0:00
William Gibson said, “The future’s already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” And that’s something I
0:06
think about a lot. I believe that to be true. The rate of change in advertising
0:11
in the the broader creative industry, it’s never been faster. There’s a lot of focus on doing the same things faster
0:19
and cheaper. And yes, that is true. Of course, there’s an efficiency play. But where is far more exciting is making
0:26
things better, making things that you quite simply never could have made before. To what extent are the people joining
0:33
your organization, your industry, uh, needing exactly the same skills as they needed 20 years ago.
0:41
Hello and welcome to Tomorrow, the Future Forum podcast. I’m Ollie Barrett
0:47
and at Future Forum, we are passionate about bringing people together from very
0:52
different worlds to shape the future together. Our guest today is Julian
0:58
Douglas, better known as Douggee, and he is the chief executive of VCCP, one of
1:04
the world’s most awardwinning creative agencies. So, for the last two decades
1:09
and more, he has helped some of the world’s best known brands communicate and grow. He is chair of UK advertising.
1:17
He is a trustee on the disasters emergency committee and he was also the co-founder of the karaoke bar chain
1:26
Lucky Voice. So someone not afraid to leave their lane but fundamentally someone fascinated by how to tell
The Future Is Already Here
1:32
stories and how to connect with many many people. Douggee, welcome to tomorrow.
1:38
Great to be here. I can already tell we’re going to have a good time with multiple hats over the years. Let’s talk about the future. Give
1:44
us a glimpse. We ask all of our guests, look into the future. What do you see?
1:50
William Gibson said, “The future’s already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” And that’s something I
1:57
think about a lot. I believe that to be true. As as helping to build VCCP into a
2:03
global creative company, as chair of UK advertising, I see this all the time. I’m lucky
2:09
enough to travel to different places, different cities, different industries, meet different people and you can see
2:16
those opportunities and when they come together, that’s the future in action right there.
2:21
Yeah. It’s um it’s fascinating. There’s a uh there’s a lovely John Larry quote which says a desk is a very dangerous
2:28
place from which to view the world. Absolutely. And I think that’s that’s the heart of creativity. And I have a
2:34
daughter, she’s 11, called Maya. And when I think about the opportunities that she sees, she’s been lucky enough
2:41
to travel with me too. And I guess the challenge for for us um is to make sure
2:47
those opportunities are there for that entire generation to to bring those those different aspects of the world of
2:54
glimpses together. Yeah. And it’s um something we’re going to come on to talk about advice about
3:00
that next generation and what really you’re looking for as they come in. So if you think about that uh uneven
3:06
distribution um it’s a favorite phrase of ours that Gibson quote about um the
3:12
future already being here. Give us some clues about what’s starting to happen on the edge of the industry.
3:18
Some latest developments. How’s it shifting? Well, I think the the rates of change in
3:24
advertising in the the broader creative industry, it’s never been faster and
3:30
we’re still at the foothills of what’s possible. And in in many ways it’s so
3:35
emergent. Nobody really knows yet. But I do feel that quite quite a a lot of the common discourse. It’s like looking the
3:42
wrong way down the telescope. There’s a lot of focus on doing the same things faster and cheaper. And yes, that
3:49
is true. Of course, there’s an efficiency play. But where is far more exciting is making things better, making
Why AI Is About Better, Not Just Faster
3:56
things that you quite simply never could have made before. And so we’re starting to see early examples of
4:03
experiences of communications of interactive uh experiences that people
4:08
just quite simply never could have done before. Yeah. So let’s have some examples and I
4:13
just want our um listener and viewer to get a sense of when an organization
4:19
comes to you um what does the end product end up looking like? Because
4:24
there obviously our minds go to advertising but you’ve already hinted at experiences there. just give us a sense
4:29
of that breadth. Yes, the the breadth of what is under the umbrella of advertising is extremely
4:37
wide today. Um so most people will think of a commercial of a radio ad of a
4:42
poster and that’s still a core part of of what we do. But really advertising and marketing, it’s all about
4:49
accelerating growth. It’s about unlocking value in an organization. It’s it’s about shifting
4:55
attitudes and behaviors. And the ways in which you can do that aren’t just pushing out messaging to people. It’s
5:01
it’s often much more about improving their experience with a brand. And the ways in which you can do that, it might
5:07
be virtual, it might be digital, it might be physical. It’s a whole range. So at VCCP, we’re a fully integrated
5:14
creative agency. So yes, we create advertising, but we also build apps. We
5:19
we look at services. We have behavioral science behavioral scientists in the building. We have design. So the the
5:26
range of what talent and backgrounds and experiences you’ll find within a a
5:31
creative or organization like an advertising agency today is very different to when I started the industry
5:37
nearly 30 years ago. Yeah. So we’ll reflect a bit on how it’s changed. But since we are talking about
5:44
tomorrow, what’s your sense of where the industry is going? What are some conversations
5:50
that are playing out and will continue to play out that frankly you wouldn’t have expected 10 years ago?
5:57
I think if you broaden it from advertising into customer experience, the conversations
6:03
have changed phenomenally because it now touches every single part of an organization.
6:09
It it’s not a case of a company build widget X now take it to the market and
6:15
tell everybody about it. is far more infused to what that company stands for.
6:20
If you think of the brands that are huge today, think of Apple as a go-to, everything there is is a full obsession
6:27
on a customer on on what the consumer experience is all about. So everything
6:32
that we’re looking to do is to improve that experience. And so the opportunities are quite endless on that.
6:39
It’s less about producing communication, it’s about improving experiences.
6:44
Interesting. So give us a they could be named or not but the sort of thing that
6:50
you enjoy working on because it gives you that breadth of touch points and and
6:56
again I’m going to push you to start to predict the sorts of conversations you’re going to be having more of in
7:01
terms of direction of travel. So one one of the gifts of working in
7:06
advertising is we get to work across multiple sectors. By definition, you’re not allowed to have two competitors in
Advertising Becomes Customer Experience
7:13
the same industry vertical. So, it’s a real privilege to to work across
7:19
multiple industries at at all times, be it from farmer to to package goods to
7:25
automotive to mobility to energy to to government. Um the the consistent theme
7:33
across all of those uh different sectors will be
7:39
growth. H how how can we get more of the desired outcome that we have? How can we
7:44
how can we get there more quickly? How how can it be exponential growth? I think there’s much more ambition today.
7:51
I think that’s the one of the biggest uh rates of change is rather than getting incremental improvements of a couple of
7:58
percentage points up on last year’s sales, it be how can we grow exponentially, how can we double that
8:04
year on year and that that takes you much deeper into not just the products
8:10
that are being built but the services behind them. Yeah. Yeah. um and lots of considerations along the way in terms of
8:16
how those products evolve and um presumably you’re brought into some of that process as well when you talk about
8:22
the insights you’ve already hinted at. Yes, abs. Absolutely. Because often the way that a uh an advertiser or a client might
8:28
engage an agency like VCCP will be to give us a brief. The first thing we do when we receive a
8:35
brief is actually to go back and interrogate that and ask many questions and to move further upstream in the
8:40
thinking. So the questions that that we’ll be asking is what what’s the real
8:46
problem that you’re trying to solve here? Where’s the opportunity for growth with a customer? Um how much value is at
8:53
stake and and what must be true to realize that value? These questions are already taking you much further upstream
9:02
into questions that are discussions that are really about the business strategy of an organization rather about a
9:08
product that it’s attempting to market. So, um, we’re putting you on the spot here. I know. Is there an example that
9:14
comes to your mind of where the question that someone was initially asking turned out not to be the question that they
9:19
really wanted the answer to? I would say that that’s that happens more often than it does not. So, the
9:25
founding client at O VCCP was O2, the the mobile phone network, which we
9:31
launched um back with them in the 2nd of February 2002. So, it was 0202 was the
9:37
first poster that VCCP ever made. and we’ve worked with them ever since and the nature of the conversations we have
9:43
are where are the pressures in that business and one of the difficulties that O2 customers were facing was being
9:49
scammed on their phones uh getting scanned through the O2 through the O2 network so of course they
9:54
wanted to reduce that so the solution that we got to was a very different
10:00
shape to the brief there wasn’t a brief specifically asking for a solve for that
10:06
um or a message to encourage to to be aware of scam phones. We actually built
10:13
a digital grandmother, an AI granny using technology that would wasn’t
Solving the Wrong Problem
10:19
available to us until that moment who could intercept the scammers and keep them on the phone for a long time. She
10:26
had a backstory. She she had difficulty accessing technology and using her computer. So, while the scammer was
10:33
trapped on the phone talking to Daisy, she couldn’t be scamming an O2 customer. And of course, because it was with AI,
10:40
there’s unlimited numbers of daisies having conversations at the same time, tangling up all of these scammers.
10:46
Absolutely. Uh I am convinced that our uh viewers going to want to have a look at this.
10:51
So, this is Daisy versus the scammers. Exactly. And let’s have a quick look at that now.
11:04
And if you want to seven in 10 Brits have been targeted by
11:09
scammers. And it’s not just our grandparents. I was one of them.
11:15
But this film isn’t about getting scammed. This is about getting even. Meet my friend Daisy. Hello scammers.
11:23
I’m your worst nightmare. I’m an AI created by O2 to waste phone scammers
11:29
time. So W’s then a dot. Three times W and then dot.
11:36
I think your profession is bothering people, right? I’m just trying uh to have a little chat.
11:42
It’s nearly been an hour for the love of Gosh, how time flies.
11:49
It’s showing me a picture of my cat, Fluffy. It’s showing you a picture of your cat,
11:55
Fluffy. Stop calling me dear, you stupid. Got it, dear. Because while they’re busy
12:01
talking to me, they can’t be scamming you. And let’s face it, dear, I’ve got
12:06
all the time in the world. So, whilst you’re out enjoying life, Daisy and O2
12:12
are here fighting scammers, taking calls, and wasting hundreds and hundreds of hours of scammers time. If you want
12:18
to help Daisy and O2 ruin a scammer’s day, you can report scam numbers to 7726.
12:24
Cuz you can’t do it all on your own, can you, Daisy? Who says I am? Love speaks.
12:40
Brilliant. So many uh things. Tell tell us even more. So th this campaign
12:45
launched and was became a global phenomenon. It was picked up all around the world, not just in the UK. and it
12:53
was extremely effective one at blocking um and delaying scammers on the phone lines but two raising the awareness of
13:00
this as a problem. It put it right into the mainstream and we had coverage from North America to Latam to to China to um
13:09
right across Europe and Middle East. um a true global hit that delivered
13:15
effective effective results for O2 given their
13:20
problem of having people on the network but huge positive impact for O2 customers and it’s a great example of
13:26
something that just simply wasn’t possible before and the learning for us and and for O2 and across the industry
13:33
is this is a perfect example of not trying to do what you did before more
The AI Grandma Fighting Scammers
13:38
efficiently but coming up with different shaped ideas, tackling problems in different ways.
13:43
Yeah. And and having a wider conversation in the first place about the challenges an organization really
13:49
needs to solve. Um very quick fire on that. The lady
13:54
that we’re seeing in the video, is that a real lady? Obviously, her voice is then uh simulated or is she
14:00
completely AI? So the Daisy who you see there is is is pulled together four
14:06
different uh LLM models to create her from the video to the the voice that
14:13
actually has been trained on the the grandmother of one of the ladies in our in our agency to the language model
14:20
behind. So we we pulled these together. So it’s it’s you you can have a
14:26
conversation with Daisy. It was it was quite surreal um when we launched it. We we we had the lady whose voice it was in
14:33
reception talking to Daisy which was quite a meta moment. Um but it’s phenomenal what what you’re cap what
14:39
you’re able to do and and we created this just over a year ago already them the the the potential the possibility
14:46
what you can do has accelerated even more. Really really interesting. Um and presumably it has particular strength um
14:54
at this current moment where we have effectively human scammers going into
14:59
battle or being confronted with an AI daisy uh taking up their time so they can’t go
15:05
and scam other people um without in any way undermining the campaign. Presumably
15:11
the future is just as much about AI scammers. Yes. you know, effectively um winding up
15:18
each other and presumably quicker than we could imagine, working out that they’re actually at checkmate.
15:24
Well, I I think I think what we’re seeing is brands and businesses are
15:29
getting far far more proficient at understanding the importance of having branded agents because when you have a
15:37
if you visit a website or go to a store, you you would expect that to be a branded experience. you’d expect that to
15:43
feel in line with the values and and feelings of that brand. But so so far
15:49
lots of the chat bots that you’ve interacted with just feel totally generic. There’s none of the brand values that you’d expect there. So what
15:55
we’re what we’re now seeing is brands getting far more proficient um uh working with companies like ours who can
16:01
build real branded agents. So you get that full experience all the way through and it can be a huge help. I mean, who
16:08
who wants to spend hours waiting on a call center line to try and get through
16:13
to somebody? If you can get a really positive experience that delivers what you need quickly in a in in the right
16:20
tone of the brand, that’s a huge step forward, right? And it helps the company and it helps the customer. Well, you can imagine in other parts of
16:27
a business, what would have been a a personal shopper uh now being delivered as more of a conversation uh absolutely
16:34
with an agent to lead you to what it is you’re really looking for. I mean that that leads us a little bit doesn’t it onto um you know technology and and jobs
16:44
more broadly to what extent are the people joining your organization your
16:49
industry uh needing exactly the same skills as they needed 20 years ago to what extent
16:55
has that evolved in an agency like uh VCCP today when I
17:00
look at the jobs that are there more than half of those jobs didn’t exist when I started work in in the late ‘9s.
17:07
So there there’s a much broader it’s a much bigger company than it was but it’s a much broader uh base of skill sets
17:14
that are required. So for sure that’s why that’s as as it’s become more integrated and more open to technology
17:20
we need different skill sets. However, what remains consistent is you need top quality talent and you need people who
17:27
are curious. You need people who prod things and play with things and ask questions and and never settle for just
17:34
okay. So in some ways that that remains a constant that that curiosity that
17:40
drive that experimentation that stays there in a in a creative business right that the nature of what
17:47
you might be playing around with that changes. Yeah. But I suppose there’s there’s conceptually a challenge there, isn’t
17:52
there? Because by definition, a lot of recruitment and a lot of application processes consists of an individual
17:59
telling you things, whereas you’ve already hinted that you’re looking for
18:04
their ability to ask questions. How do they come across? And [snorts] it’s it’s it’s a it’s a you
Branded AI Agents and Customer Relationships
18:10
you talked about agents talking to agents earlier. A lot of the difficulties that young people trying to get into a workforce into any profession
18:16
are facing, not limited to to to marketing and advertising, is loads of
18:22
people are using AI tools to send out masses of job applications that are then screened by agents in in the recruiters.
18:31
So, so how do you break through? You know, it’s a difficult one. I think there’s also a discourse that that I I
18:40
disagree with that there are fewer entry- level roles due to AI. We see the
18:46
opposite. We’re hiring much many more people who are entry level and school
18:52
school levers and and college and university levers because they’ve they’ve spent
18:57
the last three years using these tools. They’ve spent the last 10 years using
19:02
social channels. So actually we we we’ve challenged that uh convention and want
19:08
to get more of those people in but um whether that’s the case across the whole industry who knows.
19:13
Yeah. Well I mean in in in fact I don’t know about the industry but certainly broadly those graduate job numbers are
19:19
down but I think you’ve hinted at a really interesting insight which is the um the knowledge and fluency that those
19:26
younger people have helps them hit the ground running in terms of insights into clients and ways
19:32
of working. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think what we’re seeing is this the shape of companies is
19:38
changing. So his historically any professional services firm would be would be a pyramid.
19:44
You’d have a few at the top and lots down to the bottom. In in recent times at VCCP, we’ve had a
19:50
different shape. We’ve had many more seniors and perhaps more of an earn shape to our to our team because we need
19:56
to as we’ve grown rapidly around the world, we need to have lots of seniors to have those relationships and bring that experience. What I think we will
20:03
see going forward is perhaps more of an hourglass where you’ll get a much
20:09
broader base of new entrance into into into organizations who can come in and
20:16
and challenge the organization and bring in all those different bits of learning and experience and then that will then
20:22
go through as as some may choose to go and do other things but then a core go through. You need to keep that that the
20:29
experience and understanding and relationships at the top. Yeah, it’s fascinating and I can imagine
20:35
as well how the way people engage might be not all full-time. The idea that you
20:41
might benefit from someone’s talents in part of their time, but the fact that they are often also DJing or uh being an
20:48
entrepreneur might add to the collective value of what they bring to you. Absolutely. Because I think there’s in a
20:55
creative environment, you need to have people with different backgrounds, different passions, different motivations. Diverse thinking will get
21:02
you to better results. And not everybody is going to want to do a role that’s a
21:08
9-to-F5 days a week. In fact, since pandemic and lockdown, very few people actively
21:15
actively choose to do that. So it’s it’s important to be successful and to push the boundaries of what’s possible as you
21:21
move forward to bring in different people who who have a different schedule
How AI Is Changing Jobs and Skills
21:27
into the organization. The trick to making it successful though is getting talented people to collaborate well.
21:33
Right. Right. And what in your experience you’re leading the organization, what’s one of the tricks
21:39
you’ve learned that helps oil those wheels? having a clear direction and having a
21:46
clear ambition and creating opportunity because the best talent at any level always has choices whether you’re entry
21:54
level or you’ve been doing the job for decades top talent always has has can
22:00
make choices. So for talent to choose your organization they need to believe and for them to
22:07
hang around it has to be true that they’re going to be able to realize realize their potential in your
22:12
organization. Mhm. So having a real clear focus on talent
22:17
um having a clear sense of direction of what you’re here to do, what your what
22:23
your ambition is, what you’re trying to achieve, and then giving people the autonomy and the space to do it.
22:29
Yeah. Yeah. Is absolutely key. And I can see that as a north star in terms of their role within the
22:34
organization. I’m also drawn to this idea that in order to get to the breakthroughs, they might also need to,
22:41
to your earlier point, ask loads of questions, experiment, exactly. Try out lots of things. And um that can
22:48
sometimes feel anti- focus. Um I’m just trying to reconcile those
22:53
two thoughts in I think uh our our company, we we we are a challenger company. We we challenge
23:00
convention. We work with brands that are challenging their markets. It’s a prerequisite to work in our
23:06
company and the clients who choose to work with us are ones who welcome that challenge, who welcome questions. So if
23:14
you want a steady job where every day is the same as the last one and you get spoonfed and told what to do, this isn’t
23:21
the place for you. If you’re in a place where you you you want to prod things, poke things, try things out, experiment,
23:28
then you you’re going to react to it really well, right? So there’s so much that that then makes us want to explore um because um
23:38
of so many of the campaigns that you’ve worked on. You’ve worked on government campaigns on big business campaigns.
23:43
You’re a trustee of the disasters emergency committee. Give me give me your sense of advertising as a force for
23:49
good. Advertising is a force for good in three ways. It’s it’s good for customers. uh
23:57
for a product or a service to be advertised there is a standard at which that must be that’s originally why the
24:03
ASA was brought into existence over 50 years ago. So it’s a it is a proof that
24:10
it is of sufficient quality to be advertised. Yeah. And that’s advertising standards. That’s advertising standards. Um so it’s
24:17
good for it’s good for customers. It’s good for businesses because if if you create a new product or service, you
24:24
want to tell the the world about it. You want to tell your audiences about it. And we know that the most effective
24:30
campaigns have have a phenomenal impact on businesses much and can accelerate
24:35
the growth of a business much faster than any other thing that you can do and it’s good for society because it creates
24:42
jobs. So in the UK for every pound invested in the advertising industry six is delivered to the economy. So it’s a
24:50
huge employer and it’s a huge exporter. The export figures were just released 19.4 4 billion pounds was exported from
Why VCCP Is Hiring More Young Talent
24:58
UK advertising and marketing services which is pound-for-pound the by per
25:03
capita by far the highest in the world. So what about more broadly? You’ve talked about that trust factor particularly with uh a standards agency
25:10
in place. You’ve talked about return on investment good for the economy. I’m thinking even more broadly in the future
25:17
um a lot of the biggest challenges we face are communication challenges. uh you are by definition world experts at
25:24
that and storytelling. So to what extent do you think that your industry has a role to play in
25:30
helping us to solve communicate um some of the world’s biggest social challenges? Well, I think the given the
25:37
nature of of what we do and and how our obsession with people, we often say the
25:44
customer or the consumer, but it’s people. It means that we’re we’re often grappling with challenges they’re facing
25:50
in their daily lives. So we we have a whole range of people focused on
25:57
people’s realities and difficulties and ways we can try and address them and help them or equally things they enjoy
26:04
and try and try and magnify those. So that that takes you beyond
26:09
advertising in terms of making ads like a billboard. That’s really understanding what make what makes people tick
26:16
and and how to improve the quality of their lives and and how to improve at societal levels if if you’re working in
26:21
in certain sectors. So yes, we work in advertising, but actually we’re we’re we’re human
26:28
focused. We’re focused on people and we work across all the other sectors. Work in advertising is such a privilege
26:34
because you’re not pigeonholed into one thing. You actually can work across all the different sectors that are out
26:40
there. Right. Well, it also brings our minds back to that idea of the value of travel, of seeing things from lots of
26:45
different angles, not just reading a brief, but the little clue that you might pick up as you wander through
26:50
reception. Exactly. And and from one industry to another, which is which is a huge part of it as
26:56
well. So for us a company, we we operate out of 12 different cities around the world across multiple sectors and fusing
27:05
that knowledge and understanding, you know, we’re we’re stronger in
27:11
America because we’re also in Singapore. Yeah. Yeah. It’s fascinating and I’ve seen for example in China the way that
27:17
retail and entertainment have really come together in ways that they haven’t even begun to. Abs. Absolutely. And if you think the
The Future Shape of Organisations
27:23
advances that you can see in one country that you think are amazing, often you’ll find have been around for decades in
27:29
other parts of the world. Um, okay. So, I’ve got bigger questions as well um on AI and creativity. So,
27:38
we’re going to come to those, but first I’ve got a quick fire round for you. Uh, which is uh where you I’d like you to
27:45
pick a number between one and 10. Uh, 10. 10. Oh, this is quite snappy. Um, one
27:53
word for the future. Opportunity.
27:58
Yeah, good. Glass half full. Agree. Uh, pick another number. Nine.
28:03
What’s making you optimistic? The optimism I have, and I am
28:10
optimistic, is just the brilliance that I’m seeing around me. I’m I’m I’m seeing new ideas,
28:18
the collision of ideas in all sorts of sectors. I see it in my building. I see
28:23
it when I look on social media. I’m seeing people from all over the country, from
28:30
all over the world expressing themselves and able to distribute that in ways that was never possible before. So, I’m I’m
28:36
seeing lots of new things. I think think we’re in a great dawn of of an era of uh
28:43
creativity right now. and I love what I see. Um, and and no doubt about it, that is
28:50
uplifting. The only caveat presumably is if we’re letting a thousand creative and
28:55
communicating flowers bloom, it does pose challenges for that first good
29:00
point that you made about standards because traditionally strand standards
29:07
have been um the realm of larger should we say I think. Yes. Organizations. I mean, I think there’s
29:14
been such a proliferation of advertising over the last series of decades,
29:20
certainly since the age of the internet, that there is far more digital landfill
29:26
of poor quality advertising out there. But I think it’s equally I think we now
29:32
see some of the best advertising we’ve ever seen across those challenges. So I I am very confident that standards will
29:38
improve as people have access to better tools. So on that, one of the things I
29:44
know that you are enjoying doing is weaving some of these new tools into the
29:49
campaigns themselves. So I asked you to uh bring an example of that. So what are we going to have a quick look So, we’ll
Leadership, Curiosity and Creative Culture
29:54
have a look at Cadbury. And Cadbury is a a great historic brand who just enjoyed it 200th anniversary last year. And
30:02
we’ve worked with them since 2018. And here’s an example of a campaign that we
30:08
put together that you wouldn’t have been able to make a few years before where we took the the great heritage advertising
30:14
they’ve had over their history and you, the consumer, could put yourself and
30:20
image yourself into that advert. And you may have seen LinkedIn light up for a good few months when we did this. Yeah. So, this is the idea that you
30:26
would share a photo of yourself. You would upload a photo and then it would put you into a chosen era.
30:32
Exactly. Yes. You you could pick you could pick your favorite era and put yourself into those ads and and we saw
30:40
literally tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of these dancing around the internet. Um well, our view will be disappointed
30:46
here. We’re not going to do a real time version of this with uh either of us, but let’s have a very quick look just to
30:51
get a sense of what that campaign is all about.
31:07
[music]
31:16
Excellent. So, I mean, it it’s beautifully simple. Uh, and presumably, as you’ve already hinted, Douggee, it
31:23
worked. It’s super simple and super effective. I mean, we’ve worked with Cabbury for
31:28
eight years. We won the IPA effectiveness Grand Prix because over a 5year period, we contributed 1.2 billion
31:37
uh extra sales to that brand. not not just off that piece of work, off a whole series of pieces of work, but the the
31:42
work’s remarkably effective, the most effective uh work that’s been done um in
31:47
the country over that whole period. Um when did that campaign come out? That campaign came out last summer on
31:54
their 200th anniversary. I reckon if you ran that campaign today,
31:59
you might not use the word AI because the punchline is create your AI.
32:04
Yes, maybe. That’s right. That’s right. I think technologies are always named until they become such a common part of
32:12
your day-to-day life that you wouldn’t even notice. So, we are the, you know, the digital era. No, nobody says digital
32:19
anymore. So, I think Well, you’d be surprised because it’s funny. It’s amazing to me how often it does gets used, but it always slightly jars.
32:25
Yes. I I think there’s there’s a newness to things until they
32:30
become such part of the mainstream. You know, if you look at an old uh western movie or say shot in glorious
32:36
technicolor. Yes. But you you you probably don’t hear anyone saying that anymore. It’s a rather marvelous phrase in a way, isn’t it? Um I suppose my my hidden
32:43
theory is that we are starting to see quite a public concern. I would even go
32:50
as far to say backlash. Even though dayto-day from everything from our satnav uh to um everything that’s going
32:58
on in our computers and member fans, we are using AI but actually that active use of the word ends up having a net
Advertising as a Force for Good
33:04
negative effect. But I think there’s also um and two things can be true at the same time. It
33:11
tends to be how honest or transparent a company is
33:16
about something being AI generated. So actually I think that whether it becomes a watermark or or a symbol
33:24
an audience today can be very they highly value authenticity and they
33:30
highly value transparency. So if you are hoodwinkedked to something think
33:35
something’s real and it’s not you’ll get a very negative reaction. Whereas if especially if a brand
33:42
is is very clear and transparent saying that this has been generated uh using AI
33:49
people will be more receptive to that. Yeah. I’m being cheeky when I say except if you’re a scammer in which case being
33:55
hoodw hoodwinkedked is fine. I I I think hoodwink hoodwinking the hoodwinker is is perfectly acceptable.
34:01
That that is all fair game. Another number eight.
34:06
What’s one thing that AI won’t replace? AI won’t
34:13
entirely replace relationships. Now, I know many people are having relationships with AI, which is a whole
34:20
uh discussion point on its own, but I I believe that the nature of human
34:27
relationships are so valuable and so core to our very being that they certainly won’t entirely
34:34
replace that. Yeah, I love that you’ve given that answer. I think it’s really refreshing and and powerful as a
34:40
thought. Um, so the one the [clears throat] question that um I’ve been longing to ask you is about AI and
34:47
creativity and we are mulling a motion if you like a debate sounds grand um but
34:52
with future forum which is I think the motion will be something along the lines of this forum believes that AI will do
34:59
more to enhance creativity than to weaken it. And I just want to get your
35:05
sense of course how it’s playing out in VCCP but also where you come from on
35:10
that topic. Well, Chat GBT was launched in November
35:16
2022. And by February 2023, 3 months later, we launched Faith, our AI creative agency
35:24
at VCCP. And the reason it’s called faith is we believe that AI will be an
35:30
accelerator of human creativity and imagination. So that is very much the belief of me
35:37
and everybody in my company. AI used responsibly will be the accelerator of
35:43
human creativity and imagination. And we see we see that in the ideas that teams
35:48
are coming up with that they’re we’re creating that we’re putting into the world um that we’re seeing coming from
35:53
all manner of different sources. I think the opportunities are vast. It is important to have a sense of uh
36:01
responsibility and and principles behind how you do it and when you do it because
Creativity, Society and Human Behaviour
36:07
just just because you can doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. I think it’s the opportunities are
36:12
phenomenal. If we go through certain scenarios, I could feed a huge amount of data, research reports, annual reports,
36:20
all sorts of data that could be synthesized about a potential client and ask an LLM to start to share with me
36:27
some insights that might be the sort of clues that you would look for. Um, to what extent are you doing that?
36:34
I think that almost becomes table stakes because if everybody has the same tools and are able to put all the same
36:40
information and get the same inferences out, you’ll end up with a wind tunnel effect. You know, like where all cars
36:46
cars used to look fantastically different and then everybody got a wind tunnel and they all pretty much look the same.
36:52
So I think you can end up with very generic standard safe.
36:58
Yeah. Output. Yeah. Be it advertising, be it be it be it music, be it be anything of a
37:03
creative nature. I think to get something truly exceptional to make that unexpected leap to bring together two
37:11
elements that may have seemed inongruous. That’s where the human creativity comes
37:17
in there. That’s where that sense of discernment of of taste of the
37:24
unexpected. That’s when things get really exciting. Yeah. There’s a quote coming into my mind around talent hits a target that
37:30
others can’t hit. Genius hits a target others can’t see. Absolutely. There’s something in that next level.
37:37
It’s often said that a machine isn’t as good as a human plus a machine. I think we see the same in creativity.
37:42
Um I’m going back in my mind to be more dog. O2’s famous campaign. I mean, first of all, how on earth do you convince a
37:48
very senior board that Be More Dog and by the way, hugely multi-awwardwinning, hugely successful campaign. How do you
37:54
convince Cena exactly that that’s the campaign to go with? I think it gets back to a part of that
38:00
is that relationship is that trust. I think it’s have having that strength of relationship that and of course you
38:06
can research things but there’s always a a moment when you make a leap
38:11
and there’s a leap faith um to to do something truly disruptive. A a campaign that’s run for many years
38:17
that VCB created is compare the market and compare the meat. So
38:23
that was a can be seen as a very brave move to have done that. Now of course we went through all the logic and why that
What’s Making Dougie Optimistic?
38:29
made perfect sense and why something that disruptive was necessary um to to make that jolt to go from
38:35
fourth to first in that market. But some sometimes the best work that you see
38:40
will come when a when a business is challenged and they need to make a leap.
38:46
And so often going for a more creative solution which can be the more effective
38:52
solution actually is a safer play because the most dangerous and certainly the most expensive move often is just to
38:58
be wallpaper just to be vanilla. I just think this is such an enticing way of looking at uh an industry that
39:04
some people hadn’t unpicked as much. Um the reason I mentioned be more dog uh
39:09
and I was apologizing for the outsider question which was AI generated artwork
39:15
uh even through to AI generated video already standard fair across the
39:20
industry you’re getting push back just help us understand the state of the art across the industry everybody will be
39:27
using AI to help visualize uh their ideas so they’re easier for
39:34
people to understand and see what’s inside your your your mind in your imagination. So that’s happening
39:40
everywhere. Some advertisers, perhaps most are are using AI to some degree to to reduce
39:47
cost of production, to reduce travels to to far away places. Not all though. And
39:53
there’s there’s often a debate of just because we can doesn’t mean we should. M so if if you work with a travel company
39:59
or an airline um and you want to show a far-flung place you can create it in AI
40:05
but is that really the product that you’re trying to sell you know is that
40:10
the experience that you actually mean so just because I can create a hotel or a destination in AI I may or may not
The Cadbury AI Campaign
40:18
choose and that’s where it becomes an individual discussion and decision for
40:23
each advertiser really I I can certainly see a world in which there are those
40:30
perhaps more premium brands that absolutely do not do that. It’s a huge in the world of fashion of should we
40:36
have AI models in all of our ads or should should that actually be a real
40:43
human person and I think there’ll be people who go on both sides of the fence. Right? And I hear this conversation play
40:49
out especially in events that I’m involved in around the world where someone will be making similar choices
40:54
about where to put a human in the experience and that could be on a hotel check-in. It could be on a checkout and
41:00
they’re often making decisions which aren’t purely financial. Exactly. And I think there can often be
41:05
unintended consequences as as well. Rory Suddland always talks about the the dormant fallacy.
41:10
The dormant fallacy which is get rid of the dorman. Yes. You you you get rid of the doorman to save a to save a couple of quid in
41:17
the cost of the hotel. But actually the doorman didn’t just open the door to allow you in that you can replace with
41:22
an electric electric door is actually a guide. It’s a sense of safety, someone
41:27
to welcome you. Exactly. Well, that’s what I think. I think it is visionary what you’ve said about taking
41:34
on those younger team members because we should be asking what am I not taking on
41:42
when I in a smart way outsource to technology and what we’re not taking on
41:48
is our successes. Yes. is those eyes and ears for a whole generation of their peers. It’s so many
41:55
other things and and the new energy and and and people pointing things out that you’re
42:01
not aware of because otherwise it’s very dangerous place for any organization, any vertical to stop bringing in that
42:08
fresh perspective and that newness. We talk a lot about this phrase, leave your lane at future forum. Yes.
42:15
And I can’t help but notice a you’ve worked on such a range of campaigns. You’re a trustee of the disasters
Authenticity, AI and Consumer Trust
42:20
emergency committee. Uh you co-ounded Lucky Voice, the karaoke chain. What does that phrase leave your lane mean to
42:27
you? Leaving your lane is something I would really actively encourage everybody to do. And I think it’s is it’s getting out
42:34
of your comfort zone. It’s doing something else. It’s trying something new. And Lucky Voice was a great example
42:41
of me leaving my lane. I chose to leave my lane at the outset and started a side hustle setting up a business with a with
42:48
a with a friend. Ultimately, I was forced to leave my lane because the agency that I worked at at the time,
42:54
TWWA, fired me because I had a side hustle, which actually shows
42:59
back back then, which was 20 years ago, a side hustle was seen as a distraction. I mean, today, if you don’t have a side
43:07
hustle, you’re often not seen as a complete human being. So perhaps the answer is somewhere in the middle. Um
43:13
for for me setting up a business from scratch, designing it,
43:19
putting the the business plan together, making it real, launching it to the world. It’s been very successful.
43:26
There’s now 15 lucky voices around the UK. um it brought so much to I learned so
43:32
much from that experience that when I returned to advertising a year later um
43:38
I came back in with a whole new sense of what was important. I was better I was
43:44
better at what I’ve been doing before because I’d left my lane. So I would definitely encourage people to do it.
43:49
And and very briefly then when you think of the most creative individuals within VCCP
What AI Will Never Replace
43:55
um I wonder if there’s a slight tension in the sense that at certain points you want them at their desk wherever that
44:02
might be uh doing the work and yet as you’ve already said you also want
44:07
them harvesting cross-pollinating ideas looking up looking around. So what what have you noticed about how the most
44:13
creative people gather their ideas? There’s there’s two traits that they’ll
44:20
either have one or both of. There tends to be a real curiosity
44:26
into what’s out there, into the world, into a genre, into a place, into a food,
44:33
into a music. There’ll also be a real depth of curiosity into something. So,
44:41
they’re open to everything, but they’re really passionate about something, too. And I think if you’ve got people who’ve
44:47
got that that curiosity and breadth, but also that deep passion and focus in something, when you can channel that
44:54
into a business problem, you can get to really interesting solutions, especially if you put a few of them together.
45:00
And I love the idea of understanding as an organization where each other’s depths might be. Yes. So to say, is it literal examples scuba
Why AI Enhances Human Creativity
45:07
diving or oceans? That’s Freyer over here. And knowing where to find them. Exactly. and and and create an
45:12
environment where people collaborate but don’t just get along where they can
45:18
challenge each other and especially doing that over geographies gets you to really exciting and surprising places
45:25
and you can get there really quickly right can see myself firing up my application to your academy as we speak.
45:32
This is good. Um okay, final question. We ask all of our guests on tomorrow to send a memo to the future. So this could
45:39
be to 10 years time. It could be to your future self. What would you say?
45:45
Remember to look up. I think the best advances happen when
45:50
you’re open to things, when you’re looking around corners, when you’re asking questions and actually listening
45:56
to the answers. and not to be so busy rushing through the dayto-day or whatever project you’re on to try and
46:03
get to completion of that, but be open because the thing that might have the biggest impact
46:09
might be right there under your nose or right there above your head and you’ve not even seen it. So, I think it’s
46:15
really important to remain open and remain observant. And I think it’s so
46:20
powerful that memo that you’ve sent it to 10 years time because it reminds us
Leaving Your Lane
46:26
to keep doing that. Absolutely. And give us that little nudge. Uh I know what’s going to happen, Douggee. I’m
46:32
going to watch this back and I’m going to say I can’t believe you didn’t ask him his favorite go-to karaoke song. So, at the risk of asking a very
46:38
light-hearted question at the end of a very serious podcast, where are we going? Um I’m currently in a Selen Dion phase.
46:45
And it’s it’s all coming back to me. It’s all coming back to me now. Really? Absolutely.
46:50
That’s what I’m working on currently. [laughter] Watch this space and that’s why you need
46:56
to come to Future Forum really. But on a serious note, Julian Douglas Douggey, thank you for joining us on tomorrow.
47:01
Thank you very much. Well, uh, whether or not you’re a Selen Dion fan, and indeed whatever your go-to, uh, harmony
47:09
might be, I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as I have because in Douggee, we have a leader encouraging
A Memo to the Future: Keep Looking Up
47:16
that next generation and encouraging himself to keep looking up, a cross-pollinator of ideas, somebody who
47:23
seems refreshingly at ease with the latest technologies as a fuel, as an
47:28
accelerant for creativity. And in a world in which we seem to be thinking that uh jobs and creativity itself are
47:35
under attack from all angles. I found that a very glass half full perspective
47:40
indeed. Hope you’ve enjoyed it. Please do keep tuning in to tomorrow and share
47:46
this conversation with anyone you think should hear it. That’s my guest for today, Douggee, leader of VCCP. Thank
47:53
you for tuning in and until next time, goodbye.
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