Nils Leonard has confidence. As chairman and CCO of Grey London he's helped the agency get its creative influence back, double in size and score some of the most coveted industry awards. He talks about frustration, confidence and emotions with Candide McDonald.
“Frustration is the most motivating emotion” for Nils Leonard, the chief creative officer of Grey London. From frustration, came 25 D&AD Pencils, being named Business Insider’s Top Creative Person of the Year, one of the UK's most influential people by the Sunday Times and leading an agency kicking arse in ways unimaginable five years ago.
At 36, he's one of the youngest creatives running a top five global agency. He's also its chairman. Leonard became creative head of the agency when it was living down to its name, ‘Grey’, and under his lead, it’s gone from a “grey” agency of 120 people to the most awarded agency at Cannes this year. In his own words, he turned “an agency that was a bit shit into one that’s quite good”.
For Leonard, swagger, confidence and leaving the past behind are the future. While in Sydney speaking at the D&AD President's Lecture this month, Leonard sat down with AdNews and talked emotions.
AdNews: So how did Grey get its lifeblood back?
Nils Leonard: We were a frustrated crew. David Patton (then CEO), the ex-Sony client who’d made the best Sony work for a tranche of years, was annoyed at the kind of relationships agencies had with their clients. I was annoyed, mostly with creatives … with how they went about their day. I just didn’t think it was productive and I didn’t think it was actually conducive to great creative.
I thought it was ironic that the job title is ‘creative’ but they’re the least likely people to change. Neil Hourston, the ex-TBWA planner at the time, was frustrated with the power of ECDs - about the fact that ECDs used to shout strategy down … it was mad. It wasn’t about collaboration.
So I guess a bunch of very frustrated people went into somewhere that wasn’t great … there were still people in there ordering 10 white lilies a day and all that stuff … and just took it to bits because we had nothing to lose. Never be afraid to say your business is in trouble.
AdNews: Do agencies need their confidence boosted like Dove did for women?
NL: One hundred percent. Agencies do need to develop swagger these days. In my mind, this stems from a problem from way back.
We get paid for our time. And anyone who gets paid for their time ultimately works for someone else. If you can
renegotiate culturally how that feels and how you believe you’re charging, so if you can charge in your mind for your ideas (and I’m not talking about IP), if you can create a culture in your agency and with your clients that’s about a genuine partnership and shared ownership and risk, then you avoid that completely. I miss the swagger in our industry. I think it’s easy to confuse swagger with arrogance.
I don’t miss the dated arrogance of old ECDs. I do miss the brazen confidence of people in the entertainment industry and people in the music industry. They’re just getting on with it. They’re like, “this is what I think, let’s get onto it; are we going to do this or not?”
We should be open to being uncomfortable and creating new types of work. Take a chance and just fucking do it. I think that confidence is missing. I think we’ve forgotten the good and the power we can have with our clients’ brands.
Think about R/GA, an independent with the confidence to be completely different. R/GA came out very clear on what they were about and made sure no one got confused about it. They put themselves in a different meeting. For me, R/GA is the success story of the last 10 years. They reinvented the agency model eight years ago and we still haven’t caught up.
AdNews: Does confidence win pitches?
NL: Well, you don’t lose pitches or don’t get onto pitches because you’re not high up the rankings. I remember when Grey wasn’t ranked anywhere. We won 20 out of 24 pitches that first year. You just scrabble your way onto the list by having the confidence to do all the bullshit that you have to do. You get yourself into a room with a client and then if you’re good enough you’ll win the pitch.
Someone told me this once and it’s so true. You have an interview with someone and, whether you hire them or not, have a great interview. Because that person is going to leave and they’re going to talk to others. We’ve always tried to do this whether we know we’re going to win or lose the pitch. We’ve gone in and pitched the shit out of it.
Pitch like you’re 700 people when you’re 50. Pitch like you’ve got that swagger. Because those people you’ve impressed with your pitch and your swagger will leave, you’ll not hear anything from them for two years and then the marketing director will go somewhere else and say, “you know who I loved meeting? Those guys.” The pitches we’ve lost are often the ones talking us up the most.
Pitch brazenly. We say in pitches, we’re about cultural ambition. We want to make work that works. I’d rather lose a pitch because we had the confidence to state what we’re about.
The rise and rise of Leonard is far from over. But, for what it’s worth, here’s the last word: creativity doesn’t give a fuck about the past. Don’t drag the coffin around.
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