I thought I was going to have to eat grass
John Lim
There were times when things did get hairy for me when I had no clients, and I wondered about where the money was going to come from.
Everyone thinks they can do marketing
Jade Arnell
Marketing is so much more than designing something in Canva and posting it on social media.
Your identity isn’t your job
Meghan Downs
Of course, it’s great to love what you do. But if you change paths or fall out of love with something - that’s ok.
Pissing off a million Mancunians
Steve Connor
If you’re a creative, then fucking use your gifts for good and not for selling shit to sleepwalkers.
Heroes and villains
Andrew Sidwell
My survival mode is buttfuck ugly. My saviour complex manifested as - most of our people are really shit and can’t do their jobs I need to show them.
Why it's bad to problem-solve everything
Fosca Fimiani
It's not about appearing smart; it's about empowering others to develop their capabilities.
Fuck milk
John Lyons
This was our first project for a huge household brand. I saw our hard work closing the deal, and my financial projections disappear in front of my eyes.
The destructive nature of pitching
Lex Guest
As a client, you’d rather use sandpaper for loo roll whilst suffering a ferocious bout of stomach flu than sit through an afternoon of agency pitches.
True change requires a long hard look in the mirror
Anjali Ramachandran
People pay lip service to diversity, equity, and inclusion without thinking about intersectionality, anti-racism, anti-casteism, or decolonisation.
Opinions are like arseholes, everybody's got one
Paddy Gilmore
If you work in marketing or advertising, you're surrounded by opinions. Some people don't like green in their logo. Some people don't like sentences beginning with "And" or "But."
Millionaire influencers were selling spades in the gold rush
John Keating
I should have tried to educate more people about marketing and seeing through it all to what lies beneath. To make up your own mind.
Be a happy warrior
Ian Hogg
I’ve worked with creatives who’ll spend hours complaining about the brief, the deadline, the account handler, the client, the industry, other creatives and just about everything.
Unbuckle your seatbelt
Paul Kemp-Robertson
A little fuck-up on an empty plane that made me question myself led to a startup that’s still going strong nearly 20 years later.
The force you need to push for inclusion
Laura Jordan Bambach
I sometimes hear from people, “but we’re only hiring the best person for the job,” or “I couldn’t find any diverse talent”, as a reason to have a monoculture in the agency; it's painful.
Being successful before 21
Lücy Aa
This distorted view made me believe I needed to be successful by 21. This led me to take bigger risks and making a lot of mistakes.
Business partners. Never again.
Katherine McCord
Twice in my journey, I took on business partners. I took an easy option to put more money into my business, and it bit me in the butt.
Red flags and the toxic topless boss
Katie Kelly
I'm scared because of what the people in these stories might say and what you might think of me. But putting it out there feels cathartic and unburdening.
Burning through cash for zero output
Neelam Tewar
On a personal front, I felt cheated, hurt, and maybe also lost a bit of faith in humanity because I really thought they’d offer to stay till there were results.
Samuel L. Jackson didn’t make it big until his forties
James McMillan
They convinced me I could do drama school after my university education, and I reluctantly allowed my combusting desire to be dampened.
All the names above the door were creatives
Dave Dye
Before long, we were having secret chats about what a creative agency for the new millennium might look like.