Espresso: INSANE Creative Lessons from Charles Saatchi

0:00One of the things that really struck me was when you talked about Charles Saatchee and your time working with him. and you said illusion was very important to Charles and something he continued to believe in for the rest of his advertising career. I'd love you to sort of sink into that and why do you think illusion is important in creativity? When you're dealing with reputation, which is basically what you're dealing with there, it is something that people have to appreciate fairly rapidly if you're in business. I have to appreciate fairly rapidly that this person I can trust or I value or whatever it might be.

0:37and Charlie was very good at understanding that from a very very young age that you know how I present myself the way I sound the way I come across is fundamentally important so when he started the agency he went from being a guy with long hair you know this was like 1970s and that and he went out and bought a business suit and a business tie and he looked completely buttoned down you know and that was the illusion he wanted to create because people would believe he's creative because he was what they wanted to know was was he reliable and the business suit the tie button down business approach communicated that so that sense of kind of understanding how people are perceiving you what they're expecting the problems that they might have were fundamentally important.

1:33And he was brilliant at that and an absolute master. And so often, certainly if you're in a creative industry, which is dealing with business people, you've got to understand how are they going to trust you? How are they going to value what it is you're working? And if you're the sole presenter, then you've got to make sure that you're the person that I can both believe in and that I can trust. Obviously, if you're walking in with a partner, you go, I'm the lunatic, you're the sensible one. And that way then you get, you know, it's like a comedy act, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you know, Morecambe and Wise, you know, the straight man, the funny man.

2:18And, but if you haven't got that, if you are the kind of person who is seen as the leader, then you've got to make sure that they see you in the right way. And he was brilliant at that. What else did he teach you about sort of creativity that sort of soaked into your being and the way you view the world? I valued enormously the time I spent working with Charles. I mean, we were both very young, but he was in a way, I was, hold on, let me think, I was 21, 22. Wow. Charlie was a couple of years older than me, 23, but he could have been 33. You know, it was that. But what he was very, very good at doing was identifying the problem and solving it.

3:08So part of any creative brief, what really is the problem? Now, it might sound, well, it's obvious, isn't it? No, no, no, it's not always obvious. Understanding that is fundamentally important. He had that ability to focus, crucially, crucially important, of this is what we're trying to solve. This is what we need to do. Because people will come to you with ideas. Oh, here's a great idea. Yes, but is it solving that problem? And that's what he was very good at. The other thing that he was absolutely brilliant at, and, you know, Charlie was very mercurial in many ways. What do you mean by mercurial?

3:49Well, you know, weren't quite sure where he was coming from, what was he doing, he said that, did he really mean it? So, you know, and that's, you know, I'm not being sort of critical. That's the way he was. But the other thing he was brilliant at is that he made anybody who worked with him feel that they could be better. And that's a great quality, that he brought out the best in people and made them feel and realise that they could realise their talent if they were with him. And that created loyalty. And that loyalty, of course, is hugely valuable in any corporation. He didn't operate on the basis of fear at all.

4:34I mean, you know, and it was all about the work. Is the work great? And if we were all working on an idea and he was working on it, I was working on it, somebody else would, he wouldn't pick his idea if another idea was better. Two months free? Yeah, that's what Espresso sponsors Unleashed are offering. They are supply chain gurus and offer inventory management that talks to your e-com and accounting software. It's helped Ireland's cut admin time in half, get granular clarity on your margins, know where your stock is. Don't miss availability. Brands like Candy Kittens, Tarquin's Gin, Minor Figures and Trip all use Unleashed.

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