of balancing the facts and the research behind your stories with the interest and the incredulity of the outcomes as well. So, you know, I love it.

[Interviewee]

Well, thank you for that. But it really underscores the power of storytelling, doesn't it, that as you said, storytelling involves structure and Act 1 and Act 2, and Act 3, and consequence and all of those things. Even when people say that attention spans are diminishing and shortening, I kind of disagree with that. Because movies are actually getting longer if you track it. And people will sit still for something that's interesting.

[Peter Wilkin]

That's true.

[Interviewee]

Be interesting.

[Peter Wilkin]

Be absolutely. You can't bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them into buying it. As our great old boss, David Oglewood used to say, you go back and you watch an old black and white movie with a plot with no actions on it and you think, oh my God, it's brilliant. And again, I'm not just harking back to everything that's old was good and everything that's new.

[Interviewee]

No, it's just good storytelling.

[Peter Wilkin]

It's to the point of saying, you know, so many of these action movies that we see now, actually the story plot is not that great or interesting. Some are brilliant and well executed, but it needs that storytelling. And it's a myth that you can't do it in advertising and building. Some of that ran up.

[Interviewee]

But again, be interesting right at the end of the day, regardless of what social media platform you want to put your creative out on or your message out on, be interesting. And that's not easy getting back to your client triangle. You're only as good as your client at the end of the day, don't you think?

[Podcast Production Voice]

Peter?

[Interviewee]

It all comes down to will they say yes because clients have all the power at the very end of the road.

[Peter Wilkin]

Absolutely. I would always say that agencies get the clients they deserve and deliver. And come on, you talked about differentiation earlier, and I think this is one of the key things that is the most challenging. Everyone has been taught that your real brand, you've got to stand out and differentiate. But as you rightly said, it's so complex and cluttered now to find a little bit of light between the leaves and the tree is almost impossible until you niche down to nothing. And that's not relevant either. Craft something and improve an existing thought or idea rather than something that's revolutionary. And don't strive so hard to be different that you lose relevance. I say narrow down your focus. So own a territory, whether it's geography or whether it's attitude. A psychographic, a mindset, you know, this is for people who are rebellious thinkers. Own that and differentiating that, even though there's five other competitors who are doing actually something very, very similar to you.

[Interviewee]

In one parting thought, you reminded me just now of a moment I had in my career, which I talk about a lot. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra needed a radio campaign because they were losing their audience and their audience were all senior citizens. And the problem was mortality. And no younger people were coming in the other end of the funnel. So the director of marketing came over to our offices one day. He stepped right out of central casting. Peter, he was British, beautiful accent, he had the look and he had a beautiful suit on. And he was everything I imagined the director of marketing for the symphony orchestra would be. And I thought, this is going to be a tough assignment because it's a very conservative company. Classical music, as a rule, is a very conservative genre. So he's giving us the briefing we need to attract younger people. We don't have much money. We're an arts organization. But we've done our homework and we have enough for a small radio campaign. And none of this is exciting. So he gives us the brief. Then he's putting on his coat and he's got one foot out the door, Peter. And he turns to us and says, oh, by the way, blow the dust off this place. And if it wasn't for that moment, I would have probably not got in with a bold idea. But because of that moment, I went in with a bold idea, they bought it, and it's one of the biggest successes of my career. It sold a ton of subscriber tickets for the symphony. But it was that little moment where the director of marketing actually told me.

[Podcast Production Voice]

In his own way, not even part.

[Interviewee]

Of the briefing, that he was open to creativity.

[Peter Wilkin]

Oh my God. And it gives you so much excitement and encouragement and you go back to your office and you think, I'm gonna do it for these guys. I'm gonna do it.

[Interviewee]

Oh, I went running back to my office. I was on fire.

[Peter Wilkin]

Yeah, amazing. But it's so, so right. Some of that role of educating our clients and people out there to do things differently and have the courage to go back to some of these principles of calculated risk taking and their creativity.

[Podcast Production Voice]

The importance of the calculated risk. It is the key to successful marketing. And I think that's the perfect note to end this interview with the ever insightful Peter Wilkin. His new book is titled Dim Sum Strategy Bite Sized Tools to Build Stronger Brands and it is a terrific read. If you manage a brand or if you're in charge of your company's marketing, big or small, or if you manage creative people, this is the book for you. Pick up a copy. A big thank you goes out to Peter Wilkin. I'm Terry O'Reilly. This episode was recorded in the Tear Stream Mobile recording studio. Director Callie O'Reilly, producer Debbie O'Reilly chief sound engineer Jeff Devine under the Influence Theme by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick and James Ayton. Tunes provided by APM Music. Follow me at Terry oinfluence for some fun behind the scenes content. This podcast is powered by acast. More bonus episodes to come. Stay tuned.

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[Peter Wilkin]

ACAST powers the World's best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.

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