David Droga on fearless creativity, founding Droga5 and becoming CEO of Accenture Song

28:15Like what's the story? What's the idea? And then what can, is it going to be TV? Is it going to be print? Is it going to be radio? Is it going to be online? Is it going to be what? But no one talks about context. And at the same time, the context was 24 hour media, um, news media had just sort of started. the CNNs have become this thing and there's a gluttony of all this news. And I just thought they didn't have a big media budget. I thought, why don't we create something? What would be the ultimate heavenly site for his brand? I thought, well, Air Force One. Like imagine we did a video that looked like someone broke in Andrew's Air Force.

28:50Originally I thought, oh, the White House. And I thought, no, the White House is too familiar. Yeah. And that wouldn't be believable. but everyone's so familiar with the air force one, but we don't really know enough around it and what security and all that sort of stuff. And we thought, and I'll never forget this to this day. So I wrote this and this is before I had an office. I was at my kitchen table. I wrote this seven page script about these kids. We're going to film it on like a handy cam and all that break into Andrews air force base scale fences across the golf course, get in and write still free on the engine.

29:20And we were just going to send it out on news media things and sort of like a gorilla video. and this is why people say we invented viral advertising yeah yeah but i remember reading the scripts to echo in his office and i read the whole thing and he's you know his eyes like and i'm thinking oh my god he's gonna laugh me out of the room or just say i'm bonkers this is fucking crazy and he's he's nodding he's nodding and i finished the script and his first thing and i've never heard a client be this he goes wow he goes can one of them die i was like what he goes Can one of them get shot? I'm like, well, no.

29:53I said, because then it would be about a murder thing. It wouldn't be about this believable thing. But I was like, wow, he's making me feel conservative. But he agreed to do it. I had to rent a 747 anonymously because we couldn't, we were trying to do something. We'd keep it secret, paint half the plane, do all this sort of stuff. We had to research what we'd do because we wanted the news to pick it up and we had to make it believable enough so that they did any scrutiny, which would be half our scrutiny because the news wanted it to be real no matter what, because it serves them, right? We'd have to go over a golf course, how many fences you'd have to cut.

30:28And the video would be too long because graffiti people wouldn't know about editing techniques. So it was like a seven minute film. And we just leaked it out on graffiti sites, on skateboarding sites and sort of things like that. And it just boomed right from the get go. I mean, I remember people sending it to me, friends. Oh, not knowing you'd done it. Not knowing I'd done it. Going, holy shit, have you seen this? This is crazy. You know, shit's going to go down. And honestly, I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. And thinking, and you know, I had a lawyer say to me, Echo's lawyer, I didn't have lawyers at this stage.

31:05It was like, you know, you could be breaking the Patriot Act here. It was like, what's the Patriot Act? Well, I was looking at thinking, surely someone gets arrested in this. Well, no, exactly. But the thing was, and then it took up, but it sort of came out and then he got all the news and it just spiked. But the thing, the reason I was telling you that story was not about that story was to say, that's what everyone thinks was the first thing we did at Drography. Well, it was the first thing we made. But it wasn't the first idea we presented to a client because the day I was leaving my previous job, General Electric, the GE client asked me, literally, it's like the, that movie where you walk out with a box of, you know, you're packing up and you're going and you're saying goodbye to everyone and thanking everyone.

31:43And the GE client runs out of his meeting room. He goes, David, David, David. He goes, you know, we're going to miss you, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I just want to ask you, can I be your first client? I'm like, yes, you can. Thank you. Which is pretty unbelievable. That's what everyone wants, right? If you can't make that up, you can't make that up. Brilliant. So their brief to us was, well, you know, we want you to do, because this was in 2006, but they knew that the Beijing Olympics were coming up in 2008. Yeah. And they said, you know, do you want to do the campaign for the Beijing Olympics?

32:12And I'm like, absolutely. Absolutely. Same thing though, but I'm thinking, okay, still happens today. Majority of people who sponsor Olympics go the paint by numbers, generic bullshit. They go show athletes, say how proud we are of you, go team, go this, dah, dah, dah, dah, And they know they spent a fortune to do it. Billboards everywhere, television commercials, all that sort of stuff. And I thought, look, again, why would G spend 80 million, I don't remember the number, but let's say$80 million doing this when they're just going to be same posters as McDonald's and Coke and all that sort of stuff.

32:49And I said, the difference between them and the others is they're actually a company of ideas and innovations and patents. I thought combining my interest in other things more than, you know, and again, the beauty of not having a business plan and just being a creative, I thought. and it's manifested in who I am always. I've never been held back by the realities of, can we do something or has it been done before? Or what I always get to like, if I feel like it's the right thing to do, then we'll find a way to do it as opposed to, can it be done? And I just remember thinking, okay, they spend so much money doing this sort of disposable stuff.

33:24What about we took their technology and built a building in the center of Beijing out of all their technology. so when everyone else has a two-month campaign then they pack up the tents and go we build a building in the center of beijing that uses their technology make it solar power that purifies the main river in beijing wow so it's like a event center that's a gift to the city so it's like you leave a gift for the city and it's a living product demonstration and again i'm thinking oh they're going to laugh me out of the room but also at the same time this is where again i'm at this stage, you know, there's three of us now in the company and, uh, Duncan and, um, before and Sally Ann and Mindy.

34:07And I'm thinking, I don't have enough credibility to do this, but also a great idea. We can attract any partner. So I literally pick up the phone and call a guy called Bill McDonough, who's, um, uh, sustainability expert. He wrote a book called, uh, I think it's called cradle to the grave. I think it's called that. And he's an expert. I tell him, you know, can we, uh, collaborate together or will you collaborate you know he's like yeah we should talk to it at the same time also think i need an architect so i again cold call philip stark who did he yeah he's like sure i'll do this doesn't know who i am um telling the idea next thing i find myself on a plane well on a on a plane with philip stark to to beijing present this idea saying basically and what I say to the client is do not do any advertising.

34:58We're just going to build a building. Use that$80 million to build a building. The product demonstration will be on all the news channels. You'll do it. And then it'll actually be it for the next hundred years. They'll have this building. It's a G thing and it becomes an event center when you pack up there. Now like, yeah, let's do it. I was like, what? Again, I was so excited about it thinking, oh my God, this is, I'm just open the aperture of what advertising could be. I had no idea, again, context, how much, because the client's like, how much do we pay you? first client. I was like, Oh, I don't even know.

35:27And I remember at the time, there's memories that are etched in your brain, right? I just moved into my new apartment in the East Village. We just had our second child. We didn't have internet because we were just moved in. I go to an internet cafe in the East Village. You know, one you're putting like dollar things in and I'm writing an email to the GE client and I'm just guessing what I should ask them to pay. I'm like, I can't remember the number, but I remember thinking, thinking, okay, does that sound too much or does that sound too little? Whatever it was, I, you know, did a thing that sort of pushed the boundaries a little bit, which again, hilariously was way under.

36:04Way under. Way under. Way under. Because I'd never been in charge of, I had never been in charge of P &L before. Right. And I was thinking, wow, that's such a big number. And how'd you put a price on an idea? You know, right? Exactly the same thing. And I wasn't thinking, how much money can I make from this? I was thinking my first place has always been, oh my God, we have to make this idea because it's such the right idea. That's all I was thinking. And then, and then, then after I was like, well, you know, I need to have make money so I can pay the people and do that. But I wasn't thinking, God, I will extract every cent out of this client.

36:32And then the idea, if it's sell, it doesn't matter if it's good. And I was like, all I could, I always see the idea and I hope for what we can make and the ramifications of that. And, you know, I didn't pay myself for the first two years by choice. A, I was fortunate because I'd done well before then. So I didn't have to and b i made the choice of i'd rather have higher great people and yeah so that was the first idea now it ended up being killed by the beijing olympic committee oh no not ge actually because obviously they have a heavy hand in what gets built in china and yeah and they didn't want anything that sort of distracted from all their stuff so i was very heartbroken that didn't happen but it again taught me the lessons which i tried to stick to the whole way through which is if it hasn't been done before it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it yeah understand your audience product demonstrations if it brings alive your what's right for your client you should definitely do it yeah does it serve them a great idea can attract any partners and i think of throughout my history you know some of the things we did at droga five super bowls and collaborations and musical artists and actors and have joined and done things next to you know even the thing we We did the Super Bowl, which had for Game of Thrones, where we killed the Bud Knight.

37:48You know, we ended up killing Bud. It wasn't even our client. It was Wyden's client. I convinced the Bud client to let, because I was doing it on behalf of Game of Thrones for HBO, to kill their mascot. You know, like I think if you have a great idea, people want to participate. They do, yeah. So that's why I've always said the same thing. I use that as an example of if you believe it's the right thing to do. So we went from something as worthy as G, but then the first thing that came out was... It was Air Force One graffiti. Air Force One graffiti. I mean, I worked at London Olympics. I was working on Pepsi.

38:20And the amount that you can't do in Olympics, because the Olympic Committee sends you this ridiculously big document about you can't be within this perimeter area, and you can't refer to it, you can't talk about sport. It's just insane. I remember it's a British example, but I think it came across the Paddy Power, where in London 2012, they found, they discovered that there was a London in France, right? And so they sponsored like a local team in France in this place called London. That's funny. Proud sponsor of the games in London. And then in the brackets at the bottom, it's like, you know. Well, that's the beauty.

38:54Exactly. I love that. Look, that's, again, we go back to the power of creativity. It sort of does take you to places and opportunities that, and if it's the right thing, as I said, if it's not just created for the sake of it, you've got to understand the audience, going back to context always, right? Because there's a cheekiness to that. And so much of the stuff is, you know, I don't always try and be cheap. There's a lot of my favorite things are very worthy because I'm also very motivated and driven by societal impact and doing the right thing and harlaying our talents into that. You know, so there was, but the first three things we did for Dragify sort of set the course in motion to people that were not just to hopefully to the industry, a little bit of who we were, but to the people who started to join that we weren't aspiring to be, have a house style or we weren't going to be the, didn't want to be the viral agency or the youth agency or the societal good.

39:42I just wanted to say we wanted to be the, trying to be the smartest, most influential agency. Because the thing after that, and I won't go through the history, but the three, first three things was after that, because of Echo, David Granger, who was the editor in chief of Esquire magazine, called me up and he said, you know, I'm going to put you in our best and brightest edition, you know, and I was like, oh, this is amazing. You know, the agency's a year old. I'm going to be, you know, this is fantastic. But to his credit, I like that. He was like, but I'm, before I write the article, you know, because you're talking about, you know, you want to do these things.

40:19I want you to prove it to me. Not prove, we can say it like that. He said, I want to give you a one page, blank page in the edition to do what you want with. And part of me was like, go on, everyone else gets in there. I have this thing for my supper. But immediately I sort of part of that thinking, well, that's very generous. I'm going to give me an opportunity. And I was thinking, well, what I don't want to do is do that for one of my, you know, I'm not going to do that for GE or Echo or sort of another client. We started winning Steinlager beers and all that sort of stuff. I thought, okay, I'm going to, this is going back to my childhood, my mother, environmentalist, activist, all that sort of stuff.

40:54I thought, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to pick a, pick something, a charity, I believe in. I'm going to do something for a charity that I believe in. and unicef had been sniffing around the the agency and i thought actually i'm gonna do it for unicef right sort of the whole what they do for children and then i sort of again spent a lot of time with them and i really about the water discrepancy stuff so i just decided i remember sitting you know in a coffee shop thinking about what am i going to do in this thing and as i'm writing in my pad i remember that the waitress came and she put a glass of water you know in front of me free tap water.

41:31I thought, isn't it amazing that we sit here in New York and we get tap water for free and 5 ,000 kids die every day around the world, no access to water. I thought, wouldn't it be amazing to actually start a program? And if you branded tap water in New York city and we created the tap project and we get people in restaurants all over the city to participate where they're offered, they don't have to, they can contribute some money for the free tap water they get. and again so i present to the unison i said look let's create a there's a there's a brand that already exists we don't have to package it there's no packaging there's no design all i have to do is do a logo and so we've created the tap project for them and i presented to great and they were like that's a great idea and i presented to granger and he was like that's a great i'm going to give you three pages so we i got did some ads and did so and then you know uh another uh Andrew Essex, who had joined us from Details Magazine.

42:29He had so many connections into New York City, so we had restaurants all over the country, all over the city, said they'd participate in everything. And it ended up running for 10 years, this program, raised$14 million. Oh, that's insane. That's brilliant. What a good idea. But the thing, again, so the diversity of those three ideas was so different, but they all started with an insight, creative ambition. Yeah. Now, I'm not saying everything has to be different or start a new program or do that, but it's just you give yourself permission to do what you think is the right thing. And I've always tried to do that.

43:04And I think that became the sort of the contagious mantra in Droga 5, which is, you know, if the right thing to do is to be conservative and be traditional, then do that and do it better than anybody. But if the right thing is to do... What I love about all those, they all had quite a strong element of constraint about them in terms of, you know, things you weren't allowed to do, whether it's like the Olympics or something like that. And one of my favourite Super Bowl ads of yours is not a Super Bowl ad, it's Newcastle Brown Ale, which is like a brilliant example of like, you know, a bit like the London Olympics, isn't it?

43:35You know, here's what you can't do. Well, that's a funny one too, because I think, again, isn't the best creativity, it's sort of pushing up against something else. Yeah. Yeah. Because the best comedians or the best artists or reflections, you know, most artists or writers or theater or it's, they're the forward scouts in society. Sometimes they can bring out themes and conversations and provoke things that people can't really talk about. And I think again, creativity is, it's not all just meant to be just easy and free and, you know, bubble gum. I think creativity, the reason you like things that are creative is because they do have these layering to them and they do make you think and they make you enjoy the irreverence or the beauty or the emotion of something.

44:17And so I've always, again, this is like a therapy session because I'm starting to put a theme of why I'm doing stuff. It goes back to why I took a job in Singapore. You know, like I like to prove things, restraints, or where people think you can't do something. So Newcastle, a great one, because again, great beer, Newcastle Brown Ale. I remember the tagline, it's still no bollocks. Which is, again, because also I looked at the beer advertising in America primarily. There's obviously been some exceptions. And I was like, God, it's the same bullshit, right? And particularly in the Super Bowl, because that was our first Super Bowl ad.

44:51Well, non-Super Bowl ad, but. And I thought every, they just have unlimited budgets and they follow the same formula, which is, you know, massive celebrities and ideas that don't even make sense. And some of them have been great, but majority are ridiculous, but not necessarily great. I said, well, why don't we work on the, let's be honest and have fun with the fact that we can't afford an ad and just talk about how we can't afford an ad and make storyboards and we you know we got um uh you know that well kendrick wasn't it and a kendrick and all that so we just did this whole thing about that which is ironic because and again same thing it just took off because i think everybody found that refreshing as well the honesty of saying yeah we we don't have the money to participate in this this this arena we made it funny enough so it wasn't just it wasn't just the premise was funny we actually made the content funny so it wasn't just like oh I admire your chutzpah, you did something cheeky.

45:44It was, it was funnier than anything else. And we did, we did research groups, getting people's opinions of stuff, you know, party sharks and battle apes and girls in bikinis. And we put all the cliches in there that would be bad enough. And obviously Anna Kennedy did the sort of the interview circuit because it was great for her as well. That's what I'm saying. Like mutually beneficial. A lot of people want to do something mutually beneficial for her because she was an up and coming actress at the time. And her being sort of like playing the I'm annoyed. I thought I was in a Super Bowl ad. So it just took off.

46:13It's very well done. And again, it's funny because it was voted best Super Bowl ad and it wasn't in the Super Bowl. The irony is now you couldn't do that now because with Gen AI, we could have made it. Yes, true. Well, the funny thing actually, because the system when we test all the Super Bowl ads, it's a really fun part of my job. So every year we go, let's see what the audience think, right? you're the owner of the best almost the best i think second or third best of all time ever tested over many years yeah and the worst yes that's true that's true so we'll start with the best okay what was the best the best is huggies yes and i love it because every year i get to host a super bowl kind of like we have a super bowl party it's a webinar we in fact you know we even get some media interest now i was down doing abc this year anyway so it's all good but It's got a life of its own.

47:03It's really good fun. The team are up all night. We're assessing all the ads. What do the public think? What do the public feel, actually? We don't measure what they think, but how they feel. And the Huggies ad, I think, was the most surprising winner in that I don't think anyone had it on their list of brands. Because you've got Bud Light and Microsoft will do something and BMW will turn up. These days, Hyundai will have a new thing. But this was totally surprising and really clever in the way that you had kids, well, babies being born on the Super Bowl featuring a Super Bowl ad, which is just mind-blowing.

47:35Well, it was part of a much bigger campaign. I love that campaign because it's an ongoing campaign. It wasn't a one-off. It was under the premise, we've got your baby. And we just wanted to show life from a baby's point of view, but also from the parent's point of view, and know that it's chaos, but it's fun, it's loving, and all that sort of stuff. But we thought for the Super Bowl, to make a statement like that, there are hundreds or thousands of babies, I can't remember the exact number, born every day. And so we literally, knowing that the game was going to start at 6.30, we had to deploy teams all over the country.

48:06So we had to make it to, you know, get people's permission. If their baby was born, they'd have to give, you know, give us the rights and take a photo of them and sign this thing, that they were going to be in a Super Bowl commercial that night. That's just insane. And just showed all the babies. And we also did it in a cheeky, irreverent way. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I think there's a, there's a tone of voice in there and there's a respect and a beauty. And it's a celebration. Yeah. Like, honestly, you sit, you know, we're all sitting watching this, football game and there's all these, you know, major productions, but you're thinking this kid here and this kid here and this kid, they would have literally entered the universe today.

48:39You know what I mean? And I just, so I, again, same thing. I just love things. And I'm also a very emotional person. Do you know what I mean? So that was voted best. What was the voted worst? Okay. I think you might be able to guess this one, but, but a bouncing QR code, right? So it's like that's, well, that's, do you know, that might be the most successful successful super bowl out of all time and that's funny because that that ad actually in the same year was voted best out of the year and worse and worse and it makes sense because same thing you're a cryptocurrency yeah you just want people to who are sort of more future-facing and progressive you know you want them to be interested but you're not we're not for the masses so we just decided let's do a qr code that literally just bounces around the screen for 60 seconds which is outrageously audacious because it's yeah and we had it actually bounce like the with a soundtrack you know like you know the old i feel like there's very old games you know the old dvd logos yeah yeah it was meant to look like that change color when it hits the thing 20 this is not an exaggeration 20 million people took out their phones and took a photo of it and And when you took a photo of it, you went direct access to Coinbase's site.

49:56And then people could sign up. And I think they had like a million people sign up. But it was the most successful hour. So many people that their whole site crashed for about a few minutes. But they still kept... So as far as capturing people's information, who signed up, who wanted to participate. But again, so for the 20 million people, this was like the best thing ever. And there was the amount of cultish videos that had people watching it and sort of cheering, hoping because there's that whole underbelly thing of wanting to hit the corner versus the other 80 million people who are thinking hang on someone crashed where's where's Peyton Manning yeah yeah where's you know Kid Rock yeah where's explosions and cars and flames you know we weren't aiming for them I totally it was so surprising but again so the key was also I think is you don't have to be for everyone yeah you just have to be for who you're meant to you're talking to totally totally and again so the strategy was not afraid to be different it wasn't and again it wasn't different for the sake of it it was actually now what's bizarre is at the time everyone's like this is insane everything has a qr code in it now yeah it does doesn't it everyone yeah billboards but at the time it was like what you know there's no logo there's no explanation yeah there's no nothing we're like give give some people some credit and also we know that every single person watching has their phone on them yep and a certain percentage of people at least those that would be interested in crypto understand the premise of a qr code and they were also going to be like what is this for what am i missing out what am i missing out on that was good yeah so again that's why the chat online was amazing no no it was actually amazing again same sort of thing it's where i don't know you know again it wasn't trying to be different it's trying to be right for the audience you want to get to yeah i don't care about the the people who want to see kid rock and peyton manning yeah jello wrestling with a track and an eagle flying over their head that's there's commercials for them yeah this wasn't that one but it's look that's the i think is if a starting point is what's right for our audience you know and you've got you've just decided two very different ones from huggies to that yeah so i do take immense pride in the both ends of the spectrum it's the shit in the middle that's just invisible and forgettable that is that's where I'm like I feel bad for everyone who's participated in that and everyone who's paid for that just try and do the right thing by your clients actually that's a good point on clients what would your advice be to because a lot of CMOs listen into this what are the best not saying name names but like what are the characteristics and the best CMOs you've worked with?

52:28I've been lucky to work with a couple of brilliant ones and one or two have actually become great friends and for me great CMO isn't because they bought everything that we did or they made it easy or I could talk into anything. You know, a lot of them pushed us, you know, we're very transparent about expectations. I always say, you know, the most intimidating thing any client can do is to trust you. Cause if they trust you, it puts the owner. So you take out the alibis. You know, when, when a CMO is sitting on the other table and they don't give you much leeway and they don't trust you immediately, I imagine people start building up alibis like, well, this is going to be shit anyway because they don't want it to be but when someone tries no you have to earn trust as well it's not can't be blind but i think they're very clear about expectations they know that it's you're in it together so you're both accountable success and failures yeah they push you and same thing by the way it's really important and i say this to everyone who's ever worked for me creatives and all that such you we have to be respectful and understand how hard it is to be on the other side of the table.

53:32Yeah. Like to actually approve things, there's so much at stake and sometimes it's subjective. And that puts a lot of, that's why most things are mediocre because it's just easier to agree with mediocre. Easier to get alignment. Yeah. Because you're not doing anything distinctive. Yeah. And, you know, sometimes people are worried. Yeah. But it's, the more we, I or we make the person on the other side of the table understand that we understand their business, not just the business machinations, but the sort of business problem we're trying to solve and the audience. And I was very lucky also that, you know, Drogify is very celebrated for its creative, but I always said, you know, every client walked in the door for our creative, but they hired us because of our strategy and they stayed with us because of our account service and our production.

54:22Right, that makes sense. Because there was an alchemy between all those different groups and having great strategists. Yeah. You know, because clients really want you to understand them and know that. Now, that's not saying all strategists are great because strategy is dangerous, right? Majority of strategy is bullshit, but when it's done well, it's like the most - Oh, it cuts through, doesn't it? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Totally. It's interesting what you're saying about trust, actually. I think probably the - I did a major, major pitch earlier in my career to set up a new business. And I remember the point, I'd done all the selling and the CEO just looked at me and said, I have absolutely no doubt this will be a massive success and that's the I was shitting myself at that point because like you say you come with the excuses and whatever no but as I said it's quite liberate you know I've been so lucky to work with a lot of great CMOs who've you know been partners yeah with us on a lot of things you know when I think about the I mean Puma back in the day Under Armour Huggies Meta New York Times yeah you know there's some people who bought a lot of great work chase you know there's just i don't know it's it but it's never easy do you know i mean so as i said some of the people i respect the most in fact there's one that was um cmo for us i can't mention the client name that droga five was one of my favorite cmos he's just taken a new job and he's hired song for something one of my favorite humans but also just uh really tough but tough you know you know not tough because he treats you badly or tough because these expectations are high and you know and there's a lot at stake yeah and again going back to therapy we're in therapy now i like when this thing's at stake as well because you want to step i as a person want to step up and solve and and do that so when there's stuff at stake that's why i never really wanted to just do a an easy category or year seven of a someone else's campaign you I mean, I'm always like, can we take a campaign or a category that's hard and make it interesting and relevant?

56:26Yeah. Well, maybe to finish up on them, we should just talk about being uncomfortable and putting yourself in new situations, being CEO. Right. Like, oh, I loved how you put it the other day. You said pretending to be a CMO, which is like, CEO rather, which is like, I feel that all the time. But what's that been like? And yeah, how has it? It's not so much of a title. It's more the scale and dimension of this play. because obviously, you know, when we made the deal with Accenture, and I really believe in the power of these companies coming together because, you know, the sort of the creative and strategic firepower of Driver 5, but at the end of the day, you know, Accenture is an enormous, enormous influential company.

57:06It sort of touches every industry and it's a technology company, it's an implementation company. And now to be relevant, you have to have both, right? They have to be, you know, embedded in each other. so but when i did the deal i wasn't thinking you know to be honest as part of me thinking it was the best thing to do for droga five and it was a great thing to sort of expand our industry and protect our industry and protect the company to be you know part of part of this ecosystem i had no plans to be in this role in fact i probably thought i was going to retire in a few years and you know because i've within advertising context you know i've achieved everything i wanted to achieve as a creative not everything to be achieved i achieved everything i wanted to achieve you know i built a company that i was proud of the work i was proud of the culture we contributed to society we had you know i've been a lot consistent in my career for 25 30 years you know i look back with immense pride and as i said before about repetition so i didn't so then when they asked me to do the role i tried to talk them out of it saying, you know, that's a bit, you don't know what you're talking about because, you know, I'm, I'm not a logical thinker.

58:15I'm a sort of, you know, sporadic and outrageous and I'm impatient and I'm, you know, daydreamer and all the things that I'm, but, but, you know, I say that and being a little glib because also I'd still know that I'm a business guy, you know, I built a billion dollar agency and I understand business, but I didn't want to get caught up in the operations. I didn't want it to suddenly turn into a, uh, uh, uh, you know, a desk jockey type of thing. But then it struck me, I was thinking, okay, you know, the momentum of this place is so immense and it is just, you know, really expanding this industry and, you know, it's in some levels taking it over lots of industries.

58:52It's not just an advertising thing. It's far bigger than that, actually. You know, it's sort of, it's level of influence in commerce and service and digital products and you know all and we're taking so actually a creative person has to be in the head of that right otherwise what i value the most will be lost it will yeah so i thought okay i'm gonna try it and again going back to the like oh my god someone's gonna try it this could this is gonna be immensely i've got it look it is ridiculous job in the sense that it is the learning curve is immense you know 90 of my conversations in the beginning was like you know what are we talking about?

59:31Not, not the principle of serving clients and solving problems and all that's the stuff I love. But at Droga 5, 90 % of my conversations were literally about the work, protecting the work, selling the work, pushing the work, getting out of the way of the, you know, I mean, this is 90 % of my time is, is actually running the business and building the business. Cause you know, we're, we're almost doubled in size in three years. You know, we're bigger than any of the whole codes now we've sort of even then that's only one part we connect compete against so my primary focus was okay i'm going to prove that i can do this i don't know if i'm trying to prove to who but also i believe that it's an it's a necessary thing because if you put creative in the center of it and creative needs to be in more boardrooms because i believe in the power of what it can do i really really believe that and as i said i'm not even just talking and i'm also for me this is more than the sort of the the storytelling narrative side of which i came from i mean that only represents a quarter of what song is you know i mean we're anything to do with customer we are you know we're probably the largest customer growth group in the world now you know inside the conversations we have and i've sort of changed you know changing the name was easy, changed the entire operating model, changed the probably 70, 80, 90 % of my leadership I changed, managed to hire some amazing people.

1:00:55I also inherited some great people, by the way. So it's not all about just new. And some of the new people I brought in were also from broader Accenture. So it's not just, but you look at some of the caliber that have joined from the UK, you know, you have Annette King, you have, you know, Kristen Kelly, you have James Temple from, um, uh, Magic Leap. you know we've got some really really really good people and then you know nick law over here sean lyons you know i've sort of then we started buying i'm trying to buy companies that i think are going to expand the aperture of what we how we can serve our client it's such a different role for me so part of me feels like what the hell am i doing and i said this to someone else recently i was like it's it is funny and i'm sort of saying this tongue-in-cheek but there's some truth in this, you know, in the beginning, a third of my conversations, I had no idea what I was talking about.

1:01:43And another third, I was annoyed we were talking about it. And the last third, I was blown away and inspired we were talking about it. So I'm just trying to work out what the first third is and what that goes in and get rid of the second. But it's, it was good to be, it's, it's good to be intimidated and learning again, because as I said, I sit in meetings now at the forefront of what's going on influencing society of technology point of view you know before i talked about decision making of you know from australia to singapore to london to new york and that was more in the context of brands and marketing and advertising you know we're sort of thrust in the decisions of people who are making and creating technology that's going to shape and change the world and if we can influence that and participate in that as well on behalf of our clients then how amazing is that as well that's really cool i love that actually because i think more creativity needs to be at the boardroom where decisions get made and where the future well if it's not because it's also one of the great um superpowers if you're if you're a company yeah totally you know it doesn't cost you more to do great things or to put creativity and lateral thinking and innovation and new into your into your product and into your service i mean that's yeah and it's probably more necessary now than ever because things are moving at pace you know we talked about before about oh the pace of someone's career right it moved at this linear linear sort of measurable thing.

1:03:02Like now the pace of change is so insane, actually, and immense in it. And with that comes, you know, the terror of that, but also comes opportunity. Sometimes the only way you can keep up with that is to be creative and to think about things in a non-linear way. And again, I'm always aware that when I talk about that, people think that I'm talking about creativity not being responsible or it's an irresponsible act of just, you know, not at all. I actually think it's irresponsible not to be creative. You know what I mean? It's irresponsible to be formulaic and lazy and predictable. 100%. I think that's the perfect point to end, David.

1:03:39I think that's just perfect. I don't know. Thank you for letting me ramble. No, it's been amazing. Thank you. I mean, so much more we could touch on, but just listening to your story has just been inspiring. And I'm excited for the next thing as well. No, well, look, I don't know how the hell I got here. It will be creative. Look, I don't know. But for as long as I'm doing stuff, as long as I'm participating and contributing, and I don't have to be on the 67th floor of a$20 billion company, I'm happy to do it back at my dining room table as long as it actually has an impact in something. Cheers to that.

1:04:17Thank you. David, thank you. Thank you very much for listening or watching Uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show. So please do leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to contact me, you can do. I'm over on x at Uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name, John Evans. Thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.