On My Radar: Nick Davidge

Nick Davidge is co-founder and executive creative director at LA-based full-service digital entertainment studio and branded content agency Greenlight Media & Marketing and below tells us what's on his creative radar.

What’s the best ad campaign you’ve seen recently?

The Like A Girl campaign for Always. I think it’s timely and well executed. Ads like this play on truths that are right under our collective noses and yet it takes a spot to bring it into the spotlight.

The first time I saw this ad was actually from an article on Jezebel that my wife showed me. It wasn’t in a commercial break or a pre-roll ad, it was part of a cultural conversation about gender. I have a daughter and when I think about her losing her boundless confidence because of these buried social stigmas that we carelessly pass on without really realising the repercussions, it makes me sad.

The thought that in this day and age she may not being able to achieve the things I believe she is capable of just because of her gender is a sobering thought.

What website(s) do you use most regularly and why?

Spotify, Wikipedia and YouTube. Three very different sites, but the way I use them they accomplish very similar things. Access to information and content has changed dramatically in last few years, and it blows my mind. These sites are all tools for inspiration, I can research, watch, discover, listen, learn - it really excites me. I’m one of those people who is always wanting to make stuff, whether it’s a podcast or a film or even a painting. I get to let my imagination run on these sites and drag in all these obscure references and techniques and really let loose.

What’s the most recent piece of tech that you’ve bought and why?

I just bought the new DJI OSMO camera. It's basically a steady cam with a tiny camera mounted on a gimbal so you don't get camera shake on moving shots. And it goes up to 4k resolution. It’s pretty amazing. I shoot a lot, so this is a great addition to my kit for smaller, experimental projects.

Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?

Ok, so for someone who works on the leading edge of entertainment, media and advertising you’d think that I was using social media all the time, but the truth is I’m quite a private person really. I interface with these platforms every day and witness the way they are used and evolve. They are the underpinning of a lot of our campaigns. I just don’t feel the need personally to use them to communicate my private life, even to my friends.

I love my friends and I cherish the times that I have with them, but I don’t need to be telling them what I’m doing every second. I try to live in the moment when I’m experiencing something, whether it’s a gig or a festival or a great exhibition. When I’m trying to capture it, I find it takes me out of the experience. My wife however, is the opposite. My friends follow my wife’s channels to see what I’m doing.

What’s your favourite app on your phone and why?

Hmmm, one app? Tough. It’s either Overdrive, which lets me take out audio books from all of Los Angeles’ libraries or Spotify. I use both nearly every day. They make the one-hour drive into Hollywood each day bearable and sometimes even enjoyable. That’s no small feat.

What’s your favourite TV show and why?

It would have to be Horizon, Game of Thrones or Black Sails. Man I hate these questions where I have to get it down to one. The reasons? I’ve been a fan of Horizon ever since I was a kid. Constantly provoking my interest and feeding my creativity. We don’t get the series over in the States so I have to catch it on YouTube (another reason I love YouTube) but it’s still a great way to see what new ideas and thinking exist in science and philosophy. Game of thrones and Black Sails, because who doesn’t love swords, treachery, piracy and sex? And they are both impeccably written, produced and performed. Some of the best TV out there.

What film do you think everyone should have seen?

Hmmm… 2001: A Space Odyssey, Jaws, The Tree of Life, Looking for Richard. Tree of Life is just such a beautifully shot and deeply meaningful movie for me. It conveys emotions without much dialogue and expresses a spiritual and philosophical look at the meaning of our lives and the relationships we have in such a unique way.

I love [Terrence] Malick’s work because it’s so unapologetically different. He has a very original way of using film to tell a story. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but that’s OK with me. I love popular movies, too, don’t get me wrong. I’ll watch Jaws till the cows come home and 2001 is the best Sci-Fi movie ever made. But if I only get one…

Where were you when inspiration last struck?

I was in stop and go traffic on Sunset Blvd on my way into work. I have an hour’s drive each way to the office every day and the best ideas come to me when I’m stuck in traffic just letting my mind wander, listening to great soundtrack.

What’s the most significant change you’ve witnessed in the industry since you started working in it?

The biggest change for me has been the increase in mobile streaming capabilities and mobile technology. I remember having a Treo back in the day and constantly being frustrated that it had all these tech capabilities, but that I couldn’t use them in any significant way. I couldn’t really listen to music very well. It wouldn’t stream content from websites. It was basically a brick with a big screen. Most of its capabilities were stunted on purpose by the phone company. Then the iPhone came out and suddenly all the things that I’d been searching for began to happen. The campaigns that I wanted to do were suddenly possible and it really liberated peoples’ creativity.

If there was one thing you could change about the advertising industry, what would it be?

I would change the way that people in the industry look at consumers. There’s a very us and them mentality. I hear it in meetings all the time. We reflect on this demo and that demo. Why millennials behave a certain way. The irony is that WE are those consumers, too. We buy clothes, soft drinks, cars. The consumers we’re talking about a lot of the time are us or our kids or friends. It’s very easy to remove ourselves from their motivations, like it’s an alien language. Most of the time I try and do the opposite, put myself in their shoes and ask whether what I’m working on has value for them. Is it something I would enjoy if I were them?

What or who has most influenced your career and why?

That’s a difficult question. There have been many people who have inspired me over the years and guided me along the way. You pick up things from different people. I was in a band in the UK for a long time and it really taught me a lot about working with others creatively, as well as learning how to deal with different personalities and sensibilities. I’d have to say that experience probably had the most influence on the kind of creative person I am now.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people won’t know…

I’m a huge history fan. I’ve always found it fascinating. My mum’s an antique dealer and specialises in antique jewellery. From a very early age she would drag me to antique fairs all over England. As a kid, I thought it was really boring, but in hindsight it was a great experience that really triggered a lot of my creative sensibilities. I’d get to look at old flintlock pistols or Gurkha knives or necklaces from ancient tombs. My mum recently gave me an old Romano British ring from around 200 A.D. that was excavated on the banks of the River Thames. I mean that kind of thing just blows my mind. How was it lost? Who did it belong to? What was happening in other parts of the world at that time?