On the Creative Moment podcast this week I'm talking to Mark Runacus MBE.

Mark is the co-founder of creative agency Wax/On and the joint chief executive of Outvertising, which is a volunteer-run UK-based network of LGBTQ+ people working in the creative industries.

Mark talks about role models past and present, discrimination in the workplace and his history at Karmarama.

Here’s what I asked Mark:

One of the key elements of your work with Outvertising is to try and create role models for the LGBTQ+ community and one of the ways that you are trying to do this is to increase the diversity of people appearing in adverts. Just talk me through why role models in this context are so important?

So when was the first advert that featured a gay man?

It's got to the slightly embarrassing stage where there tends to be a token non-white person in lots of adverts, hasn't it? We really should be a bit beyond that now.

When we spoke before you quoted some research that said that half of 18 to 24 year-olds don't identify as 100% straight. Society is changing rapidly, isn't it?

That has some big implications for the creative marketing sector, doesn't it?

What role do you think advertising needs to play in that societal change?

Talk to me about Outvertising's mentor scheme and how people can get involved with it?

What are the stats on LGBTQ+ people experiencing discrimination in the workplace?

Moving on from that to your time at Karmarama, you were chief strategy officer there when it was bought by Accenture. What was your experience of working as a creative person for a management consultancy business?

When we chatted before you said that "creatives forgot about the importance of the channel about 25 years ago", what did you mean by that?

Why is it that you've decided to focus primarily on scale-up businesses at Wax On?

Jon talks us through how The Liberty Guild works in contrast to the traditional agency model.

He explains that it is built around talent; an association of craftspeople working towards a mutual goal. No buildings - it’s simply and easily scalable delivering a global alternative to the standard agency model.

Jon explains how and why they charge a flat fee for a product, the result of that product being an idea. Jon believes that charging by the hour is not the right way to go, he charges for an idea.

How long does it take to make an idea? You can’t answer that! Clients are now wise to agencies loading hours and people into jobs. 

The cost to create the idea is the same, regardless of the client - however big or small. 

The Guild doesn’t work on tiers in terms of the service you get - it will always be the best as the Guild works with world-class talent. They get paid well, work faster and the client pays a fair price.

Jon talks through the different products the Guild offers. 

The Liberty Guild can be whatever shape the client wants them to be - ideas only or ideas and activation.It is different every time for each client depending on where they are at with their brand and what they need but they are flexible.

Jon discusses the longevity of ideas which has been discussed for a long time within the creative industry. Who owns ideas?

Jon feels it is pointless for the client to own the ideas. The Guild works by holding the IP for ideas until the client buys an idea. The other ideas remain the property of the person who created them. 

Jon explains why a model akin to music licensing might be the way to go when it comes to ownership of ideas. He is scaling the business so this is something he is looking at but not top of the list right now!

Jon talks over how the creative process has worked as a virtual model. The Liberty Guild is currently 100% virtual. He says that those moments of spontaneity are not real. They don’t happen in a corridor or over a cup of tea. He says it comes from hard work; blood, sweat and tears. He feels that to work on your own terms in your own environment breeds success. 

Jon has looked at the science of creative excellence. He’s studied the successful working practices of companies like Klarna and Spotify and other technical giants and has worked out this is the best, most effective, most successful way of working; how to get the most out of people.

Jon explains how the Guild works and how it is designed to deliver optimal performance. It isn’t a big team. It’s about multiple small teams. The wonder of a spontaneous creative environment is a myth. 

Despite The Guild being 100% virtual, Jon is sold on the need for an environment. He takes Salesforce as an example who have walked out of their huge offices and how this represents a fundamental shift in how we work. We need human contact but we don’t need 20 floors of desks.

Jon talks over where it goes from here? But doesn’t believe this will mean a brain drain. The broadband infrastructure means we can work to exercise our minds from anywhere in the world. 

Jon talks over the meaning behind freelance. He gives a history lesson on where the term came from!

It is a brilliant way to be and how to work on your terms that creates your best work. The Liberty Guild is about freedom and how it is a better way to work for the creative industry and clients too.

This week, our guest on the 'Creative Legends' podcast is Mike Mathieson, CEO and founder of brand entertainment agency Cake.

Building Cake into a legendary and award-winning creative agency.

Mike started out working with bands as a record plugger and expanding into PR for music festivals where I met brands and realised it was a better outlet for creativity and the bottom line. Along with Mark Whelan and Ben Jones he founded Cake and Brand Entertainment was born. Joined by Adrian Pettett he built the agency working with global brands in PR, Experiential, Social Media and content creation.

In 2008 Cake was acquired by Havas and in 2009 a second Cake office was launched in New York. The business continued to build and in 2012 was heavily involved in high-profile campaigns for Coca-Cola, British Airways, and Eurostar at the London Olympics. 

Mike and Graham talk about:

3.05 Mike's beginning in the music industry as a plugger and the story behind his first-ever business call.

5.11 Mike talks about his move to Virgin Records and what he learned working with Janet Jackson, Soul2Soul, Cutting Crew and Paula Abdul.

6.01 How Mike took an unconventional path to working in PR and the creative tactics getting the bands noticed.

7.30 Mike recounts stories of stunts that worked including the Power of Love and a vibrator.

8.26 How Richard Branson was the master of the stunts including abseiling down a newly opening store 

9.38 Where the name Cake came from

10.20 When Mike left Virgin and started FFI - For Further Information and its alternative name known to pluggers

11.20 When Mike decided to start out on his own

12.27 How Mike started working on music festivals and learning about the process, sponsors and the importance of the brands

13.27 Mike's eureka moment!

14.02 Met Mark Whelan and Ben Jones and was working with Jim Dowling, and decided to set up Cake in 1999 all about youth culture and marketing

15.37 Brand entertainment was born! The more entertaining the sale of a product, the more successful it would be.

16.07 Mike talks about 'creativity rooted in truth', translating to the notion of 'transparency' today

17.20 Mike talks about Orange and it's creative. GLASTONBURY / TENT / LOST.

Show highlights:

How after joining GREY in May this year, Laura arrived mid-lockdown and so has only recently started to meet her new team!

Laura talks about how COVID has forced us all to change our habits - for example, in some ways we know our colleagues on a more personal level having had a Zoom view into their home lives!

How the quiet and solitude of working from home can aid creative thinking for some.

How the lockdown has seen the disappearance of stereotypes. Stories told in advertising over and over previously are no longer true. The emphasis is now on something different.

How some of the changes we've experienced during the lockdown will remain permanent but others will not.

Why advertising is more important: it can take complicated messages and make them simple.

Why creativity can help get the economy moving again.

Laura talks about some of the recent work that she has enjoyed and why, including LVMH and Uncommon's candles with the Earl of East.

The balance of creating purposeful work but making sure people are still entertained.

How agility and speed have been important during the lockdown period.

How Laura has lead a new team without meeting them face to face.  

How junior creatives are managing in this period, and how it may affect their long term careers. 

Laura talks about the changes she has made since she arrived, and how she has tried to instill confidence in change into the team.

How the borderless way of working at GREY is a good way to work.

Laura talks about the Ready for Business project (an online personalised mentoring programme) that she is involved with.
 

Nick and Nadja diplomatically answer which campaign is their favourite; Guinness Clear or #wombstories!

They give us the inside track on #wombstories, where it all stems from and the key themes and concepts they address in the creative work.

Nadja outlines the presentation of sanitary products historically, and how #wombstories aimed to up-end that single narrative showing its complexity.

Nick speaks about the ambition of the project trying to convey the range of emotion that is explored.

They both explain how using animation gave them license to anthropomorphise the womb, allowing the viewer even more access to the truth that you can't show in real life.

Nadja talks about the complexity that is at the heart of the art direction, and how it was important to illustrate the pain and love behind the experience. It's about empathising and conceptualising the experience - the debilitating feeling that is behind it.

Nick and Nadja talk us through Guinness Clear and how, in the end, it is the story of the emperor's new clothes, their aim to re-position memory structures, and using humour to embed it in people's minds.

We talk about how each project begins with a business problem to solve.

Unlearning the way we think about particular subjects is what they have done with their acclaimed blood normal campaign.

We get an insight into their personal stories, where they began, and how long they've worked together. They talk about their craft, their passions, and how they go about their work as a partnership. Nick talks about how growing up in South Africa gave him a resilience and the ability to adapt; how living through such change has helped shaped him and makes them good at what they do.

Finally, we end on what Nick and Nadja hope their legacy to be.

On the latest of our Creativity Matters series of podcasts, I’m talking to Malcolm Poynton, global chief creative officer, chair global creative board at Cheil Worldwide.

Malcolm discusses what he sees at the biggest challenges for the creative sector coming out of the lockdown.

Here’s a flavour of what Malcolm and I discuss:

1.30 mins Malcolm describes 2020 as the “toughest year” ever for the creative sector.

2.18 mins Malcolm compares the global impact of COVID-19 on advertising spend.

2.50 mins “Marketing budget gets cut first… this is the deepest recession in our lifetime, so it's “tough” (for our industry) says Malcolm.

3.50 mins “Cheil is the only global network that was built this century,” claims Malcolm.

5.20 mins How some agency models are better structured for the challenges of the pandemic than others.

5.50 mins The central, unavoidable, and inconvenient truth that client budgets have been cut and no-one knows when they will come back.

6.15 mins Is this a blip or will we see a re-structure of the creative sector?

7.10 mins  How the last few years have seen an overly conservative business climate. Agencies have become reliant on a lazy media approach and marketers have concentrated their efforts on making things digitally efficient, rather than creative. 

8 mins Why the consumer mindset is ahead of most brand communications and actions, and why that has changed the role of modern agencies.

10 mins Why did the UK creative sector become addicted to recruiting white, middle-class graduates?

14.20 mins How much real innovation have we seen in the creative sector in the last 5 years?

15.40 mins Why the creative sector needs to develop a better hacker mentality.

17.50 mins How the contract between consumers and media owners has changed and what that means for brands and communicators?

20.20 mins How social media firms have had to change their business to a media model. 

21.25 mins Why gaming platforms are becoming more significant communication platforms than social media platforms

22.22 mins Why communicators need a lot more understanding of how consumers spend their time

24 mins A discussion on why the response rates on social media are so low

28 mins How the messaging platforms in China are linked to numerous services and products with payment, banking, ecommerce services - rather than the point based solutions we tend to see in the West.

31 mins Why Malcolm believes that all creative communicators must prioritise mobile above all other platforms.   

Isabel founded the Creative Mentor Network in 2014 with the vision and mission of working with young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds. She saw the barriers many face in pursuing a career in the creative industries - and the talent the industry was missing out on.

Having already worked to increase BAME diversity, the network was designed to go beyond this to help all young people progress.

Graham and Isabel talk about the barriers that exist and the work being done to change this and perceptions. With a background in education, Isabel was frustrated with the system with underfunded schools and limited resources when it came to careers support. There was a lack of awareness of the creative professions with a focus on more traditional careers. During her experience as a teacher, she saw how excited her students were about media, about ideas and the many subjects the creative industries had to offer.

The network recognises that creativity is the number one skill that employers are looking for. Today, it is less about memorising facts and more about innovation, problem-solving and people skills as well as confidence. 

80% of the young people Isabel works with are from non-white backgrounds.

Specifically, Graham and Isabel discuss unpaid internships, better access to the industry, and those who invest in their people. They explore why diversity is such a problem in the creative industries and how their mentorship programme works.

The network harvests a young network of talented and driven individuals from a diverse background.

Isabel is positive about the future and how organisations are actively investing in this. Her ambition is for the network NOT to have to exist. 

Here are some links to some of the young talent from the network that Isabel refers to in the podcast that you might like to take a look at:

https://www.creativementornetwork.org/

https://www.marymandefield.com

https://blanguageonline.com/

www.Lynneegwuekwe.com

www.identity20.org