Stop Playing It Safe and Take a Risk: Indy Selvarajah’s Rallying Cry

Sri Lankan/Malaysian blood. British by design, Indy Selvarajah is a CCO who started his career showing work at The Serpentine Gallery, Tate Modern and Whitney Museum of American Art. He then wrote a TV show for Channel 4, winning a Guardian Top 50 TV Show of the year trophy.

Next, Indy moved into advertising, creating the award-winning ‘Thierry Henry’ Sky Sports film. The most viewed advert in 24 hours in Facebook history, with 21 million views and the 3rd most watched ad in the world that week.

He then moved into the PR world, creating 'Father's Day Taken' for Dove Men, honouring Black men killed by police brutality. And recently, at Ketchum Adobe X Women’s FA cup, ‘The Most Boring Room Ever’ by Lego and their recent Liming with Gran campaign.

He has won at D&AD, One Show, Cannes, Clio, Epica, Creative Review, PR Week and spoken at Cannes, Vice, Tate, Channel 4 and BFI.

If there is one piece of wisdom from my career that's always stayed with me, is that you’ll never know if you don’t try. The moment when I learnt this was when I was given the opportunity to write a show for Channel 4.

I was 27, and a gallery artist, showing my work in group shows at some cool places like the Barbican and Serpentine. During this time, I started to create a website featuring some pretty ‘out there’ animations, stories and images.

I made up funny calling cards that featured the website's name, ‘it ain’t funny being coloured’ and an image of a forlorn-looking black German shepherd (our family dog).

I managed to sneak into some production companies that I thought were doing cool comedy stuff, leaving them on executive producers' desks.

I always thought the website could make an interesting TV show, but never thought it would come to fruition. This was until one day, a production company called Zeppotron (Charlie Brooker was one of the founders) liked what they saw and called me in for a chat.

This led to a meeting with the commissioning editor of comedy at Channel 4, Nana Hughes, who really liked the website and offered me a spot on one of their 30-minute comedy lab TV shows.

I had lots of determination, grit and a little bit of madness to even think I could get a TV show.

But that’s not enough.

You always need someone who spots something different, a raw talent or new perspective and then helps you get there.

I mentioned Nana Hughes, and it was 100% down to her. She had total trust that I could pull it off; she even asked if I wanted a writing room or TV writers to help, but I said I wanted to do it myself. And she totally put her neck on the line, but that’s what we did. I remember she even said to me, ‘Let’s go for it. We can’t not put this kind of material on air.’

And so, I would say she is 100% the person I remember the most about giving me that big creative opportunity because we had a shared ‘fuck you let’s do it’ mentality!

Luckily, the show was a real success. It has repeat showings at prime time and, most importantly of all, the Daily Mail tried to ban it…and failed!

But getting to conceive and write a TV show at 27 allowed me to fast-track with my writing, art direction and understanding, and seeing how directors and producers work.

This totally fast-tracked me. I got a TV agent and started writing for other shows, whilst I was still doing gallery shows. But above all, it opened my eyes to other worlds like TV and then advertising. If I could write a 30-minute show, I could definitely write a 30 or 60-second ad.

I have always had huge self-belief in my work and what I do, but this gave me added confidence too. Half the job in our industry is convincing people that what you are thinking or saying is the right path.

It’s something that has been deeply ingrained ever since. I have always taken the plunge and risk whenever I had the opportunity, even when it would have been safer to stay put.

This is true for my career; gallery artist to TV writer to advertising to PR agencies.

I am always telling creatives in my departments to throw caution to the wind in everything they do. It’s a great rallying cry and what people who work for you should be hearing; otherwise, what’s the point in having someone like me in a leadership role?

Not taking risks, playing it safe, worried about what clients might think, even before seeing the work, no thanks.

And this is so true to the PR world, which I have been in for the past seven years. It’s an industry that has classically been very subservient and has a real lack of risk-taking. So it needs a kick up the ass from people like myself to show how progressive we can be and produce work that excites, surprises and charms in equal measures.