15 Most Influential Creative Leaders...

In advertising, you usually spend all your time looking for the hot, the new, the next. But sometimes it’s good to look back, to appreciate the old that was once new, to see how far we’ve come.

To celebrate our 150th issue, shots takes a nostalgic trip and browses the industry’s rich creative history to pick our favourite 150 agencies, directors, production and post houses, spots, Super Bowl spots, creative gurus, brands, music videos, online campaigns, shots staff most admired work and most important changes…

Olivier Altmann

The former Paris-based CCO of Publicis Worldwide, who recently opened his own agency, Altmann+Pacreau, with partner Edouard Pacreau, has overseen some creative envelope-pushing for brands including Renault, AXA and especially Orange. Aligned with innovative work like the recent Kylie Minogue cancer awareness campaign, Altmann is one of advertising’s chief creative thinkers.

Trevor Beattie

And you shall know him by his hair. And the fact that he’s the brains behind some of the UK’s most successful – both critically and commercially – UK advertising campaigns, including the eye-catching Wonderbra poster featuring Eva Herzigova and the rebranding of French Connection to FCUK while at TBWALondon, plus great work for Carling and Thomson through BMB.

Lee Clow

From the rebirth of Apple and his almost faultless creative partnership with the late Steve Jobs, to adidas’ Impossible is Nothing and consistently innovative work for brands including Gatorade and Pepsi, Clow has been at the forefront of creative work for decades.

David Droga

Before founding Droga5, Droga was worldwide CCO at Publicis, and before that ECD at Saatchi London. In every role he has taken the creative bar, snapped it over his knee and put a new one up a little bit higher.

Fred & Farid

Officially two people, but one entity, really. Frederic Raillard and Farid Mokart came to prominence in 2002 with the brilliant, if controversial, Champagne spot for Xbox through BBH London and have since blazed a creative trail that has seen them work in the US, open an agency in France for Publicis (Marcel) then launch their own agency.

Jeff Goodby

Milk is hardly the sexiest of products but it was the white stuff that put Jeff Goodby and agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners on the creative map. Goodby’s Got Milk? campaign, which kicked off in the early 90s, produced iconic spots such as the Michael Bay-directed Aaron Burr and Noam Murro’s Birthday. Milk wasn’t the only beverage Goodby has shepherded, though: his Budweiser’s lizards, Louie and Frank, were another advertising hit. He’s also headed up cutting-edge work for Hewlett-Packard, Chevy and Xfinity.

Tony Granger

From his native South Africa to London then onto New York, Granger has overseen creative success wherever he’s landed. TBWA in South Africa, Bozell in New York, Saatchi’s in London and New York have all benefited from his creative prowess in the past. Now, as the global CCO of Y&R he is also steering that network through some fertile creative ground.

Bob Greenberg

The founder, chairman and CEO of R/GA has a practice of evolving his company every nine years. It’s gone from producing movie titles to a digital shop, to a digital ad agency, to what is now a product and services innovator. Greenberg has never followed trends but has often created them, as can be seen in the work he and his company have produced over the last few years.

John Hegarty

Sir John Hegarty to you, actually. BBH is one of advertising’s most creatively successful agencies and Hegarty is at the centre of it. Soon to step down from daily agency life, he has overseen countless award-winning ideas and when he speaks the industry listens because it’s usually worth hearing.

David Lubars

This issue’s Ad Icon has been at the helm of many great creative ideas and is, as our interview on page 58 makes clear, an agent of creative change. This is best exemplified by his groundbreaking, industry-changing work for BMW while at Fallon Minneapolis. The BMW films, starring Clive Owen and directed by a host of high-profile directors, were an online smash when online was still ‘new media’.

Chuck McBride

Before founding Cutwater, McBride spent time at TBWAChiatDay, Wieden+Kennedy and Goodby Silverstein & Partners and at each agency he has made his creative mark working on iconic campaigns for Nike at W+K, adidas at TBWA and now, at Cutwater, for Ray-Ban.

Marcello Serpa

In a shots interview from 2012, the CCO of AlmapBBDO in São Paulo said he had never met a Brazilian client that wanted to be brave from the start. It says a lot that Serpa runs an agency where creativity is the defining element. Getty Images, Volkswagen, Mizuno and Pepsi have all benefited from his, and his agency’s, exacting creative eye.

Jureeporn Thaidumrong

That Thaidumrong is the only woman on this list is a testament to her, but a rebuke to the industry at large that allows a situation where more women don’t have prominent creative roles. Thai advertising is its own, brilliant beast, and Judee, as she is commonly known, has been at the centre of some unusual but dazzling work such as Spy Wine Cooler DJ, Smooth E Love Story and Sylvania Light Bulbs Long Life.

Dan Wieden

For Nike, for Old Spice, for being a consistent creative force in the advertising industry and for coming up with ‘Just Do It’. I mean, come on, what more do you need?

Stephane Xiberras

The president and CCO of BETC Paris is, alongside Rémi Babinet (the ‘B’ in BETC), responsible for some of the best TV spots to have ever graced the pages of shots. Canal+ has proved fertile creative ground, with award-winning work including March of the Penguins, The Wardrobe, The Bear and Visigoths.

This feature first appeared in shots 150.