Creative Profile: Nils Leonard

Nils Leonard may have steered Grey London to gongs aplenty (including a Cannes Black Lion, a British Comedy Award and even a number one hit single), but this creative barrier buster sees himself as a facilitator not a leader. His job, he tells Emily Ansell, is to just get out of the way

Nils Leonard has overseen the most creatively awarded years in agency Grey London’s entire 52-year history. He is the man behind Vodafone’s beautiful spot The Kiss as well as the popular McVitie’s Sweeet campaign, but Leonard himself would describe these achievements as more of a group effort. Grey London’s executive creative director is on a mission to break down the advertising industry’s old barriers and create an ‘open culture’ where every person with a great idea can thrive.

During Leonard’s seven years leading creatives at the agency it has doubled in size and won numerous accolades, including an infamous Cannes Black Lion in Creative Effectiveness for The British Heart Foundation. This is all great news for Leonard, a designer turned creative director, whose dream is for the company to be “the agency that the public wish existed”.

Leonard grew up on the outskirts of London in Wealdstone, near Harrow, which he describes as “a bit of a rough old place”. His father was a Hell’s Angel and his mother taught theology, but Leonard didn’t follow either of these paths, instead getting drawn into the world of advertising at an early age, even before he could fully understand what it involved.

“I studied art, media, English and drama at college and I kind of knew I wanted to be in advertising but I had no idea what the different roles were. I saw advertising as a sort of glitzy and glamorous escape, but the truth is I also saw it as playing to the strengths of my family – who were basically blaggers. I thought it might be brilliant so I sort of angled towards it,” Leonard explains. “I was about to go to university but applied for summer work and got a job as a junior in design at Lintas in 1993. It was an incredible time to be in advertising. The agency was also based in Soho and that was an amazing place for a 20-year-old guy to be.”

Breaking out of the design box

Leonard ended up staying with Ammirati Puris Lintas for four years before joining TBWA, then Rainey Kelly Campbell RoalfeY&R and then Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO. He was a designer for more than a decade and held the position of head of art on more than one occasion. But he began to feel that the label of ‘designer’ was a real limitation, so started his own consultancy, Leonard Associates, making and directing music and fashion videos on the side. “The fashion and music worlds were doing much more interesting stuff than the advertising world, they were moving faster and creating work that was being talked about in the newspapers,” he says. “I’ve always struggled with the defined roles in advertising. I had a great time as a designer but I found that it meant I had to stay in design and couldn’t contribute elsewhere. I don’t think much of this approach as some of the best, most creative people I know aren’t just designers or project managers – they’re fixers and producers too. “I’d been creating music videos and shows for years, but in the ad industry my job title was a barrier, so I started pitching for my own clients while at Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO and then moved to United (in 2005), who wanted me to continue doing this and act as head of art/creative director.”

Blurring the boundaries

It was the evolution of digital and social media that Leonard says opened the industry up to making some changes and blurred some of the boundaries. In 2007 he went on to join Grey London and found a place where he could put a stop to all the frustrations felt by himself and other people and develop the ‘open culture’ that the agency is renowned for, controversially removing agency conventions such as the sign-off system. He comments: “I don’t want to name names, but at some places where I’ve worked there was this mentality of ‘You wait your turn.’ I look at this principle and I think that so much of it is wrong. If you’re in a junior position but you’re brilliant and you write a great piece of work then that work will fly and people will talk about it – surely that’s what should happen? I guess ‘open’ came from that. Most agencies have really dependent cultures. They still have sign-off, usually reserved for the ECD, and that struck me as fundamentally wrong. Why should my opinion be the only one that matters?

“At Grey, we try to empower people, it’s about trust. We put small crews together of people we trust implicitly and let them make what they want. Then my role becomes to mentor it, catch up with them and view the work as they go but ultimately it’s their call. It seems to me that this is what the industry has been crying out for.”

Making creatives uncomfortable

Leonard began the transformation of Grey London with a spate of work including the Space Chair spot for Toshiba and Lucozade’s YES campaign, which resulted in the creation of a number one track – Louder – and the most pre-sold single on iTunes ever. The company is one of very few global agencies to have been awarded outside of its own industry. It picked up a British Comedy Award for The Angina Monologues, a show at Theatre Royal Haymarket that aired on Christmas Day 2010 to an audience of seven million.

Leonard says: “I think the work that defined Grey London early on and the work I am most proud of is not just the television work. I look at things like The Angina Monologues and I think that was probably, to this day, one of our best pieces of work. That’s the sort of work we’re trying to make every day, and what’s funny is that we’ve become known as a really good television agency. One thing that I’m continually worried about is that we wake up and we’re just a big agency making telly ads – that is the danger, I think, and that’s not where any of us come from and certainly not what I’m about.”

Leading on from the subject of being about more than just TV commercials, Leonard says digital and social is the way forward and has allowed advertising pros to be more creative, bringing together more diverse teams.

“I think that creatives, despite their job title, are so afraid of change. They like it the way they like it. They like their regularity, they like their 3pm pint down the pub, they like the brief. I think that level of comfort was really allowed to breed for a long time and produced very formulaic work.

“When digital and social properly arrived they forced everyone to change their game. You saw a lot more youth coming in, you saw people who weren’t from advertising backgrounds, you saw people who came from product, entertainment and technology backgrounds and when you saw these people coming in everything was a bit more interesting. You can’t use the same old shit any longer, suddenly the whole game has changed.” He also sees that the moving image is evolving and can be used in different ways.

“Moving image in a digital sense is now being used so brilliantly – you can now make really great longform content. We’ve just completed working on The Unquiet film series for The Times online, which is a really good example of well thought through longform content. It’s a series with a story and dramatic subject matter. That’s exciting.”

Leonard says there are a couple of key ingredients that make Grey’s campaigns stand out – the agency’s creatives think about ‘long ideas’ (ideas that last the distance and don’t focus on only one medium) rather than ‘big ideas’ and the team always looks for ‘the tinder’ in an idea.

“The question we ask here, which we started before Tinder was a sex app, is ‘Where’s the tinder in this?’ For us, the tinder is the spark for conversation. And I want everyone in the room to ask that question, not just the creative director. I enjoy the energy of people. I think my job is to foster energy and I think there is a truth in the saying that energy beats talent. Ultimately, those who keep going and pushing make more and make better stuff.”

Getting out of the way of the gamechangers

Looking forward, Leonard plans to stay in the industry as long as it keeps evolving. He wants to continue making campaigns that entertain rather than just advertise, mentoring new talent and remaining ‘open’ to change.

“I think if advertising continues to reinvent itself then that’s where I’ll stay. I really love what I do but I don’t consider it to be just advertising anymore. I think it’s quite normal to place brands into culture – advertising has blended into culture and entertainment. I think you’re going to see the industry completely change. What is the industry anyway? Look at music videos; they now pay for themselves by integrating products and brands. You look at some of the best entertainment in the world and TV shows that get commissioned and see that brands are a big part of their journey.

“I think that, as long as you do it openly with a noble purpose of entertainment behind it, people want it. That’s the game I’m in and that’s fine, it’s a really good industry to be in. I think if that’s what our aim has become then that’s great. It’s technology, it’s experience and while it continues to be that broad and open it gives us a canvas like we’ve never had before,” he says. 

“I work with some of the most inspiring people in the world and that’s a brilliant part of my job. It keeps me fresh, it keeps me worried. How am I ever going to be able to stay relevant if I don’t have an open mind to how special some people are in the world? I have some people here who are honestly going to change the rules in this industry – they are incredible. I’ve just got to get out of the way for them.”

Leonard, though clearly a fan of change, hasn’t wavered in his commitment to the position of ECD since first taking up the role. Grey London quite obviously has a special place in his heart and he is determined to push every employee to fulfil their potential and keep the agency following its alternative path.

“I want us to be the agency that the public wishes existed,” he says. “Having that as a purpose means you’re not just going to put stuff out into the world that clogs it up with bullshit. You’re actually going to make things which are genuine entertainment.”