5 Minutes with… Kate Stanners
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Kate Stanners is one of the leading forces in the advertising industry, serving as the global chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi where she has worked for the past 18 years. An advocate for women’s equality in advertising and beyond, Kate has seen the positive strides that the industry has made to address the gender imbalance; from a personal perspective, Kate has always felt the responsibility to ensure that her work appears representative and authentic, not just to women, but to a diverse society as a whole.
Not one to lament the ‘loss of creativity’ in the industry, Kate is realistic about the changes influencing how creativity is applied, highlighting its “innate” presence of creativity in the UK, saying, “There's a sense of ingenuity and imagination that feels built into our culture.”
Under the mantra of “making work that’s worth sharing”, Kate created the deceptively simple and endlessly memorable campaigns like ‘Dance’ and ‘Welcome Back’ for T-Mobile and ‘Old Lions’ for Carlsberg.
Speaking with LBB’s Zhenya Tsenzharyk, Kate shares tales from her storied career, her thoughts on the industry’s evolution, and career advice for the next generation.
LBB> LBB would love to know a little bit about your career journey – how did you get to the role of global chief creative officer?
Kate> It appears quite linear, but in fact, there was never a plan. I think this is very true of so many people - you start by doing something that you're lucky enough to love. I went to art college. I was going to do history but I loved art. I didn't really understand it could lead to anything. Then I went into the design degree in Liverpool. From there, I was heading to do much more traditional design. I'd been offered a job in a place that was much more design animation but then a woman that I was at college with sent my portfolio to BBH for a placement in the summer. We did summer placement at BBH and I realised that I had ideas. I had a visual way to solve quite complex problems and this could be something that I could earn a living doing. And then I teamed up with someone who I met on a train. That sounds outrageous to say, but I met the most incredible man. We got to talking and I said that I was in advertising. He had worked at McCann as an art director but realised he wanted to be a copywriter and was leaving. I had lost my copywriters. So we said, “Should we do some work together?” We just got to work on a portfolio. Did some freelance. I make it sound very easy – it wasn't. Then we got a chance to work at Gold Greenlees Trott, which was really where our crew together started. And that was, like mid 80s. We just worked 24 hour days, seven days a week, 365 days a year. For no money and we loved it. From Gold Greenlees Trott I did a little stint at Bates Dorland, which was part of the Saatchi network. We did a start-up that was St. Luke’s for 10 years. Then I did another start-up at which point I was asked to join Saatchi’s. I joined as the executive creative director for London or chief creative officer as is now called.
LBB> Do you think the meaning of creativity has changed in the industry from when you first started to now? If so, how have you seen it shift?
Kate> It depends. I think yes. but I don't know if the pure idea of creativity has changed. You know, I think we all have different articulations of what creativity is with respect to the business it is in. I think one thing that we do incredibly well in the UK is innate creativity. We have always been people that solve problems, maybe in an unusual way. There's a sense of ingenuity and imagination that feels built into our culture. At its core, that's how I see creativity, and that's what we do in advertising. So in that sense, I don't think it's changed at all. Do we make the most thrilling exciting films that we used to see on TV? No. Is it the same kind of entertainment? No. But the landscape and the smarts of creativity is extraordinary and far more expansive. It just might not manifest itself on the screen. Smart behaviour lets us be much more responsive. That's a different type of creativity. It might not end up being so crafted, but it certainly has that same imagination and ingenuity.
LBB> In 2017, you wrote an op-ed about gender bias in advertising. What’s your thinking on the issue today – how much has changed in the past six years?
Kate> I think it has changed a considerable amount. I think we are more conscious of our bias. What’s helped is there are more women involved in making advertising. In the creative, there still aren't enough but I think we're getting more creators coming through that are able to have that voice. It certainly isn't there yet. As a woman in a role where you can affect the outcome, you do constantly have to voice that opinion because it doesn't just happen. I might look at work, and I might just go, “Can we just change the main protagonist to be female? Can we please make sure that we have a cast that feels authentic? Can we please make sure when we're casting fashion, it’s not just with skinny, size eight models? Can we please make sure that we have characters that feel like they are of the Britain that we know?” Diversity will only happen as a natural behaviour when we have people involved from every part of our communities reflected back into us. We often get it wrong. I think it's okay to get it wrong and it’s okay to ask questions, as long as you kind of learn from getting it wrong.
LBB> You’ve worked on multiple award-winning campaigns in your career. Which one stands out most to you and why?
Kate> I have different reasons for really liking different work, and some of it isn't because it won awards. Awards are not the end all, be all – making an impact is. When we worked with T Mobile, it was a pan-European campaign. This was very early on in a sort of not quite understanding social media. We knew we wanted to do something to have an impact, that would cause people to share it but we didn't really quite have the sophistication of understanding maybe how to manipulate that in that way. There weren't the algorithms and there wasn't data that we have now so we were being a little bit naïve about it, but we created a flash mob event in Liverpool Street Station. We did it all for real. We had 350 dancers and 100s of the general public. As soon as someone was on camera, we had to run off and sign a release from them. We interviewed them for radio ads. We had to get permission for songs. We knew we needed to get it made and get it on the news within 24 hours, and we did. We shot it, got it on air as a two-minute special on Channel 4. We were lucky that we did it at the start of January, on a day that was supposedly the most miserable day of the year. For me, why that was so special was we did it with hidden cameras. We learnt so much. Making work that is worth sharing has always been our mantra.
When I first joined the Carlsberg account at Saatchi, I knew that I wanted to push Saatchi to be making different kinds of work, to modernise it. Work that didn’t fit into the 30-second TV commercial. The Carlsberg campaign was ‘Carlsberg Don’t Do…’ so we did one that was ‘Carlsberg doesn’t do pub teams, but if they did they would probably be the best pub teams in the world’. We managed to get the 1966 World Cup winning England team to be the pup team in our ad, which was a huge deal. The feat of getting that pulled off was extraordinary - we got them to play against a pub team who were completely unsuspecting. We shot loads of footage as we went in with a longform, not short form, mindset, and the full film ended up being 6 minutes long which was also a first. Then we carved it up into snippets for different channels. I was really proud of it because we had to learn how to do something a bit new.
LBB> On the subject of awards, do you think there's ever a disconnect between the kind of work that's awarded now or recently, and what actually resonates with consumers?
Kate> This has been a constant challenge for awards. Awards have become very important for the industry, for all sorts of reasons. It gives a label of most awarded creativity, which is an easy way for clients to feel secure and that they're buying into the right type of agency. When you drill down, a lot of that work is quite pro bono or quite niche. One of the things I think is a shame is sometimes really big campaigns get overlooked, partly because they're so far reaching.
LBB> How do you define your creative style and approach? What is your ‘signature’ in the campaigns you have worked on? Or is there a kind of thread that you think connects the work that you've done?
Kate> I think authenticity. Through my time at St. Luke's, we always made work that felt kind of raw and that translates to authentic. I've never been that stylish or polished. I favour a more reportage photographer or a documentary type filmmaker to collaborate with and tell those sorts of stories.
LBB> How would you describe your leadership style?
Kate> I do have a vision for what something should be and I have quite a clear idea of that. I have learned to listen. I didn't always do it, but I have learned to listen much more as I've been in leadership roles. Then, I make sure that everyone's voice is heard. I think that came from being very conscious as a woman. Early on when I was put in boardrooms, I felt very intimidated and not heard. I've been the only woman with 25 men sitting around, and probably the youngest too. I'm in a position now where I can make sure that everyone's voice is heard and acknowledge people that are uncomfortable in that situation. I’m always listening for the quiet people. I think working in a creative team teaches you that you have to work together. I also learned very early on that if I work with other people, I'm going to be way better than just doing it myself. I've always tried to find people that are better than me, then support them in every way.
LBB> What advice would you share with anyone thinking about joining the advertising industry?
Kate> At work, we have some incredible young talent coming in. They constantly surprise me with how brilliant they are. The industry is insatiable for ideas. Its currency is new thinking or a different take on something, and then the craft. You don't have to have it all because you will always be able to find people to make you better. People go, “Advertising is not what it used to be.” Well of course it's not, and it shouldn't be. People think about the golden era of advertising but it depends where you look at it. The golden era of advertising is now, it's going to be next year, and it's going to be in the next 10 to 20 years – it's always going to be what is right for what's happening and what's around it. My advice would be, if you didn't think it was a job for you, it probably is. Advertising is an industry that has opportunities for all types of people. One of the best creative teams that we ever had working with us had an art director who was kind of blind and a writer who was dyslexic. It's a place where your difference can really be your power.
LBB> Tell us about something you’re working on now that really excites and inspires you
Kate> I'm working on a few different things right now that are interesting for very different reasons. I've worked with Visa for a long time. And I now work with them, sort of all around the world. I know it sounds a bit nerdy, but I get really excited by the problems that big businesses have. When people go, “This part of the business is really struggling, how do we get a new audience to look at this in a new way?” I just love it. So it's not that it's a particular film or a particular social campaign. It's more those slightly uber challenges that come my way where I think, how the hell do we solve this? It’s a real privilege to be given an opportunity.
