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Campaign recently published their a-list questions, go and check them out. Campaign is the default trade journal of the advertising industry, though you would be surprised how many agencies don’t have a subscription. I featured in a number these kind of features earlier in my career in Campaign sister publications and rivals. I was often pulled in because friends had suggested me.
Here’s my take on the Campaign a-list questions below. It is a mix of the frivolous and the serious.
Define your past year in three words.
Eventful, emotional, grateful.
- Eventful: a lot of projects happened and a number of projects didn’t happen at a very late stage, I lost a couple of good friends – one of whom to complications related to lupus.
- Emotional: a number of highs and lows throughout the year.
- Grateful: for the friends that I have made, most of whom have been professional connections, some long-standing.
What brand will you be unable to live without in 2024?
‘Unable live without’ is a very first world problem related question. My workflow depends on the Apple eco-system. I use a MacBook Pro, a brace of vintage Apple Cinema displays and an iPhone. Brands that I am particularly appreciative of include HailMary magazine, Lipton Hong Kong café-style milk tea and Amazon Fresh online grocery shopping.
Who or what lights up your life?
- Friends and family.
- Intellectually-challenging work.
- Culture: I love museum exhibitions, galleries and arthouse cinema.
- Reading.
- Travel.
- Music and my hi-fi.
- Good coffee and baked goods.
You can bring back a TV show from the past – which one?
Maybe The Wire, a remake of John LeCarre’s Smiley books (huge fan of the BBC adaptations and the Tomas Alfredson film) or a new season of the Korean drama Stranger? I let my Netflix subscription lapse recently as I wasn’t watching that much on it and Netflix moved their payment system outside the Apple eco-system. Instead I have been buying the odd Blu-Ray or DVD here and there. Recent purchases included:
It’s 2034 and AI is in charge. What are you pleased to see?
Thoughtfully designed co-operative tools based on locally run apps using AI techniques rather than climate-unfriendly data centres. I hope that AI will be adapted to make workflow better so that we can do more with less drudgery.
If you were a TikTok star, what audience would you serve?
I have played with various AI tools. TikTok has lots of tightly-held opinions, but a dearth of quality information sources. I could see a niche for a channel that uses a virtual presenter to delivery high quality news analysis or education on the principles of a given subject, complete with links to high quality sources so that the viewers could educate themselves further.
Cats or dogs?
I grew up with dogs. We had a yellow labrador through my formative years to age 11 or so. We’d moved to a different neighbourhood and the new neighbours threw a chicken carcass over the fence and that killed him.
Later on my parents had a couple of Jack Russell terriers. I spent time on the family farm where my Mam grew up and befriended the working dogs there that were from the collie family. Before my time, the farm also had a couple of cats to keep down the vermin population, at least one of which my Mam doted on as a child and still talks about.
I also spent time with turkeys, hens, sheep, a pig, a pony, a donkey and numerous cattle. At the moment I wouldn’t have either a cat or a dog as a pet, see work/life balance question below.
What is the one bit of work advice you use the most?
In strategy, I have been finding with recent projects I have had to invoke Twyman’s law: “Any figure that looks interesting or different is usually wrong”.
What is your work/life balance secret?
I admit, I don’t succeed in achieving work life balance. Work tends to win out. Things tend to go high-speed or nothing. Trying to take out blocks of me time for self-care after a project, is the closest I get to it.
What is the first thing you do to tackle a business problem?
Listen carefully.
You are hiring the person who will one day have your job – what do they need to know?
The value of hard work and learning. I would prefer to hire for ‘heart’, work ethic and curiosity. They need to find their own path or journey, that works for them.
How would your answers to the Campaign a-list questions look like?