168 Things

In this episode, we're talking about finding and keeping clients. There's the question of chemistry; we tell how a child helped create the My Waitrose logo; then there's dinner with Chalice; and the great agency tradition of making stuff up in the meeting. We also touch on the importance of listening - a theme we'll come back to in future podcasts.

This is a short bonus episode to follow the one about briefs. I found the brief I wrote for this podcast series, and here we have a look at it. The briefing format is unusual, but rather excellent. It was shown to me by Lu Dixon, a creative titan, and I found it very stimulating. Listen and hear about the format, and then the actual brief I wrote - and let me know if you think we've delivered on the brief. Warning - as I wrote the brief, and the client was Kitcatt and Croke, the language is a little less formal than it would have been for most clients. A bit sweary at times.

Lockdown may be coming to an end - or maybe not. It's been frightening, weird, peaceful, unsettling, harrowing - and the roller-coaster ride doesn't end when we're all allowed out again. Normal is going to be different.
In this podcast - the first in our series - we take some advice from Fleetwood Mac, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and talk about what we hope we can do to help you ride the ups and downs to come.

I started out in this business as a trainee copywriter, and it was thanks to an introduction from a remarkable woman called Fiona Ross. We're going to make podcasts specifically to help people who want to learn more about how to be a creative thinker, a writer, an art director, a strategist, a leader, and more, but today I'm going back to my own beginning, to talk about a principle that benefitted me, and that I've tried to apply - to pay forward - over the years. And I owe it to Fiona Ross (Fiona Godwin Brown after she married), to whom this podcast is dedicated.
Please email questions and comments to [email protected]
We'll be running agony aunt and uncle sessions soon - send us your problems and we'll try to help!

Tom Gattos, founder of the Rainbow Lottery, talks to me about his long and varied career in advertising. He's won awards all over the world, and worked on four continents. And he's still working, as you'll hear - but his great project now is the Rainbow Lottery - if you don't know it, check it out at rainbowlottery.co.uk - and buy a ticket, too. Big prizes and good causes to support. It's an entertaining interview, with teasing references to some of his more hair-raising escapades. About which he's promised a further, NSFW interview soon.