My Biggest Lesson: Elspeth Lynn

The piece of wisdom I received early on was “Do things that don’t cost you a thing”. 

This meant several things including…

Understand your clients business, that is, do your homework. Read. Arm yourself with knowledge.

Be nice to others.

And always be open-minded. Smile.

All these things are free.

This piece of wisdom was from Allan Kazmer, a teacher who then hired me out of art college to DDB. He was the most inspirational person early on in my career.

A brilliant creative director and all around brilliant human being. And that was the key. He was so human. Not “advertising-y” at all. He must have said it in the first month I joined DDB (my first official job) as it would have been a whole new world at an agency. And he wanted to see myself and my creative partner, Briony Wilson succeed. 

I was young, green, lacking in confidence and a bit overwhelmed being at a big agency. 

It was helpful as it was so tangible and gave a sense of control… of things I could do…. without asking anyone for help.

I think in the first few months of my career everything was a first. The first proper brief. The first dealing with account people. The first time with senior people in an agency when there were very few women in the industry, especially creatives.

I think Allen could see that Briony and I were trying to figure out which end was up, so this tangible advice gave us something to grip onto that was easy to do. In fact anyone could do it. As a creative, sometimes you feel to be ”immediately brilliant” with a project. But in reality it often takes some time, some reflection and of course massaging ideas along the way.

So it was a relief that I could do something that didn’t require being brilliant, but just kind of practical in a way that would help.

Allan's advice struck such a chord because it was easy, doable and a relief. It was a non-creative thing to do. Therefore it came with little to no pressure.

That philosophy has stayed with me. It gave me a pragmatic thing to always resort to. And to remember how many things in life we can do “for free”. Laugh. Be tidy. Tell someone on the tube they’re wearing a great outfit. (Which I do regularly). It applies to the stupidest little things.

It had an effect on me being open to all things digital, social and with tech and innovation. Because it is free to learn about and be interested in all these things. Just because we start our career a certain way in the business, doesn’t mean we can’t open ourselves up to various aspects of it as we go along.

It didn’t cost me anything to be interested in and learn about all those things. So it keeps me very open-minded to anything that comes along.

I guess that’s how and why I ended up working at many different kinds of agencies. Above the line, digital, social, commerce and BTL, as well as of course, fully integrated ones too. Like Unbound is. We tackle any channel without fear.

I shared this same advice as recently as last week. 

I met up with a young female writer, a very smart and talented person who had been badly treated at the agency she was at and they had wrongly, and in a very unfortunate way, let her go. It was upsetting to know that agencies feel comfortable knocking the confidence out of a young woman trying to make her way.

Misogyny still seems to be unfortunately, alive and well. 

Though she had found another job, she had completely lost her confidence. So I said to her, “Okay, what can you do for free before you start?” I wanted to give her some easy, practical things that she could do for free. Build up her confidence.

I suggested….

Study the brands you’ll be working on. Look up the current campaigns. Know their historical campaigns.

Know more than anyone in the room.

Know off by heart all the Grand Prix winners at Cannes. 

Know the top 10 golds and why you think they are strong ideas.

Ask your new CCO what they are looking for. Etc etc.

So tangible advice that was easy to do. 

I’m hoping, and think it worked.

That’s the thing about wisdom…. You have to pass it on.