Each morning, I have a coffee and look at the beach. There’s usually a lot of pondering involved. Sometimes, it’s deep pondering on the workings of the universe, and other times it’s more superficial, like ‘why isn’t the letter ‘w’ called ‘double v’ rather than ‘double u’? Or, wondering if Volvo drivers are secretly happy now that the world has Tesla drivers.
Anyway, this pondering changed direction when I saw a person walk past with their phone perched in a gimbal while they did a ‘walk and talk’ video. This prompted me to think about where advertising is at the moment, and where it’s headed.
In simple terms, you could say that advertising’s job IS perception. After all, it creates, manipulates, and manages how a product is perceived.
But what about the ad industry itself – how is it perceived?
Apparently, size does matter.
It seems advertising used to be a bigger deal. Big, mass media. Big ideas. Big productions. Big budgets. Big salaries.
Everyone knew it, from banks to breweries.
But then, things got smaller. Media splintered, and catered to smaller audiences. Screens got smaller. Timelines got smaller. And budgets and salaries followed.
Perception plays a role here.
If the screen is smaller, and the audience is a single person rather than multiple people gathered to view a single screen, it’s no longer perceived as ‘big’. The grandeur is gone.
In the ad industry, when the internet first started making inroads, we all became familiar with a client’s production budget shrinking to reflect the media in which the ad would be shown. Many clients expected the production of a 30-second film to be much cheaper if it was ‘only going online’.
Can you imagine what a car dealer would tell you if you went into a showroom and wanted to buy a car for a cheaper price and offered the rationale that you’d only be driving it on particular roads?
When cost-cutting kills more than your costs.
Most people would be familiar with the old triangle of values: ‘Quality, Time, Cost – have any two’. It’s based on the premise of two values coming at the detriment of the third (i.e. you can have the work done well and quickly, but it won’t be cheap OR you can have the work done well and cheaper, but it’ll take time OR you can have the work done cheaply and quickly, but it won’t be good).
(I was always of the opinion that quality wasn’t expendable, so one of the other two values had to be sacrificed. Not all marketers agree.)
Then, along came generative A.I. And, with it, the promise that you can have all three values.
Now, whether it currently delivers on quality is up for debate. Problems with image continuity, anatomy, and receiving what you actually requested is still an issue. But we all know the tech will eventually get there.
So, what then?
Well, that’s when perception might really come into play. Right now, it’s being over-looked, either unconsciously or otherwise.
Perception doesn’t appear on a spreadsheet.
When people know that something has taken effort, they assign a higher value to it. It’s why people get their photo taken in front of the Sydney Opera House. It’s why people appreciate a beautifully prepared meal. And, it’s why brands put the words ‘hand-made’ on labels.
However, when we get to that stage where people will know, or assume, that someone has simply punched in a few prompts to create something, that same value is unlikely to be assigned.
Instead, the output becomes highly disposable.
The inference by the viewer/reader/listener is ‘that business has not bothered to invest in their message, so why should I invest my time in it?’
Of course, consumer psychology like this doesn’t show up on a marketing spreadsheet, but it’s something that needs to be considered.
After all, once everyone has seen behind the curtain and knows how the magician does his tricks, the magic itself disappears.
When you’ve worked on enough projects, you see some reoccurring themes. And, some of those themes are ways organisations seemingly work hard to ensure that their own advertising does not succeed.
Of course, they don’t do it on purpose, but it’s more common than most people like to admit. Here’s a quick list. See if any apply to your organisation.
1. Perspective is everything. There’s a saying in legal circles that goes ‘Any lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client’. The simple reason why, is because they’re too close – they lack the perspective to see things from the outside, often due to their own unconscious bias limiting their view.
Smart people understand that and take measures accordingly. Others let their ego get in the way.
Many times, the things you might think are important, are not of any significance to your target audience.
2. You’re not truly customer-focused. This usually comes down to different agendas and barriers people create for themselves. And, put simply, people need to be honest with themselves about it.
Is that latest campaign really for the customer, or is it simply to make senior management or shareholders feel good about themselves?
Is that work made in a way that will truly resonate with the target audience, or are you simply trying to schmooze an advertising awards jury?
Are you using assets and imagery that will actually work, or merely ones that compliance and legals have already approved?
3. Too much complexity. Bureaucracy loves complexity because it gives the illusion that lots is happening. But Da Vinci said it best when he said ‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ (although he probably said it in Italian or Latin).
See, the number one rule is to make it easy for your customers. And if you haven’t done that, usually by distilling your messaging or your offering, you need to do more work.
Your customers aren’t going to do it. Unless they’re a good way down the sales funnel (excuse the jargon – I hate it too), people simply don’t care. They have school drop-offs to do, work meetings to sit in, dishwashers to unpack, Netflix shows to binge, 10,000 steps to do and eight glasses of water to drink.
4. You’re playing to ‘not lose’. We need to be clear that ‘winning’ and ‘not losing’ are not the same thing.
While caution and informed decision-making is paramount, if you’re number 1 priority is to ‘not lose’, the simplest way to achieve that is not to play at all. Then, your objective is pretty much guaranteed.
Advertising’s job is to stand out, not fit in.
So, be clear and honest with yourself about what you really want to achieve.
5. Advertising is usually subtle (in both victory and defeat). If you happen to be sitting on the other side of a two-way mirror, watching a research group who has turned up for fifty bucks and free sandwiches, critique work, you might hear the term, ‘it wouldn’t make me buy it’.
Now, despite what digital advertising platforms might tell you, attribution of an advertisement’s success, and how it influences people, is a far more complex beast.
It’s important to grasp the fact that there are many factors involved. I understand it might not be convenient, or might not align with an organisation’s KPIs, and ROI charts that need to be shown in meetings, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
If the author or creator of a communication seems reluctant to make your requested changes, it might be because you’re messing with a part of it that, however subtle, will diminish its impact.
Successful communications can probably be best summarised by Al Pacino’s ‘Inches’ monologue in Any Given Sunday (just swap out winning in a football game to winning in business).
6. You’re spending more time and effort on process than the work itself. In advertising and business, the result is the most important thing.
However, somewhere along the line, people seem to have lost sight of this and the process is often given more focus. Perhaps it’s a throw-back to high school maths, where you got higher marks for getting the wrong answer if you did it the right way, rather than the right answer by doing it the wrong way. Who knows?
Anyway, I’ve seen many marketers and ad agencies spend more time on the peripheries of delivering the work, rather than the work itself. This can take many forms – ranging from time-sapping, non-productive meetings, to being dictated what tools or platforms to use, to creating a 27-page deck to present a few social posts.
Try and always keep your focus on the true goal, rather than unknowingly creating barriers to it.
7. A tsunami of crap. Let’s be honest here.The majority of adverting has always been pretty ordinary, and there are a number of reasons on why that’s so. However, we are now entering an era where it will plunge to new depths.
The barriers to entry have never been lower. Anyone with a phone can now make stuff and publish it. Generative AI, plus access to simple editing and design tools has all made it much easier to produce stuff.
However, just because one has access to tools doesn’t make them an architect. The inconvenient truth here is that the biggest workload in delivering effective communications is the thinking part. You can call it strategy, or consumer psychology, or insight-driven ideation, or whatever, but the important thing to note is that it’s not just a case of pressing buttons on a device.
And remember, AI’s frame of reference doesn’t just include the good stuff – it includes all the rubbish that’s out there too.
So, you’ll need to be clear on what your goal truly is here. Are you simply adding to all the crap, or are you cutting through it?
Every year around this time, people make ridiculously bold predictions for the year ahead. In the past, I’ve sat by and watched, wondering how people can be so full of conviction and so full of shit at the same time.
However, this year you don’t have to worry about that because I’ve compiled a definitive and completely genuine list of the five biggest things you can expect to happen in 2025. And remember, you heard it here first.
1. Haircuts
On 20 January, Donald Trump is inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States of America.
Then, while scrolling through old tweets, the big fella comes across a story from 2014, where various news outlets reported that North Korea had made a law requiring all men and boys to have their hair styled in the same way as Kim Jong Un.
Quite taken by the idea, Trump introduces a similar law in the USA, ostensibly as a way to boost patriotism, unite the country, and help make it great again. Subsequently, all American males are soon sporting brilliant Trump-style combovers.
An entrepreneur spots the need for hair products that will better cater to this particular hairstyle and appears on the TV show, Shark Tank, spruiking his new range of haircare products called ‘Hairforce One’. The entrepreneur gets the finance he’s seeking, and Hairforce One goes on to become the fastest-growing FMCG product of all time.
2. Facts on the riviera
Following Zuckerberg’s decision to remove fact checking from Meta, lots of fact checkers find themselves without a job. A few manage to find work on TV quiz shows like The Chase, however most are employed by the Cannes Advertising Festival to check the claims made by ad agencies in the case studies they submit.
Don’t say you weren’t warned.
3. Virtual dining
Seemingly inspired by everyone’s willingness to outsource their thinking to A.I., the wellness industry jumps on board with a new weight-loss treatment. In a similar way to thinking for people, this new product saves people from actually eating. Instead, it simply describes to the user what the food tastes like so they can enjoy the food vicariously, without the calories.
Due to its success, many people are bombarded with telemarketing efforts from competing A.I. dining products, each proclaiming that their descriptions and adjectives are more delicious than others.
Uber Eats even gets in on the act, after realising that it’s quicker and cheaper to send customers an email that describes the meal, rather than have tangible food delivered.
4. True 1-to-1 advertising
As people can no longer believe that what they see on a screen is real, there is a move by advertisers to introduce a new 1-to-1 model to convey their clients’ messages. It involves hiring real people to visit the homes of the intended target audience to deliver an in-person spiel about a product or service.
Of course, they try and portray it as “a new, proprietary” offering and employ designers to create a great-looking slide to represent this in their credentials decks. However, in reality, it seems they just dusted off the old playbook used decades earlier by door-to-door vacuum salesmen and Mormons.
5. Red planet reality
With the objective of creating energy for electrical cars, an unnamed billionaire begins to build his version of The Matrix on Mars. Thousands of influencers sign up to be part of it, reasoning that their life has become such a manicured, fake veneer, this is the logical next step. It’s intended to be a real-life mashup of The Truman Show, Ready Player One, and Fahrenheit 451.
Of course, in the meantime,if you’d like to keep things real and do some good, no-nonsense work, contact dustinlanecreative.com
DUSTIN LANE Brand Strategy | Creative Concepts | Copywriting risinggiants.co
To an outsider, advertising and bullshit might seem to go hand-in-hand. However, I’ve always tended to take a no bullshit approach. I have little time for hyperbole, jargon, and other crap that gets in the way of the goals we wish to achieve.
This can sometimes make scrolling through LinkedIn feel like floating in a sea of crap, as I encounter AI-written ‘thought leadership’ pieces, critiques of ads from people who’ve never actually made an ad, and people with wonderfully self-indulgent titles like ‘unicorn’ and ‘ninja’.
So, in a bid to combat some of the bullshit, offer some reality, and dispel some myths that have grown like a post-Christmas waistline, I thought I’d jot down a few red flags I regularly come across.
1. ‘We need someone to do everything for $50k per year.’
Okay, I get it – your budget is $X, but that doesn’t mean you simply combine all the things you need done into one role and advertise it for your budget. If it were, rather than hiring electricians, carpenters, plumbers, painters, concreters, tilers, and landscapers to build a house, I could just invent a role like ‘Habitational Construction Viscount Unicorn’ and seek someone to build an entire house for $50k.
Firstly, it’s not going to happen. And, secondly, even if it did, would it be a house you’d want to live in?
The simple truth is that if you want something done well, there’s no such thing as a ‘one-person agency’. It’s the same reason your GP doesn’t also dabble in a bit of dentistry and brain surgery. You get what you pay for, no matter how inconvenient that might be for the budget.
2. ‘Isn’t copywriting just the words?’
Look, the ad industry hasn’t done itself any favours with the ‘copywriter’ title. My mum has never even understood what a copywriter does. These days, the plethora of people you can find online proclaiming to be copywriters ranges from people who can use spellcheck on a computer to ex-journos (and anyone in between, who has ever said the alphabet).
The truth is, the ‘writing’ part is actually secondary in the role of a copywriter. The bigger, and more difficult part is the thinking. And by that, I mean both strategic thinking, and conceptual thinking.
‘Hey. Isn’t strategy covered by the planner?’, I hear you say. Well, any copywriter worth their salt is also a strategist. David Ogilvy. Leo Burnett. Mary Wells Lawrence. All great copywriters, yet all inherently great strategy planners. Even the fictional TV character Don Draper is a great strategic thinker.
And, yes, of course there is the writing. What you may not know is that for every word you see in the final output, there are plenty behind it that have fallen. For example, a good copywriter considers the difference inferred by a bank that tells its customers ‘Your withdrawal has been approved’ versus ‘Your withdrawal has been confirmed’.
A million decisions like this happen behind every piece of work you see (if it’s been done well, that is).
3. ‘The strategy and idea is all done. We just need…’
Hear that? It’s alarm bells ringing.
Sure, on first glance it seems innocent enough. After all, the strategy and idea is essentially where all the heavy lifting happens. If that’s done well, the following jobs (copywriting and other ‘executional’ parts of the project) should be simpler. But the important words are “if it’s done well…”. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.
If it isn’t, it’s like being asked to put a roof on a house, when you know the house won’t be able to take the weight of a roof. For this reason, I’m always sceptical when the author of an idea doesn’t want to (or can’t) make their own idea actually work.
I’ve always held the position that the best person to make the idea work is the originator, because you make a bed differently if you’re the one who has to sleep in it.
4. ‘The visual assets are done. We just need a brand positioning.’
This one always unleashes a raised eyebrow. That’s because anyone who understands communication would understand that visual assets, typefaces, brand colour palettes, copy style and tone all have to be pulling in the same direction. And the North Star for that direction is the brand positioning.
To try and retro-fit a brand positioning in this way is like trying to lay the foundation slab of a house – after you’ve already built two of the bedrooms and the kitchen.
Any professional communicator understands brand architecture, the process, and that everything about the brand needs to work together.
5. ‘Can’t I just teach myself and do it?’
Well, yes. But we also need to accept that knowledge and talent are not the same thing.
The simple truth is that some people are quite unique in their ability to do a particular task. For example, regardless of how much I study the biomechanics of running, or how many mornings I get up at 4am and train the house down, I will never be able to run faster than Usain Bolt. Sure, my running will likely improve, but I will never be an awesome runner.
It would be the same for an artist. Sure, you can learn that mixing yellow and blue makes green, but you may never have the vision to foresee a human-figure called David lying within a 9-tonne block of marble.
So, while you can improve through education and training, there are some talents you may never master – no matter how many Simon Sinek or Gary V videos you watch.
6. ‘Everyone’s a creative’
When I say ‘creative’, I’m talking about copywriters, art directors, designers, directors, and their ilk.
This ‘everyone’s a creative’ phrase is the ugly, bastard-cousin of ‘ideas can come from anywhere’. Both phrases discount the skills and talents required to do the job correctly. Part of this is due to the current low barriers of entry, largely brought about through technology. Yes, Canva, Apple et al – I’m looking at you.
The truth is, simply having the tools doesn’t mean you know how to use them correctly.
To be clear, I’m not talking about their technical operation. Instead, I’m talking about the underlying skills that dictate which tool to use and when to use it. (eg. What does a close shot mean? Why doesn’t that typeface feel right? Is the colour palette communicating my intention? Should the language be colloquial or more formal? What does that posture imply?)
These are the true skills and talents required to be a professional communicator, rather than simply knowing which button to press.
7. ‘But, can you do social posts?’
In a world of internet memes, I imagine this one sitting up there, with the headline ‘Tell me you don’t know what an advertising creative does, without telling me you don’t know what an advertising creative does.’
Any true copywriter (or art director) has made a career from being a professional communicator. This includes consideration of the medium and context of how and where the message is consumed. Trust me, any creative who has worked in mediums that include TVC, pre-rolls, direct mail, out-of-home, point-of-sale, eDMs, posters, radio, flyers, and almost anything else, can also do social. Yes, social might have its own nuances, but so does every other medium.
In short, it’s a bit like asking a Formula 1 driver if they know how to drive an automatic Toyota Camry.
Okay, let’s turn the clock back. Right back, to the 1980s. Castrol Australia had a long-running campaign featuring re-occurring gangster characters. Those characters always spoke about the high quality of Castrol oil, and how not all oils are equal. This all anchored on their campaign line, “Oils ain’t oils”.
An old Castrol ‘oils ain’t oils’ ad.
It was obviously based on an insight that many car owners thought any oil could do the job.
Well, the same can be said about copywriters.
The truth is, there are copywriters. And then, there are ‘copywriters’. Not all are created equal.
See, in recent years, the term copywriter has grown to cover people of varying skills. Seemingly, it can now refer to a wide range of people – from a ‘traditional copywriter’ (whose skills includes equal parts marketing strategy, creative concepts, and wordsmithing), to a part-time journalist, right through to someone who simply knows how to use spell check on a computer.
As someone who’s been ‘brought up’ through the traditional ad agency model, I obviously have a horse in this race. After all, it’s how I make a living.
However, the problem arises when a client hires a ‘copywriter’ but thinks they’re hiring a different type of copywriter. Or, they’re not quite sure what a copywriter does. Or, they compare quotes provided by different types of copywriters (which is akin to comparing oranges and apples).
Perhaps, this is best presented in pictures, as I’ve set out below. So, if you happen to be looking for a copywriter, please remember, ‘copywriters ain’t copywriters’.
Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about change in the industry due to a number of factors – the advent of new A.I. not least among them.
And that brings to mind a couple of stories (please bear with me here – there is a point. If it helps, maybe imagine me sitting on a rocking chair, wearing a cowboy hat while I peel a piece of fruit and eat the pieces straight off the knife).
Story 1: The Boat
A few years ago, my daughter took Philosophy as a subject at school. I was happy about that as it would teach her to contemplate and consider things – essentially, to ‘think’, rather than simply memorise and regurgitate information.
Anyway, she would sometimes share with me the content of a particular lesson or an anecdote the students had been given.
One such discussion was this:
Imagine you’re on a boat.
The boat leaves Port A, destined for Port B.
Throughout the journey, parts of the boat are replaced – a new plank of wood here, a new fitting there, a new sail and so forth.
Ultimately, we get to a stage where every single piece of that boat has been replaced. Every plank. Every fitting. Every sail.
The boat arrives at Port B.
Is the boat that arrived at Port B the same boat that departed from Port A?
It’s certainly something to consider.
Now, for shits and giggles, let’s call that boat ‘The advertising industry’.
While you ponder that, let’s continue.
Story 2: The Paper
In a previous life, prior to being an advertising creative, one of the jobs I had was working for a regional newspaper. That newspaper was owned by a media company that owned around 29 other newspapers, all based in different towns spread throughout the state.
Of course, the bean-counters at the parent company soon realised they could centralise their printing for all the different newspapers rather than maintain a number of costly printing presses. So, they did, and started to print all 30 mastheads at one location, using one printing press.
Now, there were people who used to work on the other 29 printing presses, so the parent company sought to find them other jobs within each location.
My particular location was not the one that now did all the printing, so I got to see firsthand people who had worked on the printing press now placed in jobs working as graphic designers, laying out ads by desktop publishing on a computer. This was quite a different role than working on the printing press and, with all respect to those people, graphic design was probably not their forte.
Sure, taking a very primitive view, one might say ‘both jobs involve pushing buttons with the aim of creating a printed item’, but beneath that, there’s a myriad of differences. Knowledge or skill in things like operating printing machinery, printing blocks, and print runs, does not translate into designing layouts, visual communication and artwork.
While the outcome is the same – a published ad – the job to get there is miles apart.
It’s kind of like someone who loves horses being approached by Henry Ford saying, ‘Hey, you work in transport. How about coming over to my factory and helping put car engines together?’
Why am I telling you this?
Well, I guess both these stories land in the same place, which is ‘at what point does something evolve so much that it becomes something completely new?’
There’s already been plenty written about A.I. platforms like Midjourney and ChatGPT.
Depending on where you read it, and who it’s written/promoted by, it ranges from point A to point C, below:
A) “Everyone’s job is f*cked” Some think A.I. will make many people’s jobs redundant. For example, is it really that difficult to envisage a world where ChatGPT writes a script which then progresses into a later version of Midjourney to produce a finished ad/film/TV show?
B) “This is a kick-ass tool” Some think that A.I. will be a great ‘assistant’, effectively looking after the more tedious chores within a project so they can get on with the bigger thinking.
C) “A.I. produces crap” Others think that there’s nothing to be worried about because the output of A.I. isn’t great (yet!). But let me ask you this, how many clients are actually buying ‘great’. Once reviewed by a committee and research, greatness is easily undone. In some cases, clients don’t even care for ‘good’. Often it just needs to be ‘good enough’. This is why there’s so much rubbish out there.
So, whichever school of thought you belong to – A, B, or C – the two stories above tell us three things:
Stand back and have a close look at how much your boat has changed. If you’re not on the boat that suits you, it might be worth jumping to a new one or, better yet, building your own.
Whether something is an evolution or a revolution comes down to your perspective.
There will always be a need to ponder and think. How that actually manifests itself or pays the bills in the future is up to you. Essentially, that’s your brief.
Oh, and speaking of briefs, if you have one, or a project you’d like me to work on with you, let’s chat.
Another one that never got published until now. I wrote this article back in 2014, in response to the question, ‘Where do all the art directors and copywriters go when they get older?’
Part 5: William* (real name withheld) October 2014
I’d worked alongside William some years ago. I remembered his gentle manner and sharp eye for design. I tracked him down to see if I could get his story over lunch. He’d seen the ad industry unfold over a few decades, and I was keen to hear about how things had changed. The fact that he arrived at lunch on a Tuesday with a nice bottle of red showed that he believed there’s still room for enjoying yourself. Here’s his story:
‘William’
As a young man growing up in London, I always loved advertising. I used to wallpaper my bedroom walls with great ads, like Chivas Regal and Benson & Hedges. I considered them art. In fact, I still have about six or seven hundred of them archived at home. They probably belong in a museum of advertising or something.
I thought advertising was interesting. I loved the idea of millions of people as my audience, that it was my job to influence or manipulate them.
So, with a career in advertising set firmly as the goal, I attended New Hampton Art College. Then, within two weeks of completing the school, I saw an agency ad in Campaign magazine. It was targeting potential clients, but I wrote to them anyway, seeing if they had any jobs for me. The agency was called Brunnings Advertising, and they were probably the sixth or seventh largest agency in London at the time. They invited me in for an interview and gave me a job straight away. My portfolio wasn’t that great, but I guess they just liked me. The work that Brunnings did was fairly dull and boring but I was just pleased to get my first job.
Back then, the career progression was much more structured than it is now. Only the very senior people were ‘Art Directors’. There was a whole process to go through – learning about letter-setting, printing and visualising before you could earn that title.
The real challenge was moving from a shit agency to a good one. ‘Top tier’ agencies simply wouldn’t even look at you. There really was a class structure within the industry. So after seven or eight years in London, I decided that I needed to find another market so I could climb the career ladder.
I applied to go to South Africa, due to its proximity to London, but was rejected. After travelling through Thailand, I ended up in Australia. I quickly realised that saying ‘I’m an art director from London’ had some status. A headhunter told me that most jobs in Australia didn’t go via recruitment specialists, and that I should see Paul Jones, the CD at Clemenger. He gave me a job on the spot, and I was earning three times more than my salary back in London.
I got to work with some nice brands. I helped launch Breville, the electrical appliance brand, in 1978. It became a household name and suddenly I became flavour of the month in Australia.
I ended up spending four years at Clemenger. It was an awesome department and I worked alongside people like Phil Atkinson, Rob Thomley, Terry Bunton, Greg Adler, Andrew West and Peter Cherry.
Then, one day I got a call from Dick Greenlaw. He had been the CD at Clemenger before I arrived and now ran his own agency, Phillips Horne Greenlaw. I joined them as a partner and over the next three and half years, helped build it into a good agency. Then Clemenger wanted to buy it, so after selling the agency to the BBDO network, I stayed on for a year before heading back to London.
In 1985, I joined J. Walter Thompson’s London office as Creative Group Head. At the time, they were probably in the top three or four agencies in London so my strategy to move to a foreign market so I could advance my career had worked.
Then, at the age of 38, I launched my own agency in London with two other partners. Our launch was on the front page of Campaign magazine. The only other agency that had launched on the front page was Saatchi & Saatchi.
In our first year, we picked up clients like The Guardian, and part of the Lloyds Bank account. Every agency was becoming a public company in those days and that was our plan too – spend five years building the agency, then launch a prospectus, and float. But the stock market in 1987 didn’t agree with those plans. The crash saw things change very quickly. Lloyds stopped spending money on advertising as nobody wanted a mortgage. Financial duress then put strain on the relationship between the agency’s three partners.
One day, in the middle of an argument with the other partners, I took a phone call from a headhunter. They asked if I wanted a job in Spain. The timing was perfect. So, suddenly, I became the Executive Creative Director of Lintas, working in the Barcelona office. I thought it would be an interesting experience – my kids could learn Spanish, plus Barcelona was hosting the Olympics so there was a lot happening. It was lots of fun, but looking back, it was probably a mistake to go to Spain. I stayed there for two and half years before returning to Australia.
So in 1994, I reunited with Paul Jones at DDB’s Sydney office. Paul had built DDB into a strong agency and McDonald’s were doing lots of good work. It was great department and almost everyone there went on to be CDs and CEOs.
Paul moved to Ogilvy in 1995 as Executive Creative Director and Chairman, and I followed. I stayed there until the end of 1997, before joining Craig Davis at his agency, Doorley Abram Davis & Chapman. I spent about a year there before joining a friend at Samuelson Talbot. I then moved to M&C Saatchi, working out of both their Sydney and Melbourne offices on various projects and I also did a few stints in Singapore.
When I look at the industry these days, I think the advertising environment is changing dramatically. The skillsets and expectations are now very different. I’ve adapted over the years, teaching myself things like Photoshop and other tools of the trade. About thirteen years ago (2001), I realised that if I don’t move with the tide, you can easily be left behind. Many of my contemporaries aren’t really doing anything these days. I’ve seen the landscape shift from being all about ideas to being largely about technology. These days, I think Creative Directors tend to fill the role of curators and ‘presenters of ideas’.
I still work directly with corporate clients. I find that most of my new projects come via existing connections or referrals. I still enjoy the work.
Okay, I wrote this article back in 2014 but never published it, until now. In it, I continue to explore the question, ‘Where do all the art directors and copywriters go when they get older?’
I caught up with Ben via Skype. After a few days in New York, he had just returned to his LA office in Venice Beach’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard. GQ Magazine calls it the ‘coolest block in America’ but Ben thinks that it could also be called ‘the most expensive rent in America’. He spins his laptop camera around, giving me a quick tour. Some of his father’s artwork adorns the office walls and the actor, Robert Downey Jnr. lives just across the road. He then takes me back to where it all started and how he ended up here:
Ben Nott
I always wanted to do something creative. My father was, and still is, a successful abstract artist. And my mother worked as a photo journalist with Australia’s national broadcaster, the ABC. They didn’t really push me either way, however I saw the up-and-down nature of Dad’s life as an artist. He would have long periods of working with little income, then there would be an exhibition, and then the process would begin again. I wanted something with a more commercially-stable income.
From around the age of 12, I was a successful surfer and was sponsored, head to toe. But I wanted a career with greater longevity and security.
At 17, I began studying Communication at Sydney Technical College. I attended classes 5 nights per week, and it was a 3-year course. To enrol in that course, I was meant to be 21 years or older, but I lied. So in effect, I graduated before I was even meant to be doing the course.
At 18, to get into an ad agency, I applied for a job as the mail boy at Sydney’s Leo Burnett office. I quickly learned all the departments by delivering their mail and I did other things like moving the directors’ cars and purchasing the agency’s alcohol. John Newton was the CD there at that time and he was always nice to me. I did a year and a half there, before scoring a job as a junior writer at McNabb Willett & Donahue – a fairly small agency of around 30 people.
I did the Australian Writers and Art Directors (AWARD) School course on 3 separate occasions – once before I started working at Leo Burnett, once while I was there, and once when I was at McNabb. I kept doing it because I wanted to win it, but the best I ever did was 4th place. My friend, David Droga, had previously won it so I guess it was my competitive streak kicking in. Plus, AWARD School was a great place to meet other creatives and grow my network. At the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a copywriter or an art director, but then I made the decision that I wanted to do both. I loved both crafts.
I stayed at McNabb Willett & Donohue for about a year before moving to anther small agency called YPD. As is usually the case, moving to another agency saw me climb a level. So at YPD, I was probably considered a mid-weight creative. I had a female CD there, which was a nice change. There ended up being a mass round of retrenchments, of which I was one. But I had been planning on moving to DDB Sydney, so it actually worked out well. I stayed at DDB for about 3 or 4 years. For my first couple of years there, I tended to be teamed with senior art directors and I learned a lot very quickly. Adam Hunt then came to the agency to be my art director. I liked his rawness.
By then, I’d decided that I really wanted to get overseas. I’d previously done a 6-month stint at DDB’s New York office, off the back of an award win.
I saw the overseas markets as a bigger league – bigger clients, bigger budgets, and brand work that stood the test of time. Plus, you got to compete against really good teams.
New York still seemed to have that ‘Madmen vibe’, and a lot of the world’s really great work was coming out of London. Plus, there were a lot of poms (English) in Australia influencing the advertising landscape. So Adam and I decided to head for Europe as a team.
After a lap of Europe and lots of surfing, we started working at an agency in Amsterdam called PMSvW/Young & Rubicam. They seemed to be at the forefront of a new style of advertising that was happening – it was more visual, and I liked that. Paul Meijer was the Creative Director there and I knew that he directed a lot of his own work, which I also liked.
Adam and I had earlier sent Paul Meijer a piece of direct mail to help get our foot in the door (see Adam Hunt’s story).
We had a lot of fun working in Amsterdam. It was inspirational. Paul was a bit of a rock star in advertising circles around Europe and he wasn’t afraid to push his own style, which I admired.
It was during this time that I became the youngest person ever to win a Grand Prix at Cannes. It was for an ad that I had done back in Australia with Paul Bennell. we’d done a print ad for Kadu board shorts while at Siimon Reynolds‘ agency, Andromeda. It was a brash, aggressive style of ad for its time that used shocking imagery.
Cannes Grand Prix winner for Kadu board shorts
Off the back of that Grand Prix award, I received about 10 job offers from 4 different countries. Adam and I chose to go to Saatchi & Saatchi in London. James Lowther was the CD there.
While at Saatchis, we actually won another Cannes Grand Prix for an anti-racism ad. That would have been two in a row, however it was decided that the ad couldn’t claim Grand Prix because it was for a charity. It still won gold and silver lions. Plus, it ended up on lots of t-shirts. That felt nice as it was for a good cause.
We stayed at Saatchis for about 3 years. It was good. I was directing commercials and we were winning lots of awards. But I could see the same battles happening again and again. I found it a little predictable. I enjoy new things and learning, plus I wanted to get into directing more.
On the day that my contract with Saatchi & Saatchi expired, M&C Saatchi wanted me. I ended up doing a deal where I was a retained freelancer and would work at M&C for 1 week per month. That allowed me time to travel and direct projects for the rest of the time.
I also did short stints at a couple of other agencies in London. I found BBH to have a bit of a fear-based culture in trying to produce the work. Wieden+Kennedy London were looking for a new CD so I also filled in there for 2 or 3 months.
After 6 or 7 years of working in London agencies, I joined a great production company called Outsider. They’s just opened their doors. Saatchi & Saatchi would still get me to shoot stuff, and they had their own internal production department. I also did a few music videos too – for artists like Tom Jones, Talking Heads, The Cardigans, and some indie bands. I really enjoyed having more than 30 seconds to work with. I also got to travel a bit, to places like Dentsu in Japan.
I was enjoying that time, practising directing, judging some awards shows – just learning and extending myself. Creative teams knew that I was going to look after their idea. I love enhancing ideas, offering new ways, and making something the best it can be. I’m an eternal optimist and because I could make good money from advertising, I never felt any pressure to go against my beliefs or do something I didn’t really want to do.
However, America was calling. Just as had viewed London as the ‘top league’ of creating ads, I saw the USA as the place to be when it came to film. Plus, living on the west coast would mean I was close to the surf again.
After moving to the United States, I started developing screenplays and did some freelancing for ad agencies. It was a good time in the industry and the rates of pay were good. However, I still craved to do something longer than music videos and ads – I wanted to do feature films.
I met the CD of TBWA/Chiat Day, Chuck McBride. He also surfed and directed ads. He offered me a job I couldn’t refuse. It was good money and a great opportunity. Chuck understood my vision and the things I wanted to do. I ended up travelling around a bit in that role. I got to do some really nice work, and won more awards at Cannes and D&AD.
Lee Clow was my boss and he understood I wanted to do more surfing and work on other projects. He made a deal with me where he would pay me a full salary in return for 100 days’ work per year, and I could work from anywhere in the world. It worked well, and during that time I started to develop what would become my first feature film, Drift.
Around that time, Droga5 was starting up. David Droga had always been a good friend from our time at AWARD School and TAFE College in Sydney. We had always toyed with the idea of putting something together and doing it our own way. Honeyshed (Droga5’s founding project) was totally new. It was the Shopping Channel meets MTV, funded by Publicis. And after all, if it was more screen time that I wanted, here was an entire channel.
Honeyshed operated out of New York and LA and had a team of about 50 people. Looking back, it was probably ahead of its time and it never really got launched properly.
At the same time, we also did some more traditional ads through the holding company name, Droga5, and we won a ‘Best Creative Agency’ title.
I enjoyed my time at Droga5, working with good friends, and on some interesting projects in China. However, I’ve always liked to have lots of different opportunities on the go. From my time in London, I had operated my own little company called World Wide Mind. It had always involved little side projects and things like designing album covers. Now I began to do more work on Drift, with World Wide Mind being the company behind it.
From the initial stages of Drift to completion was a period of about 7 years. That involved script development and working with various partners. We got $12 million in funding, thanks largely to a grant given by the Australian Government in support of the arts. Drift has kept me busy for the past few years, as I’ve worn the hats of Co-producer and Co-director.
Drift. 7 years’ work.
Actually, at the time of this interview, I’m preparing to attend an event at the Australian Embassy here in Los Angeles. It’s called ‘Aussies Innovate in LA’ and is all about Aussie entrepreneurs in the U.S.
I currently have a TV series in development with FOX, and 3 other screenplays in development – some already have actors attached to them. Due to the long timelines involved with some of these projects, I still direct a few ads here and there. I’ve also been recently involved in the development of an app called BAM (Best anything Message). Put simply, it allows the user to send a video instead of an SMS.
I always enjoy collaborating and creating. I love anything that is at the intersection of advertising, entertainment and technology. I’m also currently doing some design work for Kelly Slater’s wave pool – that gives me the chance to combine surfing, creativity and advertising.
For me, it’s always been about bringing ideas to life and having fun doing it, whatever the medium. I’ve always followed the path of creativity and adventure rather than simply chasing the money. I love that moment when you have an idea and you tell someone and they smile. I love when they get the same joy from it that I had while coming up with it.
Many years ago, while I was at university, one of my friends (also studying communication / advertising) remarked, ‘I wonder where all the art directors and copywriters go when they get older. You don’t see many in ad agencies.’ However, we didn’t spend too much time pondering (it was Bar Night at uni and we were in a hurry to get to $1 Drinks). Many years later, that question still seems largely unanswered.
Look at the creative departments of ad agencies – they’re all stacked with people in their 20s and 30s. But where are the older creatives? You know, the ones you once showed your book to and gained mentorship from. Surely they haven’t put enough cash aside to retire at 40? Where do they go for the second half of their careers?
Some might start their own agencies. Maybe others find variations of their job, using their skill set outside of the hectic pace of ad agency life. And perhaps there would be those who walk away from the advertising business altogether.
Some time ago, I set out to find the answers…
Part 1: Matt Cumming Thursday, 31 July 2014 I met with Matt at a café in North Sydney. I hadn’t seen him for a few years. He looked well. He was in Sydney working on a project but later that day, boarded a plane and returned to his rural home on the far north coast of New South Wales. So, how does an advertising creative end up living on a coastal farm? This is his story:
Matt Cumming
I entered the industry as an AFA (Advertising Federation of Australia) trainee in 1985. The traineeship required me to spend time within different departments of an ad agency, but when I got to the Creative Department I simply stayed there.
The agency was Dancer Fitzgerald Sample – a US-based agency that held the global Toyota account. They had set up an office in Sydney to service the Australian market for Toyota.
At that stage, my time in the Creative Department was spent primarily using my illustration skills to create storyboards.
To progress my career as an art director, I then did AWARD School. That course had only been running for a few years and was set up by the industry to help foster aspiring art directors and copywriters. It’s still the most popular way for people to get a job in the creative department of an Australian agency.
After AWARD School I teamed up with a young writer named Danny Ginges. (Incidentally, at the time of our meeting Danny was in New York, where he’s operating a successful musical called Atomic.)
Dancer Fitzgerald was then bought by Saatchi & Saatchi. Saatchis seemed to be buying everything at the time and, in this case, they essentially bought the Toyota account. By that time, Danny and I had earned a reputation at the agency as being a fairly good team, and our new bosses – Bob Isherwood and Ron Mather – kept us on.
It was a good creative department with plenty of people who would go on to accomplish many things in the ad industry. I was working alongside people like Matt McGrath, Paul Fishlock, Tom Moult and others. I stayed there for around 5 years, and then the recession hit.
The recession meant retrenchments right across the industry, of which I was one. However, because of all the retrenchments there was plenty of freelance work around.
Anyway, I used the payout Saatchis gave me to produce a play. It was a fun thing to do, although it was fairly stressful and I didn’t make any great profits from it.
My next stint was at The Ball Partnership. Tom Moult had become the CD there, and I stayed there for another 5 years before taking 6 months off to go travelling.
When I returned from my travels, The Ball Partnership had been bought by Euro RSCG. Tom Moult was still the CD, and the internet was in its infancy.
Tom said, ‘You like the internet. I’ll give you a room, a computer and a year.’ That was the birth of their Digital Department. After a year, enough was happening with it to justify its existence. I had poached Brendan Tansey from our print studio, and we were good at just jumping in and getting stuff done rather than sitting around talking about it.
My role with Euro’s Digital Department continued for a few more years, until Tom left. Then they gave me his job as Executive Creative Director.
The agency was doing well but it was challenging. Volvo kept changing Marketing Directors, and subsequently pitching. After the third pitch, I left to go surfing.
Leaving Euro felt good. It was quite brave to leave a big salary and not know what I was going to do.
After 6 months of surfing I got bored. I came back to Sydney and wrote a list of 6 agencies I’d like to work for. It comprised 3 agencies who I respected due to the work they did, and 3 agencies included on the basis of ‘they’d probably pay shitloads’.
I then created a direct mail pack to send to all 6 agencies, informing them that I was back, I was excited about one-to-one marketing (both digital and direct), and that I’d like to work for them.
The mailing got a 100% response rate with replies from all 6 recipients, and interviews with senior people at 5 of those agencies. There were job offers from 3 of them.
I chose M&C Saatchi. I respected their work and Andy Pontin, the MD, was fairly impressive. They also had a good IT infrastructure in place. From my time at Euro, I knew I’d need that help and support to grow the agency’s digital capabilities.
The M&C Saatchi bosses, Tom McFarlane and Tom Dery, were wary of digital as they’d been burnt before by people who over-promised and under-delivered. However, clients were starting to grow into the digital space and were willing to pay for the services of a Digital Creative Director.
After 6 years at M&C Saatchi, I left to go surfing once again. By then, my wife and I had a house in Bronte (Sydney’s eastern suburbs) and a holiday house at Sussex Inlet (on the New South Wales south coast). We decided to rent out our Bronte home and try living at Sussex Inlet for a while.
We lived in Sussex Inlet for 8 months. Our kids went to school down there. I joined the sailing club. Living in a town of only 3,500 people was a lot different from the hustle and bustle of Sydney.
We returned to Sydney and I worked at a place called Bienalto – a digital analytics and solutions company. They felt like a family business. You had lots of freedom and client contact and no agency politics. I stayed there for about 18 months before a headhunter approached me for a job at another ad agency – Lavender.
I stayed at Lavender for 6 months but it just wasn’t for me, and by now I was looking for a bigger break. By that stage my wife and I had a block of land at Byron Bay (the far north coast of New South Wales). We were looking at selling it to fund our life in Sydney, but instead chose to sell our Sydney home and live at Byron Bay, downsizing my commitment to advertising.
I’ve been in Byron Bay for 2 years now. We live on a 2-acre block of land but share 80 acres with our neighbours. It’s not a commune – more like a gated community in a rural setting.
Within that community there are different jobs, and one of my roles is to keep the lawn mowed. When you have 80 acres, mowing the lawn means having cows. So my job is to move the cows around. Every year the cows have calves that are then sold to offset some of the community’s maintenance costs. But cattle farming isn’t the reason for having them, lawn mowing is.
It’s a much easier life up there. So far, we’ve built our house and I help look after the kids. My wife is a hair and make-up artist, so she’s often travelling around the country for work.
The building of Matt’s house at Byron Bay.
I’m currently working on writing and directing a music video for a local artist. Byron Bay is a good place. There are lots of smart people there, lots of retired business people, good food and entertainment. I still work in advertising. I usually work remotely and come to Sydney or Melbourne when I have to, for things like presentations and the like.
I take most briefs via phone or email, with work increasingly from clients directly rather than via agencies. They’re mostly people who have heard of me through someone else and require the services of a consultant.
Looking back, I realise I resigned every 5 to 6 years, just to refresh and recharge rather than jump straight into another job. As a creative, you’re ‘always on’ and I don’t think anyone can maintain that over an extended time. There’s always a deadline or a live brief that’s ticking over in your mind. You can’t love the work if it’s month upon month of tight deadlines and working weekends.
It’s important to ‘jump out’ every once in a while to refresh. That’s why I would go surfing or travelling. I hadn’t saved heaps of money, but I had enough so I wasn’t stressed about it. I wasn’t overburdened by the mortgage. I just needed time out.
This last ‘time out’ has been my biggest. I don’t have the energy I did when I was 30. I wouldn’t come back to a full-time position right now, but that’s not to rule it out in the future. I’m enjoying the bits and pieces I do now as a consultant. I still get excited about the work.
I think this is the new form of retirement. I think people chose to ‘taper down’ and shift to a more reasonable work/life situation. That way, they can continue it for a longer time. I’m still only 53, and with the younger of my 2 kids still in the early years of primary school, I plan on being around for a while yet. I’m just going to pace the rest of my life better.
Matt and his wife Annette at their Byron Bay house.
I think the absence of older people in the creative departments of ad agencies is because we’re all commercial artists. At some point, we say to ourselves, ‘I want to do more art’. We find ways to apply our ideas and thinking without it necessarily being through advertising.
Note: Matt has remained true to his ‘time out to recharge’ ethos, and since the time of writing, has leased his Byron home and returned to Sydney with his family.
I look at the advertising industry these days and it often looks like the side of a spanner is being used as a hammer. Or to put it simply, it’s not the right tool for the job, but we’re trying to make it work. But before we discuss that, it’s probably worth a quick look at how we got here (but if you want to skip the history lesson, just scroll down):
1841 – A chap named Volney B. Palmer sets up what is believed to be the first ad agency in Philadelphia. His clients create the ads and he places them in newspapers. (So these days, we’d probably refer to him as a Media Agency). Ultimately, it was this media placing that gave birth to a commission-based remuneration model for the advertising world.
Early 1900s – The Industrial Age arrives and with it comes mass-produced products. With mass production, manufacturers began to differentiate their products through branding and packaging.
1922 – Broadcast radio realises that it can fund its existence through advertising.
1929 – The Stock Market crash puts greater pressure on advertising to prove its effectiveness, so research becomes a player.
1938 – Radio ad revenue surpasses that of magazines.
1941 – The first TV commercial for Bulova Clocks airs. At this stage there are only 4,000 television sets, but by 1954 CBS becomes the largest advertising medium in the world.
1960 – The creative team of Copywriter and Art Director is born at DDB.
The 1980s – Personal computers make desktop publishing easier.
2000 – The Internet has 400 million users, making it the fastest growing medium ever.
So history shows that ad agencies were born to allow marketers to communicate with their customers. They did this through interrupting media that the customers were already reading/watching / listening to. To negate this ‘interruption’, creativity was engaged to make the message seem more informative or more emotive, or a point of difference.
However for many marketers, the relationship with creativity has always been an uneasy one. That’s because, understandably, marketers seek certainty. Creativity, by its very nature, isn’t certain. Creativity is unpredictable. At times, it can be erratic and wild.
And sometimes, creativity simply isn’t the answer. Just recently I had lunch with a friend who left the agency world a few years ago to go client-side. He’s now National Head of Managing Something Or Other. He said that with a lot of the work they do, creativity just tends to get in the way.
It also reminded me of a recent article about former advertising creative, Yanni Pounartzis. In that article, Yanni suggests that creatives won’t exist in agencies in the near future. I’ve seen this first hand. There are agencies out there that simply don’t have a creative department or ‘creatives’. In many ways, it does seem that ‘advertising’, as we know it, will simply become the management of data.
I do think creativity will live on. That’s what it does. It will find a new home. But if you were unencumbered by history and were building a business today for the purpose of communicating with customers, I doubt that an ‘ad agency’ is what you would end up with.
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