The Day Chiquita King Chose to Be Good

Chiquita King is managing director of Cocogun. She founded the agency with creative partner Ant Melder in early 2019.

Chiquita is a champion of ideas known to light a fire in the most jaded of marketing and advertising veterans. She's worked for some of the world’s most lauded agencies and is a regular industry speaker, mentor, judge and lecturer at The Advertising Council Australia.

She won B&T Women in Media Entrepreneur of the year last year - validation in her being renowned for building client partnerships based on trust, her unwavering work ethic and deep love of creativity that moves the world forward. 

The agency is BCorp certified, a personal ambition of Chiquita's and speaks to her desire to make a difference beyond the confines of the advertising industry. In 2023, Cocogun was inducted into the Unltd Hall of Good and Chiquita and Ant were awarded the Change Makers award, acknowledging their contribution to driving change in social causes.

They were also given a Freedom Award through Anti-Slavery Australia for their contribution in raising awareness about modern slavery. 

“This is what you’ve chosen to do, now choose to be good at it.”

Arguably, one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received because it gave me perspective. I was working at the Jupiter Drawing Room - one of the best creative agencies in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was an account director and I was sitting in my annual review with the woman who changed my life. 

Up until that point, I viewed my job as that, a job. I’d always had a strong work ethic, unafraid of working hard, but that was just the way it was. You work hard, you make every effort you can, and that’s the job. 

But in that moment, and only then, it occurred to me that what we do is a choice. Consciously or unconsciously, we choose. I kinda fell into advertising and doors opened for me and I followed, never thinking to myself ‘I choose’. 

At that moment in my review, it was like she lit a fire in my belly. For the first time ever, I thought to myself, if I made every effort to not just work hard but make a conscious decision to be good - really really good - at what I did, I wonder what would happen. 

Luckily for me, I was surrounded by brilliant minds, ambition and leadership that was unapologetic in demanding excellence. I was in the perfect place to learn what good looked like. And now that I was alert to it, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.

I started paying attention to the subtext of everything. I watched how people behaved, I took notice of relationships, the ones that thrived and the ones that didn’t. I learned valuable lessons from both. I observed and studied the most intelligent people in the room. I watched how some might command a room through the EQ and a sense of humour. And I guess the most precious thing I observed was the power of conviction, and how necessary it is in an ideas business. 

Lianne Cawood is her name, by the way. One of the most intelligent, fierce and simultaneously the most generous and kind person I know. I worked at the Jupiter Drawing Room for eight years, she was my boss for six. I feel if we had not crossed paths, I would still have a job in advertising - not a career. 

She was somebody I wanted to be. She demanded more from me everyday and I rose to the occasion. She not only made me aware of my potential, she made me want to reach and exceed it. 

I felt so incredibly lucky to be in her orbit for such an important chapter in my career. To have someone who was in many ways a contradiction - which made her very authentic. She was strong but vulnerable. She was demanding but kind. She was gracious and swore like a sailor. I just adored her and still do. 

In the last year that I was there, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and decided to resign. I learned many things that final year - one of which is that cancer is completely indiscriminate.

I also learned that she was my biggest advocate. She pushed for me to be promoted into her role when otherwise, the agency could have made an external hire. This was just another demonstration of her generosity at a time when she could have been forgiven for being self absorbed. 

I’ll never forget the evening she finished doing a handover of all the grown up things she’d suddenly exposed me to. The salary bill, the agency multiple, the expectation of the role that wasn’t written down on paper. We then migrated to Derek Logan’s office - the days when creative directors had their own offices. He also had a piano in his and he serenaded Lianne one beautiful ballad after the next while we drank whiskey from the finest crystal glasses. I got horribly drunk and haven't touched whiskey since. 

I’ve never really experienced anything like that sort of camaraderie again, until Cocogun. Many of the foundations of our business are based on the things I learned from Lianne and Jupiter’s founders, Renee Silverstone and Graham Warsop. They were advertising greats. Legends.  

‘Choosing to be good’ at what I do, holds me accountable. It sometimes demands more than I have to give. I’ve never regretted this advice, I’ve clung to it. It’s made me hungry to learn, to be better, to make a dent, to make a difference. 

Beyond choosing to be good at something, there is something more in the advice which is fundamental to being fulfilled as a human. And that is to choose. After all’s said and done, we live the life we choose.