Espresso - Sir John Hegarty Breaks Down His Best Work of All Time

0:00I think in advertising, it is about the need to be popular. So you are aware of creating work that is sort of popular, but without being banal. I suppose the Levi's campaign was the campaign that got most kind of awareness. Yeah. I loved what we did for Audi, Vorsprung der Technik. I loved that. We did some – I was creative director and I didn't do it personally. write it, but Johnny Walker and Keep Walking. I thought that work was just brilliant, absolutely great. And you kind of know, you know, the one thing that's great about advertising, how it's at its best incredibly simple but profoundly deep because when you're writing something at that level or whatever, poetry is a bit like this.

0:58the only you know we talk about where is it going to run is it going to run on screen or in print or in on you know digital media whatever and I always say to people look there is only one space that matters only one space and that's the space between somebody's ears how do I get my idea into your head and the way you get it into somebody's head is you write something that's incredibly simple. But when it goes inside their head, it begins to unfold. And it has levels and levels and levels and levels. And it goes deeper and deeper. But if it's complicated, it won't go in. And this is the thing I think advertising teaches you.

1:42And great writers had that. Shakespeare completely understood it, to be or not to be. That is the question. Now, look at that. How long is that yeah and the world can say it 400 years after he wrote it and he understood that ability how do i say something that is incredibly simple but unbelievably profound and that's the the best advertising the greatest advertising we're only talking about probably five or ten percent of it

2:09Sir John Hegarty:by the way 90 of it is complete shite does actually have that what what examples of that in your opinion? I think we all, my generation, came into advertising kind of because of the work that was done in New York in the 60s by Dordain Bernbach, Bill Bernbach, the famous Volkswagen campaign, Think Small, you know, Lemon, all of those great ads that actually confronted how you thought about a motor car. What adverts do you all like? Or advertising does that today, right now, 2025, do you think? Very few. Very little. Really? I mean, advertising, I think is in a bit of a trough. Right. Awareness and appreciation of it is going down.

2:50That's not me saying that. That's all the research and data is telling everybody that. I think there are two things advertising has to do. It has to persuade and promote. Yeah.

3:02Sir John Hegarty:Okay. That was more on my list, right? So I love that. And what's the difference? Because for brand builders, say you're a brand listening to this. Well. What's the difference? Yeah. The first thing is you have to persuade somebody that you're somebody worth thinking about. That's persuasion. Hey, you know, Levi's, brilliant jeans. Promotion is I'm now doing a sale of Levi's jeans. You can get them in these four colors or whatever it might be. So you persuade, hey, I'm willing to consider you. That's persuasion. Yeah, I like you. Now I've got this special deal or you can find them here. or if you go and get them from this store, we'll give you this or whatever.

3:44That's a promotion. It's short-term to drive sales. The brand is making you, yeah, I like that.

3:52Sir John Hegarty:Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I like them. They're cool. Now I'll go and buy them. And actually, by the way, there's a kind of promotion on or whatever it might be, and that drives you even further. So you've got to do both of them, persuade and promote. And do you think most brands try and do one or the other? They're trying now. They've forgotten persuasion because digital companies, the social media companies have gone. You don't need to worry about all that persuasion stuff, all that broadcast advertising, because you can be really efficient and you can just talk to the people who are going to buy your product.

4:28Isn't that fantastic? And that's efficient and you're not wasting money. And of course, what that forgets is that all advertising, all brands are trying to build market share. They're trying to build more consumers. Even if somebody isn't going to buy your product, they can add value to it. One of the most important expressions, phrases about building brands is a brand is made not just by the people who buy it. but also by the people who know about it. Now, that is profound.

5:07Sir John Hegarty:That was on my, again. Yeah. That is something that the industry, big brands today have forgotten because a lot of big brands have been taken over by logical thinkers, left-brain thinkers. They're not, you know, they're not about growing. They're not about expansiveness. They're not about showmanship. They're not about, hey, here I am, you know, great brands. You know, whatever you think of Elon Musk, and I'm sure we all have points of view about it, he's a showman. Yeah. And, wow, he's out there talking about, now, I think he's gone a bit off the rails at the moment, but, you know, creative value.

5:43But Richard Branson, very much the same. James Dyson, very much the same. You know, Steve Jobs, very much the same.

5:50Sir John Hegarty:Showman, get out there, talk about it, make it happen. And that sense of you've got to kind of do that as well as then promote. Yeah. Then as well, they've got these deals, you can get it there, we'll put that with it, we'll do that. That's promotion. And that's once I bought the brand, then yes. The industry seems to have forgotten those two fundamentals, persuasion and promotion. They talk about, well, television doesn't work anymore, but television works in a different way. How so? Because it's a medium where you can sit back and enjoy it and listen to a message and be intrigued by something, as opposed to on your mobile phone, it's transactional.

6:33Sir John Hegarty:Yeah. Sorry, I'm doing that. Yeah, okay, 20 % off. Yeah, might do it. Oh, that's quite nice trousers. Yeah, okay, fine, boom. Yeah, the context of the message is super important. It's fundamentally important. Interesting. Fundamentally important. You know, I always say, you know, Michelangelo was the first great, not only art director but media director because he realized when he was going to have god making man he put him on the sistine chapel ceiling so you looked up ah there's god yes that's where he put god he didn't put him on the wall down there he put him up there hi there guys thank you so much for listening as always means the absolute world to me i need a really big favor please please please just hit the subscribe button on apple or spotify or follow ultimately it helps all of us bigger guests equals better conversations equals hopefully better insights for you which means you can scale hopefully faster with a little less stress as well so please hit that subscribe button and yeah enjoy this episode