2017 in Review: Trevor Robinson

In general, do you think 2017 has been a good year for creative advertising? 

I think with the industry being a lot more segmented when it comes to digital, digital being over lots of different disciplines and with budgets being spread more thinly, there has probably been a knock-on effect on the industry. People’s main way of driving business and getting attention used to be TV and print whereas now the pie has been divvied up. Therefore, I think there’s less opportunity for people to stand out with big creative ideas and less opportunities for people to do great, courageous concepts. Or potentially because of the fear climate our industry is experiencing, people are simply doing ‘pay the bill’ concepts. Personally, we’ve had a great year for retaining and obtaining clients, but I for one want to push on with ‘have you seen that’ factor ideas.

What piece or pieces of work have impressed you most over the last year? 

The most impressive piece of work I’ve seen this year is the Glasgow School of Art ashes project. The school was burnt down in 2014 and artists were sent the charred remains and asked to create new pieces of work from the ashes. To me those are the sorts of ideas that make you say; ‘I wish I’d done that.’ Such a simple concept but an incredible idea that speaks the power of creativity.

In-house production, both within agencies and clients, continues to be at the forefront of production minds; how has that situation evolved in the last 12 months and should ‘traditional’ production outfits still be concerned? 

This question made me laugh a little, considering Quiet Storm creatives have been writing and directing our own work for over twenty years. Directing our own work has always supplemented our income and our clients fully expect our creatives’ work to be shot by a member of the Quiet Storm team. I shudder at the thought now of having to give away our work to someone else to shoot. Not because I don’t think there’s lot of talented people out there but there aren’t too many directors out there that come up and live with the idea as long as we do; it’s our baby from conception to birth. It’s ours to escalate the idea at any point and not discard anything, which sometimes happens with modern directors that have inherited the work at directing stage and then let it go at editing stage.

Publicis’s withdrawal from Cannes and other shows for a 12-month period sparked conversation about the validity of those types of events; as a multi-award-winning creative yourself, what’s your opinion on advertising’s relationship with awards? 

I think the relationship with awards can be an unhealthy one in some ways. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a massive high when you do win awards and a great ego boost; doing a strut and a fist bump on the stage is what I know lots of people jump out of bed for and there is nothing wrong with that. However, I think sometimes validation from family, peers and unseen target audience for your work is far stronger. I’m mainly here to sell a product and a big part of that validation is when those products are selling.

Saying that, if you’re a young creative trying to get a name for yourself it is a helpful aspect. It really helped when I started winning awards when I was younger, but now my main goal is to do stuff that I’m really proud of and I know really works for my clients.

Diversity rightly continues to be at the heart of many industry conversations, though often they are gender-based discussions; do you think enough is being done about industry diversity in terms of race and class? 

From looking around I don’t think it has changed at all, in fact it sometimes seems like it’s going backwards. We’re finally seeing women in some senior positions and at my own place it’s around 50/50 in senior positions but when I venture out into advertising environments, including award judging situations, I still feel there’s a lack of diversity in the room. This, I feel, is at the detriment to advertising, not just because of what we ‘should’ do but the fact is, the talents and abilities out there are wasted. If you’ve got a such a big pool why wouldn’t you utilise everything in that pool and tap into what is out there? Just as some other successful industries have been able to do. Surely this allows the work to speak to everyone, and surely our industry is suffering because of this.

Even just at my school as a child, I know for a fact there were people far more talented and brighter than I was that would never be invited to the table, much less how it must be for the rest of Britain. At the moment, I’m working with the Creative Circle Foundation who are doing a new concept to get kids from diverse backgrounds into the industry. They firstly work as an awards body run and judged by creatives, recognising and showcasing great ideas. Secondly, as a free education body, run and developed by creatives to encourage young people of all backgrounds to learn and develop in the creative industry.

What do you think the biggest talking points of 2018 might be? 

I think the thing that catches my eye, mainly because it’s relevant to us, is the fact that before the trend was around big global networks and suddenly it has started to swing back towards smaller independent shops like us. I’m not sure what it is that the clients are finding distasteful at the bigger agencies, especially with a larger pool of talent at their mercy. However, what I do know is why the clients are being drawn to us; by offering a more hands-on, personable and transparent relationship. When you’re a small agency there’s nowhere to hide - the data is right there. The person who came up with the idea, came up with the strategy and then shot the idea are all under the same roof - there’s literally nowhere to hide. It makes for a very honest experience for all parties. I assume people will be talking about the influx of technology and the death of the 30-second commercial, which I do also see as important, but to us this is very topical.

What do you think advertising’s New Year’s resolution should be?

Try to be as creatively courageous as possible next year- try to get people actually talking about the concepts they’ve just seen again.

What will be your own New Year’s resolution, work-related or otherwise?

It sounds obvious but spending more quality time with my kids, not that we didn’t this year but looking back you can always do more. You get so much out of them and the thing that scared me this year was to see my eldest globe-trotting son stroll indoors a man, and it seems to me as if I just had him on my shoulders running up and down the garden. I have two more little ‘uns and I don’t want to miss a thing.