5 Minutes with… Paul Jordan

Paul> First of all, working with Andy Jex, really. He's a great creative. He's done some amazing work. As a creative, you often look at other creative work rather enviously, and he's one of those people whose work I was always envious of. So the opportunity to come and work with him felt like something I couldn't pass up really. I also did my homework on him: I know lots of people in the industry and as I asked around, I got nothing but good reports about his character and the way in which he does his business. And all that really matters.

Then I met Larissa [Vince], the CEO here, and I was like, really, really impressed. I thought she was incredibly impressive, super smart, and seemed to have that magic ingredient that not all CEOs have – a high degree of emotional intelligence to go along with the intelligence. Often they're very intelligent, they're not always emotionally intelligent. I found that to be very unique in Larissa.

Paul> There was something quite personal actually. I interviewed with them in February 2023. At the end of 2022, I got a surprise diagnosis of ADHD. 

I wasn't looking for it. I was just having a bit of a tough time at the period. My mum was very sick and passed away just recently. I just went to see a psychiatrist and he said, "Yeah, you're having a tough time, but like that's the tip of the iceberg. What's underpinning it all is I'm 95% sure you're ADHD." I think some people are looking for it. And I wasn't - I was completely surprised. I said to the psychiatrist, "How sure are you about this?" He went, "You are classic. A highly successful creative person, who needs deadlines, structure around him. Incredibly creative and spontaneous." Once I read up on it, I was like, yeah, OK.

Then I realised it might make sense. And then when I read up on it, I was moved to tears, actually. I was like, "Wow, that's me." When I was at school I was always in trouble. I was just full of beans, distracted, curious and hard to contain.

As one of the questions that was used in the interview process when they're diagnosing you, the psychiatrist said, "Were there any consistent themes in your school reports?" Almost every year, there would be this one line that would appear in my school reports. And it was, "Paul is a disruption to himself and to others." Then when I was interviewing at TBWA Andy and Larissa said, "We're the disruption agency," I thought, “This is my home. This is the universe speaking to me. This place has come along at the right time, and it's the right fit. And it's a sort of place that will appreciate your unique talents.”

Paul> It's been great. I've really enjoyed that the instincts I had about the people have borne out. They're really good, smart people. It's a slightly different role for me. I've always been the most senior creative for the past 10 years and I'm really really enjoying the number-two role. A lot less management and a lot more work. I'm really good around the work. Most creatives are. Often you're told you don't want to get too senior, as you're gonna get further away from the work, but that's advice that you have to live rather than be told. Having lived that experience I can hand on heart say I'm much happier being closer to work, closer to teams, closer to clients and getting the work through.

Paul> What I've been surprised about here at TBWA, in comparison to the network agencies, is the power of the TBWA collective. When I interviewed, Larissa and Andy were saying they're quite different, it's not a network, we call it a collective and we're super collaborative, we all help each other out and there's a lot of autonomy. I was like, "Yeah, I've seen it before." All of these networks kind of sell themselves on the schtick of collaboration between the network and with partner agencies. But a lot of the time, it's bullshit. It's a schtick that they sell to clients. I'm surprised here about the power of the collective. It really does seem to be something that is different about TBWA. There is a great degree of trust, autonomy and collaboration between the different offices. I thought it was just going to be another network agency, ruled from the centre, and it doesn't feel like that. The pirate disruption philosophy is something that is lived. It's not something that's just paid lip service to.

Paul> When my partner Angus Macadam and I first started out, we both had other lives. I'd been working for Blink, the production company. I'd been a first assistant director on the production side and he'd been in junk mail. Neither of us had studied advertising at college. We weren't what you would call a classic advertising-trained team. We learned to use that to our advantage. It allowed us to focus on the originality of the ideas rather than the craft. I think that stood us in really good stead because I think a lot of the creatives that were already in roles in these agencies are going to be better practitioners. They're always going to write a better script or art direct a better poster, as that was the bread and butter in those days. So Angus and I just did things differently. 

We had a whole portfolio when we're trying to get our first job, which was what we called 'ambient media'. It was all advertising ideas, but not necessarily in ad shapes. And actually, that won us the D&AD young creatives competition and we went to Cannes to represent Britain. That's what ended up getting us hired – just doing things differently, rather than trying to do things better.

Tapping into a little bit of the naughty, disruptive part of me. What can we do that we shouldn't really be allowed to do? That's what excites me. What's the naughty answer to this brief that's gonna get people to sit up and take notice and go "wow, they can't do that!" But actually, they have and it's for a really good reason.

Paul> A creative highlight for me is the teen road safety campaign we did, which was the world's first commercial shot entirely on a mobile phone. What was really unique about that is, it was a bunch of teenagers walking around the street on a mobile phone and then one of them gets hit by a car because they're distracted by their mobiles. 

We gave the mobile phone to a bunch of teenagers and asked them to go out and film themselves on it. And if the footage is any good, we'd cast them in the proper ad when we make the ad. That allowed us to get really authentic performances from the kids because they would never act the way that they acted if adults were around. They were just bopping around basically. We actually edited all of that footage together into the real commercial and then went back and shot the crash scene using a mobile phone. 

The idea came from the director Chris Palmer, but it took our relationship with the client to talk them into it.  We were talking to other great directors at the time who wanted to shoot it on video, but downgrade the footage to make it look like it was shot on a mobile phone. But there really is no substitute to authenticity. If you do things for real, you can just feel it. The best thing about that ad is the lack of narrative in the footage, and that's what makes it feel so authentic.

The client was the DFT, the government. That's a big call. They had to really trust us that that was gonna work. It felt like something that's incredibly innovative to shoot entirely on mobile. That's what made it really authentic. 

It was the time of happy slaps. It was released online unbranded. And it was passed around like a happy slap video. And then it arrived on TV about a month later with the endline and the logo on it and the kids realised actually it's a message from the government. I think it won the first ever D&AD pencil for digital. I just loved that it was innovative, it was brave, it took the power of the relationship that we'd built with the client to do something genuinely new, something good in the world as well. Hopefully it prevented a few teens from getting run over.

 

            

Paul> At McGarryBowen a few years ago we produced a box of Christmas crackers to commemorate Brexit, before Brexit had happened. That was for the Guardian. It was brilliant fun to make. We wrote Christmas cracker gags – things like "What to do after Christmas dinner at Nigel Farage's house? You kip." 

But I think the thing that I'm most chuffed about is that after we made 2,000 boxes of these Christmas crackers, the V&A contacted the Guardian and asked for a box of the crackers to go in their permanent collection as a physical symbol of a turning point in British history. And the Guardian were made up about that because the only time they had been contacted by the V&A before for an artefact was the Snowden computers. So for me, it was like yeah, you can keep your Gold Lions and Yellow Pencils but we got some Christmas crackers in the V&A forever.

           

When I was at BBC Creative, I did a nice campaign for 'The Green Planet' with David Attenborough, where we took over Green Park Tube station and rebranded it as Green Planet. It was a huge takeover and it was a really fun thing to do. Just innovating again, doing different stuff, not necessarily traditional media.

Paul> I always give the same advice to young people trying to get into the industry as I've done for a number of years. It hasn't changed because the media landscape has changed. And it's quite a human answer. Try not to think that the quality of your creative ideas are going to be enough to get you hired. Don't try and wow anyone with your brilliant thinking and your brilliant concepts. Be the people that the people in that business like having around. Be keen, be curious, be enthusiastic. Nothing's too much trouble for you. And if they like having you around, they're going to keep you around until eventually, they'll give you some opportunities. If you think you're amazing from the get go, you're probably not and if you've got that attitude, they're probably not going to want to keep you around. It's about getting in the door and being there when the opportunities arise.

Paul> It won't surprise you to say I think neurodiversity. I think it's something that we should be talking about a lot more. And like all forms of diversity, the power that embracing it and understanding it, bringing it in and utilising it can give to the industry, rather than just paying lip service to it. There's a writer called Brené Brown. She does lots of motivational speech type things on YouTube, and writes some brilliant books. She has a great quote, I think it's something like "Shame is like a mushroom. It grows in the dark." I love that. Neurodiversity is something that we need to rely on and not be ashamed of. And see all of the benefits that it can bring, especially to creative industries. We're kind of made for it, the neurodiverse.

It's funny. It's been less than a year since I've been on this journey. But I've been on the management team of quite a few agencies now. And I never felt like I fit. I thought it's because I was working class, which I guess also is a form of ‘other’. But actually, it's probably more to do with my neurodiversity than my class.