Selling Versus Saving The World

Chris Norton 0:00

Has the marketing sector lost sight of who's important and what is important? And is that a commercial focus? There's been a crisis of creative effectiveness. Have we been too focused on purpose and making sure as inclusive as possible, whilst losing the view that selling stuff is important? Marketing is about creating demand, and PR is about reputation management, and advertising is about telling people about those amazing products that you've got. We stopped selling and started saving the world. Today's guest has won more candlelines than anybody else, 18 in total. He used to work at Opalbe and then founded his own agency, which became one of the biggest direct mail companies in the world.

Steve Harrison 0:43

We're talking about brands who have been promoting their purpose and have spent tens of millions of dollars doing so. It really hasn't landed.

Chris Norton 0:54

He had some interesting points that we discussed. Um, I think you're gonna find it really fascinating.

Steve Harrison 0:59

We've we've got the the order completely wrong. Growth doesn't come from good, good comes from growth.

Chris Norton 1:06

Here's the conversation that Will and I had with Steve Harrison. Enjoy.

Meet Steve Harrison

Chris Norton 1:18

Well, Steve Harrison, welcome to the show.

Steve Harrison 1:20

Thank you. Thank you for having me, lads.

Chris Norton 1:22

Um yeah, you you're welcome. We we enjoy being in your kitchen. The microwave is now the star of the show, but unfortunately you're blocking our view of it now.

Steve Harrison 1:29

You're I'm afraid that this is a bit of a sham. I'm in my house in the Cotswolds, in my library, in my oak paneled library, and this is a green screen um upon which I projected the image of a of a lower middle class um suburban kitchen. Uh, just to maintain the pretense that I am a man of the people. We like it.

Chris Norton 1:54

I like it, I like a man of the people. Um you are you've been into you've been in uh the ad world of advertising for how many years is it, Steve?

Steve Harrison 2:03

40 years ago, I started in 85, so 41 years.

Chris Norton 2:09

Wow. And what what in those 40 years advertising has changed a hell of a lot? Um I mean I'm I'm 48, so I've seen so we I remember the good old Hamlet days and the entertaining content days, and sometimes I can see some amusing ads, but today, what's the state of advertising in 2026, would you say?

Award Winners That Do Not Sell

Steve Harrison 2:31

Um, in a in a nutshell, I'd say that it was part of the warp and weft of British culture and central to British business uh in the days when you know the ads that you were quote talking about and when I started in the business, and now it's drifted very much to the margins of British culture and to the margins of British business.

Will Ockenden 2:52

So are we are we are we not getting good advertising anymore? I mean, is it is it still effective? You know, what what what's your view on that? How how's that changed?

Steve Harrison 3:01

Um well the very good advertising isn't well the award-winning advertising isn't effective, and I think that's the thing that should worry us. Um that the IPA calculated that uh even as recently as 20 years ago, the award-winning work was more successful commercially by a factor of 12 to 1 to non-award-winning work. So the stuff that we were all enthralled to and we were all emulating, trying to emulate, um, was very successful commercially. And the biggest problem, I think, is that that there's been a crisis of creative effectiveness, which the IPA uh recognised about three years ago, where the award-winning work is having no impact.

The Shift To Social Impact

Will Ockenden 3:51

So the the the the work's being produced for judges, not for consumers, is that a fair assumption?

Steve Harrison 3:57

Well, we stopped selling as well, Will, um as as I keep on uh ad nauseum telling people, you know, and I don't want to get back into that because hopefully people realize now that we stopped selling and started saving the world uh from about 2012 onwards. Um and so the aim was to produce work that had a societal impact rather than a commercial impact. Uh, and because that aligned with the industry's natural progressive left-leaning bent, that became the work that everybody emulated and everybody rewarded. Um, the DNA D's chairman and the team at the DNA D tried to shift our definition of what creative excellence was to work with the societal impact as opposed to work with a commercial impact. Um, and so that's that's that that's what happened. That's where things went wrong.

Why Old Ads Entered Culture

Chris Norton 4:56

Do you think do you think we, though, being of an age uh that we are, do you think that we look back on like because I I listen to other podcasts and I I read a lot in in the marketing spectrum? Do you think we look back with nostalgia and say it was better then? But in truth, like the Hamlet adverts, the entertaining stuff that we remember, the funny stuff, even even right up to the links and the tango ads and all that sort of stuff, um is it just that we're remembering the best stuff? Because if we look at 2026 or 2025 or whenever you you've got you have still have I mean, you've got you've got ads that are still brilliant and you will remember in years to come. I mean, there's mildly annoying, like the Go Compare Man and the The Meer Katz, which is what everybody always uh goes back to as a reference. There is still excellent advertising going on, and is it just that we're remembering a slightly better because in it back in 1985, and well actually 1984, because I'm the year that you started, I'm sure it got miles better. But the year before, there was still 98% of shit, right? Would wouldn't it be only the best would have made award win?

Steve Harrison 5:59

Yeah, I mean, advertising was it it it has it has always been a rather unfortunate ratio of 95 to 5. But I would quite challenge you and say if you ask the general public what their favourite ads were, and we always find that when channel 5 cannot fill two hours of broadcasting time, it runs uh the nation's favorite ads. Um and those favorite ads are usually they they they they stop at about 2012. Uh and they include spec savers, maybe, and they include links, perhaps. Um, but I don't think anyone actually includes Meerkat or GoldCompare, which are the most memorable ads of the past 10-15 years, but they aren't lovable. You know, they work effectively because they they they keep it's name recognition advertising, but it's not necessarily I mean Go Compare is not, I think, charming, lovable advertising. People it f for after 15 years of repeating that slogan, I don't know a lot of people who incorporate it into their into their conversation. Go compare, you know, kind of you'd have you know, for fuck's sake, you would have thought after the tens of millions of pounds, you know, kind of not like a better drink scarlin black label, you know, kind of which was part of the war, which became part of the lingua franca. I'll give you an example. When I started taking strong drugs, the first time I ever took amphetamine sulfate and a bit of opium as well, which was uh you know, as a as a youngster, Carl McGrath said to me, You'll be going up that hill as fast as you come down it. Now, you'll be going up that hill as fast as you come down it was verbatim from the Ridley Scott Hovis commercial. You know, that's how central advertising was to our lives then, that it and that it that it became part of the the the vocabulary, phraseology of what we used. And I don't I can't think of one ad in the past 15 years that has gifted the English language a slogan.

Will Ockenden 8:18

It is part of this down to kind of uh the modern advertiser's obsession with multi-channel, so you know you you don't necessarily get the big ticket TV C anymore. You might, but then it's got to work as banner ads, it's got to work on social media, it's got you know what I mean? And uh perhaps an idea has to be simplified and diluted because it has to work on a on 150 different channels.

Steve Harrison 8:39

Well, you're talking about straplines with uh better he drinks Carlin Black Label or uh if only everything in life was as um oh sorry, kind of hamlet, you know, Hamlet ads. I mean they were end lines, they would simply, you know, kind of they could have been attached to your point, Will, we have more opportunity to implant uh memes, you know, kind of because we're we're we're we're always on, you know, kind of you can't get away from the ideas we're trying to to to project, trying to get in in into the into the the culture, and we're failing, you know.

Chris Norton 9:17

I I went to um I went I don't want to ruin his content, but I went to see um by giving away some of his acts, but I went to see Peter K's re uh his final tour, isn't it? I went to I it took me bloody three years to get my tickets because I tried to get some anyway. But the the point is I there is a something about it being as part of the zeitgeist, the vernacular, because hit there's a part of the show in Peter K, and he literally goes, If you like a lot of chocolate, and stops there. And then and we took my son who's 18. 40 years ago. Yeah, my son's eighteen, and the whole the whole stadium went on your business gate, joining, and he just looked at us all like, what is going on here? So it sort of does make sense, really. So you're saying collectively this lack of uh whatever you call it, memorability, creativity, um this must be costing industry.

Purpose Claims That Do Not Land

Will Ockenden 10:13

Is that a fair assumption? You know, are are brands missing out on on revenue or are they getting it in different ways? I mean, the the flip side of it, of course, is there's a there's an awful lot of brands that would argue leaning into purpose has brought them huge revenue. So, you know, you can take brands like uh Ben and Jerry's, Unilever, Dove, Patagonia, you know, Dove championing um realistic body image. They would argue on the flip side, while perhaps they haven't got catchy strap lines, leaning into purpose has delivered enormous commercial benefit. I mean, three to four times the growth of of non-purpose-led brands is is is is a term.

Steve Harrison 10:50

Is that a quote from Unilever?

Will Ockenden 10:54

Uh it's from um I don't know where it's from, actually. Uh it probably it could be. I mean, you know, and I suppose the second part of that is are are they cynically leaning into purpose?

Steve Harrison 11:04

No, no. I I I only last week I took part in a drum uh panel featuring Victoria Tate from Ehrenberg Bass, who are widely regarded as the guru, world world-renowned gurus for um creative effectiveness and campaign effectiveness. And they've done research uh past a few only a couple of months ago into exactly Ben and Jerry, Lush, Body Shop, uh Dove, um, Who Gives a Crap, uh Tony's Chocolone, and they they got their uh UK, US, and Australian groups together, and they showed them the purpose statements for all of those brands, but they didn't tell them which ones they were, but they told them which brands they were running them against, and they said which one goes with which. And one in ten people could actually ascribe a mission statement to that particular brand. And as Victoria Tate explained, if you factored guesswork in, where people went, that one, uh uh, that one, it was it was it was um, yeah, one it was it was one in five could do it until you factored in guesswork, and it was one in ten once you'd factored in guesswork. And we were talking, we're talking about brands who have been promoting their purpose uh for over 20 years and have spent tens of millions of dollars doing so. And Ehrenberg Bass's conclusion is it hasn't landed. It really hasn't landed. And the my suspicion is that the if people if you ask people what Ben and Jerry was, they'd say that's the one with the extra handful of chocolate chips, isn't it? And if you ask people what Tony's Chocolone was, they'd say the big chunky chocolate. Right? And if you ask them what Patagonia was, the really warm things that keep me keep the wind out when I'm rambling.

Will Ockenden 13:12

You know, kind of rather than what they stand for as a brand.

Steve Harrison 13:15

Yeah, absolutely. And talking about Unilever and Proctor and Gamble, when I started banging this drum about we need to return to our commercial purpose and move away from our social purpose, the biggest my biggest problem was people would say, but what about Unilever?

Free Money And The Return To Product

Steve Harrison 13:33

And Alain Jope saying, we're going to get rid of brands that don't do anything more than make your hair clean, your clothes white, and your food tastes good. We're going to get rid of those. Um and within two years of him making that statement, he'd done a complete reversal, and we were going away from moral superiority back towards product superiority. And the same thing with with Mark Pritchard at Procter Gamble. He stood up at the at V at the Viva Tech Conference in Paris in 2020, and he said, growth and good, we've we've got them the the order completely wrong. Growth doesn't come from good, good comes from growth. And we've got to double down on product superiority. Both Unilever and Proctrent Gamble by 2022 had shifted completely back to sell the product.

Will Ockenden 15:19

So are do consumers care about um purpose? I mean, it it sounds like there's an element of bullshit here, possibly, in terms of these brands or or you know, industry research claiming these brand purpose-led brands perhaps are outgrowing non-purpose-led brands.

Steve Harrison 15:37

You know, it's an illegal. But you must remember that purpose was huge during a time of free money. Okay, from 2010 until 2022, uh interest rates were at the lowest for 40 years. Okay, so they're bumping along at 0.1%. Remember that. So you could actually grow without any organic growth. What zero interest rates led to was huge corporate debt and fiscal incontinence. Okay, and so your marketing CMO could be off in the sandpit with his agency, doing whatever they wanted, whatever the agency suggested they might do, and whatever Edelman was telling them is absolutely what the audience wants, right? And then suddenly, from 2020 onwards, inflation suddenly starts to rise from 0.1% to 11.5%, the highest in 40 years. The banks respond by putting the interest rates up every quarter. So suddenly, by mid-2022, you're at 5.5% interest, and suddenly the massive debt that Unilever and Proctron Gamble had accumulated on free money has got to be paid for. And suddenly they go to the CMO, you know, the advertising budget. Uh, what's have you has it have you got a return on our investment? And that's when they decided moral superiority, I think we can shelve that, product superiority, let's start selling the shit out of the things that we're making.

Will Ockenden 17:22

So um, with everything that's going on in the world, you know, um chaos is the new normal. Um what's gonna happen to the state of advertising in the next five years then? Are we really gonna kind of pivot back to actually being comfortable with selling and moving away, you know, brands increasingly moving away from purpose or um uh things like that?

Steve Harrison 17:42

Yes. Um in an unstable world where inflation looks like it's gonna spike again, you know, uh during wartime, uh, cost of living crisis. Whenever you've got a cost of living crisis uh and people are shopping on value, uh and when margins are being squeezed for the for the brand maker for the brand owners, then you are going to have commercial purpose is the only option that the brands have got. They don't have the luxury of indulging in uh virtue signaling. And and quite frankly, the audience aren't interested. The audience aren't interested in um we we've massively um over exaggerated our influence on the world, on the consumer. You know, kind of they we've tried to make them think that what matters to us matters to them, or what is important to us is important to them.

Chris Norton 18:46

So I got your I I got your book, which is all about which is all about this. And I I found I found a lot of it fascinating because

Class, Access, And Adland Hiring

Chris Norton 18:53

obviously, as I said, I'm a particular age, and one of the bits that I got from the book um that I thought was really interesting is the amount because you you talk about Adland, obviously Adland. I imagine is Adland your in your is that London the London centric, yeah. Uh because I I I went from a working class background to work in in um London, and when you talk about having to um sort of mirror the behaviours and the way that you talk and the way that you hold yourself because you're working class and being from the north near near Leeds, from Harrogate near Leeds. Um and yeah, I do I do remember thinking I had to sort of kind of fit in, even though everyone was really friendly, but there's a certain way because otherwise you get labelled as the northerner and etc. etc. But is that still going on? Because when you've written this in the book, you've said like that the amount of the amount of um working class background people is is reducing even further than when I started 25 years ago. It's just dropping and dropping and dropping. What why do you think that is?

Steve Harrison 20:01

Um because we're not interested in hiring them. Because our problem is that we are an industry that 10 years ago dedicated itself, the IPA um launched the industry on the quest for greater diversity. Uh, but the problem is that in a progressive industry like ours, which is progressive politics is fixated upon race and ethnicity, sex and gender, right? So you are you have a diversity program built upon those identities. We were simply employing more middle class people. Okay, the pipeline may have opened in from different directions, but the same kind of people were coming through. So what you've got is a university-educated, metropolitan middle class elite who are running the show and hiring in their own image. So this is why the number of so then uh so to answer your question, this is why the number of working class people in our industry has now shrunk to 18%.

Chris Norton 21:03

And it's one of the reasons why apprenticeships are so key to the whole getting apprentices in from different working class, not public school backgrounds, just to have like an actual diversity of back of different backgrounds and I mean they've tried to do the so essentially the industry has tried to do the right thing and has ended up uh sort of excluding slightly by default. Well maybe we should be hearing more people with working class accents and um with different views, then.

Steve Harrison 21:37

Well, I think I you say that it's tried to do the right thing, but I think it's tried to do a bit of social engineering in line with its own political point of view. This is what I mean about in my book, The Progressive Gaze. That rather than focusing that the progressives, you're a good, I imagine you're a good old-fashioned socialist, right? And you've probably frame history and politics through the prison through you you frame it by a class and economics, you know, kind of, whereas the progressives frame history and modern and contemporary politics through identity and oppression. They don't accept that the working class that socioeconomic barriers exist. So if you tr but so instead of trying to achieve diversity based upon socioeconomic terms, which would open the doors to 44% of the population, the working classes of all colours, all ethnicities, all genders, you know, kind of, it we've narrowed it to uh uh diversity based upon identity identity. I am in no way saying that uh this is extra. Exclusive of the other protected characteristics. I'm saying the working class should be a protected characteristic, and under the Equality Act of 2010, it isn't. Just to continue this about getting the working class people in, I don't think that they would be welcome. I don't think that actually the the progressive elites would be too welcoming of genuinely working class people coming into the industry. You know the old thing about I I took this out, you know that that saying, bring your a bring your whole self to work. And I took this from a HR manual. According to HR manuals, bringing your whole self to work means authentically integrating your personal values, identity and emotions into the workplace to foster deeper connection, innovation, and psychological safety. But if you were to bring your working class values in, and those working class values and opinions included the idea that you actually thought that reform would make a good government, that mass migration immigration has actually been a bad thing and damaged your community, and that you actually, your family were brought up to think that Brexit was a good idea. I don't think you'd be welcome. I think people would say, well, you can come in, but don't bring your entire personality into work, please. Don't bring those belief systems into work. You would be ostracized if you brought those in. So what can change then? What needs success?

Chris Norton 24:23

What what what practical steps can agencies take to try and avoid this problem reoccurring all the time?

Steve Harrison 24:31

Well, they could go to a man called James Hillhouse, who runs a company called Commercial Break. Um, but James and his shtick is that he gets working class people into the industry, into advertising. But he says that the biggest problem is that the middle class elites, the progressive elites, will not compromise on their values, that they expect the incomers to adopt those is as as you you as as you said, Chris, you know, it hasn't changed. They expect you to aculturize rather than being welcoming of an alien point of view, you know, kind of of a of a di of an alien culture as far as they're concerned. And one that they find, if you were to voice those opinions that I've just mentioned, they would find them shocking and reprehensible.

Chris Norton 25:27

I would I mean I've got I've got some advice for people. So obviously, we're from the PR world, and I know a couple of people that run something called socially mobile, which is to get working class and all people from all um socioeconomic backgrounds into public relations. So if they want to find out about that and want to get involved in that, this is free training and everything, and it's called socially mobile.org.uk. I just thought that's quite an interesting thing to say because there is plenty, there'll be plenty of people out there that aren't from that that want to get into these industries that can't find a route in. And I do feel their pain because you mentioned in your book about the fact that there's a high percentage of people have got degrees, university degrees. And they were they were I I managed to get um funding for part of my degree when I was when I uh so I could afford to go to university, and I realize now you have to get loans, so it's even harder to get from what those socio economic groups. So uh yeah, anything that can help people from all backgrounds to get in the industry, we we do it, we've had some apprentices and uh uh in in our agency to try and do that. But being in the north, I don't know if we're slightly different because we I don't know, I don't know how it works. Um nobody's perfect, the industry as a whole isn't perfect, you know, the whole creative sector isn't perfect, and I think excluding any group is terrible, really. You've got to try and include as many people and as many personalities and backgrounds to try you know to challenge you and to try and make you think to make you make better campaigns.

Steve Harrison 26:52

Well well, I I I don't I think you're inwardly looking there. I think the reason why you the only reason, the primary reason why you're looking for a diverse workforce is so that you can create work that resonates with the mainstream mass audience. And you've got to you've got to reflect the mainstream mass audience. Uh you have a much better chance of creating work that resonates with your audience if those people if you've got people from the audience working in your agency. I mean, there's no other reason for that. There's no it's not a sanctimonious um thing. I know I can uh it it it is you hire people who will enable you to create work that works out in the marketplace.

Chris Norton 27:37

Okay, so Steve, you've uh told us a little bit about a problem that you uh about accepting a global leadership

Building A Direct Marketing Powerhouse

Chris Norton 27:44

role um after building Harrison, is it Harrison Troughton Wunderman, is that what the agency was called, into a successful agency. I mean you were there, you you set that up. Firstly, what it was like, what was it like founding that and how did it how did your bit end and go wrong at the end? I was quite intrigued in that story.

Steve Harrison 28:01

Well, I was I'd worked at Ogilvy and me. I I didn't get into this rack until I was 29 uh 30, and then I managed to become creative director at Ogilvy and I got fired. I didn't get fired, I just fell out with them all. Um and I was unemployed and I set up HPT brand response, and then that became Harrison Troughton Wunderman. Um so we reverse took over Wunderman. Wunderman is a big part of a big network of direct marketing shops, right? 40 shops around the world it was then. And London was dead in the water, it was losing 40 grand a month when we did a reverse takeover of it. Uh and for five years, in five years we turned it into the most profitable shop in Europe, but also the best creative shop in the world. Um as as yeah, the empirical evidence for that would be more can lions than any other agency in the world, etc. More DMAs, you know. 18 can lions, that's pretty impressive. I think it was, yeah. I think it was.

Will Ockenden 29:06

You must have got bored of going up on stage to collect the awards.

Steve Harrison 29:10

Um, yeah, I never got bored of that.

Chris Norton 29:14

Who does get bored of getting awards?

Steve Harrison 29:17

Yeah. Um and so at the end of my earnout, it was a five-year earnout, and at the end of my earnout, I became a salaried employee again. And but in the final year, because of the success we'd had, they said we wanted to become worldwide creative director. And I thought, this is brilliant, this is great, because we'd got a work culture um at HTW where we trained the shit out of everybody. You know, we we taught them how to write a brief, how to sell work, how to come up with an idea, how to prepare the room before you know it started. All manner of you know, we we had a very distinct creative work culture. And I thought, and this was my biggest mistake, I thought that we could export that around the world and we could create this worldwide, worldwide network of very seriously creative shops, you know, kind of who with principled, but you don't take on work that, you know, you have three things. Will it will will we can we do create great creative work? Will we enjoy it? Will it make money? And of course, will it make money had to be no no it we had to answer two of those, okay? And sometimes it would it didn't matter if we didn't make any money, you know, kind of um and we turned Ford down and could have more Martin and I could have quadrupled our earnout, but we turned Ford down because we knew it would make us collapse because it was just too big. So we we I thought that we could extend this throughout the throughout the throughout the the network. Uh and how stupid of me, because essentially all they wanted to do was make me worldwide creative director, get me out of London, so that they could actually make London part of the you know the problem, you know, as the problem I'd perceive. They could turn it into just another factory, you know, producing mediocre crap, you know. And that's what happened. Um I I took the job and then was told that I no longer had operational responsibility in my own agency. You know, kind of so if we were pitching, I couldn't be involved in the pitches. If there was any, I couldn't look at the briefs, I couldn't pass opinion upon the creative work.

Chris Norton 31:42

So you were pushed out basically, so that you got paid and then you got pushed out. I got a classic case of the found the founder sells his agency and gets pushed out.

Steve Harrison 31:50

It it yeah, yeah. I was offered gazillions of you know, a massive salary to to travel the world stealing bathrobes and towels from five-star hotels, essentially.

Chris Norton 32:05

Oh god. And so um when you that that era though of direct mail was was a great

Direct Mail Then, Email Now

Chris Norton 32:11

era of direct mail. I mean, again, we're going back, I'm going getting all nostalgic for direct mail because some direct mail was brilliant. Um I got some direct mail. Ironically, before we started this bloody podcast, we talked about your book, which I've read, which is um I'll give you a book of plug, it's Adland's Progress Progressive Gaze by Steve Harrison. Interesting, interesting about all the things we've covered. But I also get books sent from all sorts of different people. And I had one the other day, and it was just it looked like a handwritten note, but it was it also looked like not a handwritten note, so it's clearly printed, and then they just sent it out to loads of people unsolicited. So I open it and it means that I've got to read another marketing book if I decide to read it, and then hopefully invite the guy on the show or whatever, the gallic guy or gal on the show. I think that in my view, direct mail used to be great back in the day. There used to be really clever executions of it. Um, but mail per se has died, emails killed it, hasn't it? I mean, Royal Mail, for instance, are in the the amount of complaints you've seen about them not delivering the bloody mail. So, what what's your view on the state of direct mail now compared to back in 19, you know, 1990 or whatever?

Steve Harrison 33:19

I I uh it's funny, you know, the thoughts just occurred to me when you say that Royal Mail is in the toilet on the ropes, basically. The amount of revenue they've lost, eh? When you think about it, I don't think I it's never occurred to me, but just imagine the amount of revenue the Royal Mail have lost, the Post Office has lost since direct mail uh collapsed as a medium. You know, kind of I mean when you think that the the stuff that appeared on your door on your doormat, probably three out of five pieces that appeared on your doormat were direct mail. So that means that the post office has lost 60% of its revenue.

Will Ockenden 33:56

Replaced by um ASOS return packages.

Chris Norton 34:00

Yeah, they're getting priority, aren't they? Packages, that's what they're saying. A lot of the in the news, allegedly, close brackets, um, that the postmen have been asked to prioritize parcels and just put the letters to the side if they can't fit it in.

Steve Harrison 34:13

Wow, wow. So what do I think about it? Um thank thank you, Chris. It was a golden age. There was a time when um when suddenly quite a lot of agencies were doing ideas-driven work, um and they aren't anymore. Um because there aren't the list the there were things called list brokers who could find as you could tell you where people lived and divide them into A of B1, ABC2, you know, kind of all this kind of stuff and target your stuff. There were mailing houses who could who could um you know, I don't know what mailing houses did, but they did it. And there were carbon engineers who could create these fabulously intricate packs and whatever. And there were direct mail shops, there were direct marketing shops who could do the creative for it. And unfortunately, uh a little like but what industries would you say that has just completely disappeared? Um, you know, kind of like well, shipbuilding. Like shipbuilding, you know, kind of uh You're so right.

Will Ockenden 35:17

You're so right. I mean, the the first agency I ever worked at many years ago, they had a small PR team. It's called JDA, which is Judith Donovan Associates. And I remember they're absolutely terrifying. Um smoked cigars and drank red wine, didn't she? Um the the agency was pivoting towards trying to be digital and stuff when when I joined it. And but at the time, there's a fulfillment team, there's a print production team. I mean, it's insane that all of these kind of um subsidiary industries, you know, the fulfillment houses probably don't exist anymore. But I suppose um building on Chris's question, you know, is is it is it a way to cut through? Because you know, it's about marketing, effective marketing is often about distinctiveness or novelty, isn't it? So actually is pivoting back to the occasional direct mail, assuming you can actually get it to someone's doorstep if Royal Mail or whoever you use works. I mean, is that a way to cut through in in this digital world or in?

Steve Harrison 36:16

I would think so. I uh especially to a younger audience. I mean, A, you'd probably get the nostalgia effect of of mailing to people over 40, and you'd get the novelty effect of mailing to people under 40. Um and it, you know, kind of in an in an era where you're going like this, because you don't you're rejecting work going bop but you the messages being chased around the internet by people shouting offers at you, you know, kind of um to actually have something addressed to you uh that looks and feels, and you suspend this belief a little and think this is if it's done properly, it was sent to me, and your targeting is right, and you've got a good enough writer uh to and you've got an involving enough idea, uh I think they'd be hugely successful.

Will Ockenden 37:07

I keep getting a piece of direct mail to my house for a retirement village. Um I think my I think one of my friends has signed me up for it because they're talking about weather. I love that.

Chris Norton 37:18

I love that. And well, uh we work for a um we work for a later life lending um organisation, one of our clients, and it's all about getting mortgages, you know, releasing equity in your house later in your life so you can live the dream and um some of it you can keep, some of it doesn't and I they keep talking about it when it's like over fifties, and I'm like, shit, I'm 49 this year. Uh I'm gonna be in there talking for everything.

Steve Harrison 37:41

You'll be getting mailings from Saga Saga will still send you stuff, Chris.

Chris Norton 37:46

Oh, oh good. I'll I'll I quite fancy a saga trip without the kids. Um my god, yeah, yeah, it's uh it's a frightening world.

Steve Harrison 37:55

I think you were gonna ask me what advice would I give to someone taking a global role. I think that was when we talked before, I think that was um and apart from the short answer,

Global Roles And Losing Leverage

Steve Harrison 38:07

don't um the the thing is I would say the major danger is that you you you relinquish your power. Your power resides only in your job title uh if you take a global role. Uh if you no longer have a constituency, i.e. a department that work that you work with day to day and is producing good work, then you then your power, you no longer have power over the that you no longer have anything to substantiate the advice or the that you're giving on a global level. So it becomes like, who the fuck's he? You know, kind of you're you know, uh you come in on a quarterly basis, you meet the people in ab uh abroad, they're very nice to you, you know, kind of, and then as soon as you've gone, they shrug the shoulders and go, Who the fuck's he? And also you don't have any power with your peers, your other board members, the other C-level people, because you're like, you know, kind of you you are you you you you have no leverage because it's just you and you're actually dispose instantly disposable, actually, because you have no leverage, you know, kind of getting rid of you is simply actually saving a cost.

Will Ockenden 39:27

So why are there such global roles?

Steve Harrison 39:30

Um because they're big networks, you know, kind of the the industry, as you know, is you know, the omnicons, the WPPs, they're all network businesses, and they all have and in in its attempt to provide some kind of unified face to these disparate entities. And so it's it's window dressing largely, I think.

Will Ockenden 39:55

So, with all the frustrations of a global world, do the five-star hotels and business class flights not offset that?

Steve Harrison 40:02

Not if you have any principles.

Will Ockenden 40:06

Good answer.

Chris Norton 40:07

Um so if if you've got one bit of advice for somebody in the uh entering the creative space uh in 2026, what would you what would you give them? What what what what or or um even better than that? If what what do you think the industry should change this year? If you if you could be if you could be Steve Harrison is in charge of all the creative sector, what would you tell us to do to to make it a better a better better work and a better industry?

Steve Harrison 40:36

I think that in light of what I've written in my book, I would like to depoliticise the industry. Um

Depoliticise Advertising And Wrap Up

Steve Harrison 40:42

I don't agree, I don't think it would be a good idea to get somebody from the MAGA organization to come and take over the industry and politicise it in that way. And I don't think that a left-leaning progressive um sensibility is a good thing. I don't think you should be allowed to use your clients' huge advertising budgets or your privileged access to the audience via a media in order to push an agenda, your political agenda. I think that we should depoliticize the industry and stick to our commercial purpose. Uh, and that would justify our existence to our clients. And for 15 years we failed to do that, I'm afraid. And the worst thing is that our institutions have failed to justify. Well, uh, our institutions have been, I think, uh infiltrated and run by um careerists and activists who have failed to convince clients of the value added by great creative work. I don't I don't think we've made that argument. We failed to make that argument. And unfortunately, I think that that you you know we I said that purpose is dead, but purpose still exists and will continue to exist in our institutions, our our charities, our associations, and our trade press in the places that aren't reliant upon a commercial relationship with the with with the general public. Do you understand what I mean? If you don't have a commercial relationship with the general public, you can continue to indulge your vanity projects around purpose. Does that make sense?

Chris Norton 42:35

Right.

Will Ockenden 42:35

Yeah, that does.

Chris Norton 42:38

I mean, the whole thing is is fascinating talking about the different issues in the in the industry. There's there's yeah, the progress there's both sides of the argument. Um thanks for coming on the show, Steve. Really, really great to meet you. If you were us, you've been on the show now, if you were us, who is the next person you think we should interview for our podcast and why?

Steve Harrison 42:59

Um well I'm a um I'm a big fan of Nick Aspary, who wrote um The Road to Hell. Um, he's a lot more uh he's a much better writer than me, and he's a lot more articulate than I am. Um and so he wrote a a fabulous dismantling of the purpose argument called The Road to Hell. Um I don't know, really. Um that's a good shout.

Chris Norton 43:32

And do you know anybody who's made a decent mistake that would be good on the show to tell us about the mistake they made right back in the day?

Steve Harrison 43:38

Oh god. Who would it would be far from they may think they were great moves, you know. I understand so far be it from me to find mistake. Yeah, we're fine.

Chris Norton 43:48

Yeah. Thank well, thanks for coming on the show, Steve. And um obviously people can buy your book book uh Adlan's Progressive Gaze. Where can they where can they find that? Is that on Amazon, right?

Steve Harrison 43:58

Yes, get it from Amazon. Yes.

Chris Norton 44:00

Okay. And how can if people want to get hold of you, um, how can they get hold of you?

Steve Harrison 44:04

My email, if you when you send this out, stick my email address on there, will you?

Chris Norton 44:08

Uh we can't we can do. We can stick it at the bottom of the yeah, in the show notes. We can put your email email down there. I just didn't know if you had a web address or something.

Steve Harrison 44:15

But for the sake of this, it's Harriso, Harriso Steve, so it's Harrison without the N. Harrisosteve @googlmail.com.