... or experience instead of, like, having reverse audacity and being like, "I can just randomly do something better 'cause I like golf, and I can run this golf company better." But what do you know about the golf business?

Yeah.

Well, there's a great lesson there, too, that so many businesses have been started by people who care, who, who obviously, who actually care about what they're doing and what they're making.

It isn't just, "I'm gonna start a business." "I really care about this, and I think I could do it better." So again, it's bringing yourself into what you're doing.

Express yourself.

This is what it's about.

So this is...

I think there's an extraordinary lack of humility at the creative director level in ad land.

What do you think gets in the way? Is it too many people? Is it measurement?

I think the great thing in life, whatever you do, is to try and remain outside and look in.

And I think it's quite why...

I think outsiders... make very interesting people, because they're brought up with that, I'm outside, I'm looking in.

And I think if you look at so many of the great artists, the great thinkers, they were outsiders, you know, Leonardo da Vinci, all the way through, you know, he was illegitimate, he was gay, he was vegetarian, left-handed, I don't know why that should be there, but you look at them, Picasso, outsider in France, he was an outsider.

And I think that The fact of being an outsider helps enormously.

So therefore, when you come to being a brand manager, director, whatever it is you are, remain that ability to step outside and look in.

trouble.

But given how close this road is to the hospital, that's particularly frightening.

It definitely is.

And there's going to be nowhere to go for an ambulance or an emergency vehicle or a fire brigade.

The fire station's beside it there as well.

There's going to be nowhere, if two trucks are meeting there, there's nowhere for the trucks to go.

It's just the cycle lane there, the way I see it, they're the same all around Dublin and that there, and they are that wide.

I don't believe there's any reason for them to be so wide.

And how has it been, maybe from whenever you started now, trying to navigate Letterkenny?

I hope I have the energy and passion he does when I'm as young as he is.

I've been asked to do quite a lot is talk about creativity.

And I realized that people just don't really understand it.

They are unsure about it.

They are wary of it.

I'd almost go as far as to say in America, if you use the word creative, people slightly recoil.

They say, oh, I see you're going to do that edgy stuff, are you? I don't want edgy stuff.

If you've got a good enough brand story and you've got a good enough – communication metric, whether that's a billboard or a podcast or a TV show or TV commercials, people will make an appointment to watch.

It was interesting, actually.

This was about, I have to say, this was pre-COVID, actually, so this goes to show how long ago it was.

A very good friend who was working with Land Rover, Range Rover, and we were chatting about it and he was in charge of their digital output.

And we were talking about life in general.

And he said, no, I've got to go now.

I can't stay for a drink because, you know, we've got to get back.

that hit the news recently is some of the Ricky Gervais stuff that's come

the business? It was still your philosophy, was it?

Well, do you know what's interesting about it? Because people say, well, your philosophy and that.

And actually, I've always said, your philosophy comes... through your work, through your thinking.

And we didn't, BBH didn't adopt the black sheep as its symbol for, so that was like 1983, and it wasn't until 1995, I'm just gonna get my dates right, is when we moved into Kingley Street.

And so we're having a meeting with the architects, moving into Kingley Street, doing the offices up, and I say to the architect, Oh, look, I think it's a very narrow street.

I think a great big flag outside saying BBH or something like that.

And he said, you're not allowed to.

uh just interesting like how did the the how did that all start not you know the run-up to the sale but the business of creativity and uh the way i sort of looked at it was i guess it's as a sort of form of mass mentorship where you must have you know constantly be thinking i need to get this message out for people to what was the what was the story of how that all came away yeah

it's so funny that you say like marketing is in some ways caught in the 60s and like by that do you mean marketing still believes kind of their needs like there's one idea and it's just not even the idea but there's one piece of creative and just that's it and also with that maybe I think there's a level of you know low risk where people are kind of going yeah that's great but I don't think they'll buy it I don't think the boss will buy it instead of even bring it yeah like is that kind of your your viewpoint and where we're at with creativity now

yeah I think it's Well, I think

there's a, which is why I'm on this thing of the business of creativity.

We now call my course Creativity for Growth.

But, you know, I spent all my years in advertising as an art director, then as a creative director, then as an owner, with people saying to me, well, John, you're creative.

Yeah.

Oh, well, I'm not.

Who do you think is doing it well? When you're looking out there, are you kind of going, they're getting this, they're doing this well?

So is that a kind of shift of power that would affect you as a creative?

That's a very good question, that.

I...

If you go back to the original creative revolution, which happened in New York in the mid 60s, early 60s, and an agency called Dordain Burnback drove it, a man called Bill Burnback, a real visionary, a man of huge humanity and creativity.

But actually, if you looked at what they worked on, They were very local, small little companies.

They weren't huge companies.

They were, you know, a Jewish bread company in New York.

and I