AI, Taste and the Future of Advertising

Justine (00:00.182)
Bye. Sorry.

Orlando (00:01.038)
That’s all right. That is all right. I see you look like you’re in Amsterdam.

Justine (00:08.077)
I’m in Amsterdam. I live here now. It’s so lovely. It’s beautiful. yeah. What part did you live in?

Orlando (00:11.258)
I’m so jealous. I lived there for six years and I absolutely loved it.

I lived I started out in the new canals and new Achtergracht. and so, you know, across the Emstel it becomes new Kaisersracht, new Heringracht. And so New Achtergracht was a little canal that that lived off that. And then I lived on the Keldersecada, which is like right up by Central Station, between Central Station and the New Markt. and then Villemina strap by the Vandel Park was my third place. Yeah, I loved it so much. It was the best.

Justine (00:28.462)
Yes, that’s right. Yeah.

Justine (00:39.888)
Yeah.

Justine (00:45.092)
Okay. Very cool. You’ve got your Dutch your Dutch accent down.

Orlando (00:51.626)
My Nederlands is niet so slecht. ik heb in korte courses gedaan naar de oefen. and it gets it gets way better when I get a couple drinks in me. That’s the that’s the real the real thing.

Justine (00:56.944)
No.

Justine (01:03.348)
Yeah. I need to do that too. I need to get screen on my Dutch, but hi G.

Orlando (01:12.526)
Yeah.

Jake (01:13.662)
Hi Justine, lovely to meet you.

Justine (01:15.588)
Okay.

Orlando (01:15.906)
Hi, Jake. Jake are did were you able to come in as a

Jake (01:17.354)
It didn’t… No, it didn’t give me an option for producer. It just said join.

Orlando (01:24.798)
okay. you know what? Then I’m just gonna remove you if that’s okay. because otherwise this will be picking up the video of yours. All right.

Jake (01:29.0)
Alright, no worries.

Okay well enjoy now, I look forward to listening Justin.

Justine (01:36.142)
We’d say

Orlando (01:36.578)
Thanks, Jake.

great. Well, I mean, we’re we’re recording just so we capture everything and and I don’t when I was a a young I started out in the edit room at Widman County, then started producing and and and directing the making of videos and stuff. And I had a terrible moment in one of my making of videos. I got to interview the director and I did that horrible thing where you’re testing the camera and unfortunately when you’re testing it, it ends on record.

Justine (01:44.803)
Okay.

Justine (01:55.224)
yeah.

Orlando (02:09.634)
And then I sit down with the director, I press the button, it stops recording, and then I with a flourish press it again at the end, and then I’ve missed the entire thing. I’ve beat myself up for days.

Justine (02:21.464)
You know what? What an amazing lesson to learn early as possible.

Orlando (02:24.8)
It is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That and never be on a shoot without a charger. Those are painful reminders.

Justine (02:32.88)
Any don’t don’t get on a plane without a charger, like anyway.

Orlando (02:36.672)
Yeah, very true. so where are you based? Where where you look like you’re on a canal.

Justine (02:44.814)
I am on the Kaisersgracht. Yes. neah it’s probably near well c not probably close to where you were in near Utrechtestrat. Ut Utrecht. say the my words here. I have also been even though I I technically relocated here technically beginning of the year, but I was sort of in and out sort of for six months last year, so staying in hotels and things this year.

Orlando (02:48.001)
lucky you.

Orlando (02:54.407)
great, yeah. Fantastic.

Orlando (03:10.424)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justine (03:12.792)
I’ve just done my twenty-seventh international trip. So I’ve really not been here a ton and I really need to, you know, like have a life.

Orlando (03:17.236)
wow, Jesus.

Yeah.

Yeah, nest a little bit. And like that’s the the best thing about Amsterdam is that everybody comes there without their family, without you know, like I mean, some people do, but everybody’s kind of a person without a home. And it’s like that that nomadic thing is like why everybody mucks in and becomes friends so quickly. Yeah.

Justine (03:39.982)
Yeah. So I had to yeah, I gotta do that. I mean I’ve got a few friends here, but it definitely has been a pretty nomadic existence so far. Yeah.

Orlando (03:45.293)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m very excited to do this. I’m loved reading your your bio. So I’m just gonna do a little bit of housekeeping before we get started. so one is everything’s recording locally. So there if there is a little bit of a stammer or your internet goes out for a second or whatever else, just stay in it. It’ll tell us if something catastrophic has happened. But if there’s a stammer or stutter, don’t worry. It’s all recording locally.

Justine (03:57.008)
Okay.

Orlando (04:14.486)
What that’ll mean is that we will do two goodbyes. We’ll do one that’s a kind of showbiz goodbye. We’ll be like, thank you so much. This is great. Da-da-da. and then we’ll stop recording. There will then be a little bit of period of time where your local file will be uploading. and so don’t when we say goodbye the first time, don’t just shut your laptop or or leave or anything. and then the other last thing is all of my notes are up here. So

If you’re answering a question and I look like I’m writing emails or online shopping, I’m not. I’m reordering the questions and figuring everything out. And so also, like if I’m answering a question and I start doing that, don’t think that I’ve lost interest in your answer or anything like that. I’m just trying to figure out sometimes you’ll have said something that’s so great it kills five more questions. Other times it’ll inspire five more questions. So that’s kind of where we’ll we’ll begin.

Justine (05:03.472)
Okay.

Justine (05:06.969)
Okay.

Great. and I don’t have any notes, so I’m just gonna be freestyling the whole thing.

Orlando (05:14.526)
absolutely. That’s that’s kind of the way we want it. It’s more conversation than anything else. Fantastic. All right. We’ll we’ll figure it out. I I I trust we will. There’s you know, yeah, I trust we will. great. Well, Justine Armour, you are the chief creative officer for 72 and Sunny International.

Justine (05:21.22)
No idea what we’re gonna talk about, by the way. So

Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (05:38.208)
I’m so excited to talk to you. I think there’s a lot of shared DNA that we have in our backgrounds. You’re currently sitting in Amsterdam, which is a place I lived and loved for a very long time. so thanks for coming on the podcast.

Justine (05:49.754)
Such a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Orlando (05:52.567)
Of course. Well, I was I’m fascinated to talk to you because your biography is so unusual for somebody at your level. I really enjoyed reading it because it doesn’t just read like a list of jobs and awards. It reads like a story about people and chemistry and culture and health and collaboration and all the conditions that allow creativity to happen. And almost every time you describe being at a place, it was always about the people. It was always about what you learned. You talked about your your

Essentially professional gap year. And so what I love about that is that, you know, we’re living at a time when advertising is becoming more automated. We’ve got this specter of AI hanging over everything, which I think makes a lot of things less human. things are so much more pressured and arguab arguably less humane. What are you most determined not to lose in this new world?

Justine (06:49.168)
Great question. the the thing that you picked up on in my sort of story in my career is so true. It’s like everything has been about the what I’ve learned from people and what and my relationships with people. And I think there’s a creative energy exchange that happens when you are you’ve kind of kind of work with like-minded souls in our business. and so that part of it.

Orlando (07:14.979)
Yeah.

Justine (07:17.076)
is what I like, you know, it’s it’s kind I’m sure you’ve had people on this show talking about like cre human creativity is still gonna matter in the AI moment and I don’t want to you know bang on too much about that but what I know has always been true is the sort of creative energy that happens in companies and creative departments is always gonna be the thing that sort of powers the most interesting ideas that we have.

Orlando (07:25.539)
Yeah.

Orlando (07:43.854)
Mm-hmm.

Justine (07:44.813)
And so the thing that I don’t think we will lose is that kind of that creative energy, you know, and I think we’re we’re I’m sure we’re gonna go, we’ll we’ll talk more about it. But what I’m excited about about this moment is that honestly people like me, people who have been in in our in our careers for a really long time and you know, I’ve been doing this for nearly 30 years. I’m gonna be well, I’m gonna turn 50 in a couple of months. And you know, that mo there aren’t that many people in creative departments.

Orlando (07:50.851)
Mm-hmm.

Justine (08:14.412)
in their fifties. And I actually think that AI has made it so that people who have a learned discernment and this taste level that is you can’t get without years and years of experience and mentorship and being around other people of high taste. that’s going to be the highest value, the highest sort of you know, the the most valuable thing is like this ability to discern what to not make. so

Orlando (08:43.501)
Yeah.

Justine (08:44.154)
Excited about just the the the that part, the relationships that will always be important, the k the ability to be really vulnerable and open with each other, that kind of creating a culture and an environment where you’re allowed to be wrong and fail, you know, and that’s all human stuff, you know.

Orlando (09:01.346)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that point about knowing what not to make. because I think that, you know, one of the things I always go back to is, you know, Picasso’s Dove, which is held up as one of the greatest little sketches ever, is only about six lines. And obviously he’s classically trained. He can paint anything, you know, he’s created whole movements, yet he knew one day that this was enough to create something truly impactful.

and I think that that’s a huge thing that people forget is there’s a when everything becomes creatively theoretically infinite, knowing what not to do is more important than necessarily than even knowing what to do.

Justine (09:45.081)
It’s I think it’s every I it’s actually interesting you should say that. I think that well, many of the great artists as they got sort of into their mastery became much more reductive. and I think that you know, not to I don’t know if advertising is a one of the great art forms, but it’s definitely, you know, at its best is a gr it is an art form.

Orlando (10:02.508)
It is one where it exists on the spectrum, who knows, but it’s one of you know.

Justine (10:05.84)
Yeah, and now you would right now you would sort of question it because like you say, we are now able to make infinite assets. You know, I think what the the real risk of AI is that not that it’s gonna make bad work, it’s just that it actually makes quite acceptable work. It makes pretty good work. And so, you know, it’s trained by this sort of by patterns, it’s trained by the middle, it sort of averages things out and you know, in and culture moves

Orlando (10:24.802)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Justine (10:34.274)
when not by the middle by the center but it moves from sort of outlier you know perspective. So what we are I think the opportunity for us is kind of you know like get past this part where we get all excited about how many how much much volume we can make and then let’s let’s really start leaning into this like the divergent thinkers and the divergent creators because that’s actually going to be you know the only thing of value. And having the conviction and the and the vision to know

when an idea is has that has that quality, you know, ’cause like most of those ideas don’t really you know, they get rejected at the beginning. So you gotta

Orlando (11:10.915)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s sort of it it beefs out the middle, doesn’t it? I think that that’s the, you know, in in good advertising agencies, you’re always talking about cut through. And a great idea with a good strategy, well executed, tends to cut through and rise above the now we call it slop, but back then we just would have called it crap. and I think that that’s always been true. And I think that what what AI will do is it’ll increase out the middle, and there are loads of

Of agencies earning solid money off middling work. But at the places you’ve been, Forsman, Wyden, Gray, and you know, now 72 and Sunny, Fig, these are places that are solely focused on being in the top 1% of the most interesting work being done that is all about cut through. and I think it just makes, you know, the the the case for those places and and the work that they do sharper, don’t you?

Justine (12:13.08)
It does. And even in these places, we’ve all all of our those places have had their their share of the work that I would call the mid middle kind of work. And I think I think we should all have a sort of hell a paranoia about making that kind of work and sort of a real sort of urgency not to make it because there is going to be no ba if there’s may maybe it has value right now, but very soon it won’t have any value. and so the only value is going to be the work that really, like you say

Orlando (12:22.968)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Orlando (12:38.476)
Yeah.

Justine (12:42.234)
cut through, stands out, has the sort of a flavor and audacity to it that is willing to have a point of view that the c competitive set won’t won’t have or can’t have. And so you know, like really staunchly holding on to that and having conviction and being able to bring in bring others into the vision. you know, I think that takes experience, you know, it takes an ability to like yeah, I mean not everyone can have that kind of conversation and get and so

Orlando (12:53.176)
Yeah.

Orlando (13:05.294)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (13:11.33)
Mm. Yeah.

Justine (13:11.972)
So clients on ideas that they get uncomfortable around.

Orlando (13:15.99)
Yeah. It’s it’s interesting, you know, you talk a lot about collaboration. I think that’s a very human place to be coming from. What is about what is it about the collaborative nature of a creative department that sets it apart? I very often I’ve seen advertising confuse brutality with high standards. And I went when I was at Wyden and then moved to Fallon. I just thought, if you’re producing good work, you probably have a similar culture. What I found was at that Fallon London at the time.

You know, high standards where you were beaten into the high standards and there wasn’t this sense of collaborative nature. And I realized how fragile and how rare it is that you have a place like a Wyde McKennedy. And it it sounds like a lot of the places that you’ve worked, you’ve been able to foster that creative, collaborative nature. What does it take to create a culture that is that is like that?

Justine (14:10.932)
it takes a lot of confidence. You know, I think it takes a lot of an a belief that you know, because it’s it’s collaborate collaboration. I I will say when I moved from White and Kennedy to 72 and Sunny, i 72 and Sunny has a has a very deep collaborative sort of vein. It’s it is all about collaboration. And I would say White and Kennedy wasn’t necessarily

that collaborative when I was there. They were really kind of you really had to be a master of your own craft, you know, and at the time I was a copywriter, then I became a creative director. And there was a real sort of respect between disciplines. people didn’t kind of make suggestions about copy if they didn’t win in the you know, even even copywriters wouldn’t kind of put on each other’s work. But

Orlando (14:54.414)
Interesting.

Right.

Justine (14:58.188)
When I went went to 72 and Sunny, it was so much more, you know, we have this we have this thing where it’s like if you put an idea on the wall, it’s everyone’s idea. And so our our our role and our responsibility and the work is to make sure that idea is as strong as it can be. And so that’s for everybody to have to be in that conversation. And it was a very uncomfortable transition for me to go from like, this is my work and no one else is allowed to

You know, if it’s not good enough, I’ll take it off the table to it’s on the wall and now everyone’s commenting and everyone’s, you know, and so it takes, you know, you have to kind of surrender to that. and you have to be okay with like the process and also have a little a confidence in you know, in your conviction and your clarity of idea and and and also be excellent enough to put work up on the wall that’s gonna be robust enough to survive.

Orlando (15:46.894)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Justine (15:50.939)
group. but I think we’ve done, you know, I think at 72 and Sunny there’s a real it’s everybody’s in, you know, it’s like I think that I’ve seen some of the best ideas come out of a strategy and you know my partner Chris Kay who’s a international CEO, one of the most creative people I’ve ever worked with.

Orlando (15:59.896)
huh.

Justine (16:15.536)
creative department or not, you know. and so, you know, being open to that is and also you have to model it to everybody, you know to have to model the culture. And so it really matters that leaders are showing up in that in a collaborative way and and and and inviting others to sort of be in the process. so

Orlando (16:17.752)
Yeah.

Orlando (16:26.136)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (16:35.128)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, can that cause so you know, so much of what we talk about every day is is everything moving faster, brands needing things faster. I had Sergio Lopez on the podcast who was talking about how if you’re ideating an idea 18 months ago, you know, Biden was president 18 months ago. The world has fundamentally changed in that period of time. So that that speed is as much of a creative necessity as it is a a business necessity, you know, about

improving margins and things like that as margins are falling for big agencies and things like that. Can co how does that collaboration survive when everybody’s working faster and under greater pressure?

Justine (17:20.38)
it’s a good question. I don’t know, it’s it doesn’t it doesn’t really lend itself to the fastest process all the time. But I will say in the moment of AI when, you know, it used to be that creativity was a scarcity, you know, it was like we need you’d have a you’d have rounds and rounds of creative development and you’d need more ideas and you keep pushing the teams. Now they come they can come up with t a hundred things in a second and it’s a matter of kind of

finding the most robust thing and then you know unfortunately what the the what the issue is they go through this process of consensus building you know where it’s like this has been the this has actually been the issue of the last you know number of years where it’s like we get around a piece of work, we all kind of agree on that it’s that it’s the right piece of work.

Orlando (17:59.021)
Uh-huh.

Justine (18:12.186)
Then it goes into research and of course now AI is gonna validate the thing that the that is most middle. Then it will go through, you know, the algorithm will find will reward it for being middle. And I think that the collaboration in that, when it becomes consensus, it becomes you know, a problem because you end up working, doing work and spitting out work that’s really middling. Whereas I think in its best form,

and it’s fastest form is everybody’s if everyone’s expected to be in the in the work and being at the table and and bring their perspective from their discipline into the work as qu you know fast, we technically we should be getting to, you know, the most interesting work and the most robust work quite quickly. so yeah, it’s just you know I’m start I’m starting to kind of

Orlando (18:53.102)
Yeah.

Justine (19:02.458)
Put a finer point on what type of collaboration is actually going to be valuable in five to ten years because I don’t think it’s sort of all of us getting around and and everyone having a point of view on the creative. I think it’s gonna be a sort of slightly different thing. I think we’re gonna have to get around a shared vision of doing something that’s more divergent.

Orlando (19:06.584)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (19:18.028)
Yeah. Yeah, ’cause

Orlando (19:25.154)
Yeah, that’s real really interesting. Cause I think that, you know, I always I I sort of have been thinking about how AI isn’t it’s trying to solve writing, but I think that what AI forgets and and all the technologists who have built AI, they think that, ooh, writing’s hard. And so you probably don’t want to do it. And it’s like, well, that’s not true. We do want to do hard things. there’s a lot of rewarding feeling in the doing of a hard thing. And but I do like that.

What AI seems to have solved very well for me is writer’s block. You know, it’s not solving writing, but it is solving writer’s block. And I think that what you’re talking about is the creative ideation phase, which used to take, you know, weeks of creative development, was a whole block. It was a period of time creators would be left on their own. And if they needed to, you know, take a walk down the canal or if they needed to, you know, go to an event or something to be inspired, that was sort of, you know, that was allowed for.

Justine (20:02.371)
Yes.

Orlando (20:24.536)
Whereas I think that now it’s kind of like, well, you can be inspired by 45 things before lunch and and you can have these agents doing things, and then it’s your job to sort of pick amongst them. Do do we lose that? You know, I always I always treated creatives, you know, like I was a producer. We treated them as like, you know, not soft, but these these little things that needed to be protected. They were, you know, they needed their space. They needed to be able to ideate without.

pressure necessarily all the time. And so that that relationship was something that you had to protect and you had to protect their space. do you think we lose that a little bit? Do you think creativity becomes industrial?

Justine (21:09.172)
there’s a risk of that, yeah. I mean I think we’re I think it’s a creative leadership issue to create to to maintain or sort of continue to create an environment where the creative real creative process can happen. It’s not just about, you know, give me a hundred ideas. It’s about actually cultivating taste. It’s about exposing people to having a culture of exposing people to

art and fashion and architecture and music and all that all of the things because by the way when they go home they’re on their phone for eight hours and they they’re looking at the algorithm like everybody else. So like I do think that it’s on agencies to continue to define the taste of the agency and build the taste and scale the taste of leadership with these kind of conversations inside. And then I also, you know, I don’t know that the sort of sensitive creative archetype

is still I don’t know. I mean I was in New York for 10 years so that that version of us wasn’t sort of really seemed to be allowed. So maybe so maybe maybe that create that character still exists in some other places but

Orlando (22:13.847)
Yeah.

Orlando (22:18.317)
Yeah.

Justine (22:21.016)
I don’t know, I feel like we’ve got so many more tools and so you you’re right. Like the writer’s block thing isn’t so much a problem because you’ve got so many tools at your disposal to to get the get ideas going. And I think the the the the the type of character you describe was at a time when, you know, it was really kind of all on you and a you had a blank page and brief that was like not giving you much and it was like come up with something from your soul. And I don’t know that that is really the the struggle of

Orlando (22:39.874)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (22:45.038)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Justine (22:50.584)
cr modern day creatives. Yeah.

Orlando (22:52.652)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, you mentioned there kind of talking about like how you kind of set the the tone creatively for the agency. Like, you know, what I I heard Dan Wyden say, and and I always liked this, is, you know, sometimes you have to be careful not just killing an idea because you don’t like it. Because if you see a creative who’s incredibly passionate about something, you go, I don’t get it.

But I’m gonna let you walk down this path and prove to me, you know, further down that it’s something that that does work. How do you strike that balance between you know, what you have as taste and is your responsibility as the tastemaker for the agency with your need to not make the agency a, you know, a single style kind of place?

Justine (23:46.638)
Yeah.

Orlando (23:46.733)
I mean, especially with so many different, I imagine just AI mood boards and stuff coming at you all the time. Every idea can come at you nearly fully formed. Maybe these are two different questions, but like how do you how do you balance that? Like doing not succumbing to a house style while at the same time making sure that you’re putting guardrails in place.

Justine (24:04.068)
Yeah. I mean as ever Dan was so his his perspective is eternal. Like I think that is I honestly the those those ideas and and creatives who they get and I they can’t quite put their finger on why they love it, but they just need everyone to get it. I actually think those are the ideas that we should be all in on.

Orlando (24:10.776)
Yeah.

Justine (24:28.604)
exploring because they’re the only ones that really kind of you know they they usually they they pi people don’t understand them yet or they reject them because it’s weird or whatever. We need those ideas.

Orlando (24:38.754)
Yeah. If you could articulate it, it’s probably been done before. If you’re kind of like, Well, it’s that mixed with a little bit of that. It’s it’s epic split mixed with you know, Southern Comfort Beach, you know, like and and there you have it, you know.

Justine (24:48.93)
Yeah. And I’ve had an experience, you know, I used to work with this art director called Ruth Bellotti, and she was such just like incredible conceptual creative. And you know, sometimes she would come to the table with like a picture of something that she’s I just this is it, you know, and I’d be like and often it was it, you know, and so

Orlando (25:09.516)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Justine (25:15.758)
I think that’s, you know, usually those people are gold. and you ask the question about how do you scale? You know, the the goal is not to scale is not to scale my taste. It’s to have everybody be able to make decisions and discern what’s good when I’m not in the room.

Orlando (25:19.907)
Yeah.

Justine (25:36.399)
And not me need me in the room for everything. So yeah, it’s about talking about, you know, t talking about what’s good. And I that’s how I learned, you know, I kind of I learned I had a couple of jobs where I was like I really learned the sort of nuts and bolts of being a copywriter in my early career, and then I made some kind of just functional, fine ads. And then I went and worked for a guy called Michael Walker who has an agency in Sydney called My Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, which is an amazing agency.

Orlando (25:37.154)
Right. Yeah.

Orlando (26:01.72)
Yeah. I know. Yeah.

Justine (26:03.872)
and so I worked with Micah for four years and he has hands down like the best taste of anyone I’ve ever known. And he’s just like he will shame you out of your bad taste, you know. Then he came then when he came over to Wyden, we were partners for a couple of years. So I mean he’s like a brother to me. He’s like he’s amazing. So but I think working around people who just have that can taste conviction and absolute courage to be able to sort of

Orlando (26:16.268)
Ha ha ha.

Orlando (26:22.893)
Yeah.

Justine (26:32.1)
be in a room and speak to a client about what’s actually what’s gonna be good for them is so valuable.

Orlando (26:36.931)
Yeah.

I mean, you know, does it compress that that, you know, like you say, there’s there’s something wonderful about, okay, you can’t describe it, okay, it’s new and different. But now people should be like, I you know, I got my start cutting mood videos. I mean, mood videos should be ostensibly dead by now. You know, it it’s the ability to create something that is so tailor-made to the idea, the ability to express the idea before you’ve gone into production.

when you’re going into a creative development meeting, is AI meaning that more ideas are coming to you more formed? And does that help you or does that hurt you? Because, you know, yeah, does that hurt help you or hurt you?

Justine (27:19.632)
It does they they are coming to me can to me because I’m you know I’m I’m I’m not the first one to see the creative ideas. You know, they’ve gone through a couple of layers before they come to me. but I think you know as a when they come to when creative teams are working on things and they’re gonna go into their E C Ds or G C Ds.

They’re they they I think they’re coming less formed and then they come to me as slightly more formed. But yeah, I think it’s yeah, I don’t know. So it’s hard for me to answer that question because I’m you know, I’m a little bit further up the chain. But there’s definitely still

Orlando (27:57.655)
Yeah. But have you seen, you know, sorry, but have you seen, you know, I mean, obviously the mid-journey comes out. Presumably, the stuff that’s coming up the chain to you has more mid-journey-esque, you know, things in it. And now you’re probably seeing more things done with runway or Luma or, you know, that are coming to you expressed a little bit further. Does that help you kind of understand at a more nascent stage of the idea? I mean, obviously, yes, you’re coming in a little bit later.

Justine (28:05.999)
Yeah.

Justine (28:10.287)
Yeah.

Orlando (28:27.352)
But are you coming in and seeing things more fully formed? Is is that helpful to you?

Justine (28:31.564)
It’s it’s not I mean, to me, I can get an idea written in, you know, pencil on a page. I think it helps clients see it, has have a vision. So I see bad AI and I’m like I I

All I see is the ugly is how badly it’s executed. I get nervous that someone’s gonna get attached to to a bad execution. So but yeah, I yeah, I I think it really helps. Like we’ve gotten part, we don’t there’s we’re not asking clients to sort of take a leap of vision, you know, while we used to. We don’t have to kind of picture this, you know, in a room now. It’s like, well, here it is, this is exactly what it’s gonna look like. and so yeah, they can.

they can choose it or not choose it, it’s it’s a lot easier in that way.

Orlando (29:16.93)
Yeah, and is that helpful to the creatives? I mean, I know a lot of creatives who didn’t know that the idea didn’t work on screen until they got into the offline, you know, and and you know, is that helpful to them to go, actually this is great on paper, but the moment it becomes something visual, actually the the the entire creative mechanics of it need to change.

Justine (29:38.255)
Yeah, I’m sure. I mean i it’s it’s been useful for that, for sure. There’s been some some some potholes we’ve missed that we’ve managed to avoid for that reason. But it’s also kind of

I don’t know. There’s also kind of like once once you sort of see it ex you know, the AI, fantastical AI version of it, sort of like you can’t be you realize it’s like not as exciting as you thought it was gonna be as well. So you know, I think it’s great, great to sort of see things see things through and be able to visualize it properly and decide if you still want to do it.

Orlando (30:02.925)
Yeah.

Orlando (30:14.988)
Yeah, I mean, so you described your time as FIG at a ver as a very good time to be an independent agency. Would you sorry, I’m gonna take another shot at the asking that question. I stumbled over it. You described your time at FIG as a very good time to be at an independent agency. Would you still say that today?

Justine (30:23.097)
Uh-huh.

Okay. Okay.

Justine (30:35.576)
I do think it’s the right time for independence. yeah, I mean I’m working at a holding company agency now and it’s working out very well. We’ve we’re having a we’re having a great season. So, you know. but I do think there is, you know, I look at agencies like Bear Meets Eagle on Fire and the kind of work that they do that is absolutely leading the industry, not just in Australia but around, you know, in the world. They do incredible work. And I think that

That the ability to have a sort of conviction and also, you know, you’re not so beholden to shareholders. And you know, if you if your value is in creativity and not necessarily in delivering a profit margin to a to a holding company, you can have the kind of conversations about the work.

And you can invest in the work in ways that I think is unique. And and actually I do do think that the independents are gonna keep having a really good season of leading the the industry creatively. And I’ll probably get in trouble for saying that from my my boss.

Orlando (31:47.727)
No, I mean, I I guess, you know, I I think that what what what I hear so much is that how much they’re struggling, and that actually the economic reality of dealing with clients, getting clients, is, you know, and with so many clients, what the production companies experience with agencies putting production in-house, now so many brands are putting creative in-house. and so

Justine (32:07.128)
Mm-hmm.

Justine (32:10.671)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (32:12.984)
They’re kind of having that fear and that a lot of the work is consolidating higher up. And I think that that, you know, I guess the question is like whether it’s if they have the work, I think it’s yeah, still an incredibly fertile ground for great creative work. I just wonder whether the economic realities are making it harder to even get the opportunity to do the work.

Justine (32:34.966)
Sure. I mean, if you can hold on and sort of let this bubble kind of burst, I think it would be it, it would be, it will be, it’ll be great. and yeah, I mean I don’t think we’re in a we the the production conversation just seems to be. I’m probably gonna get in trouble, I’m just gonna put my foot in it all over the place. But I think like production again is like becoming

is becoming so so sort of driven by the AI conversation. We can do anything now for for a lot less. The thing that’s going to have value is going to be these outlier creative ideas that are yeah and that that are that are not sort of subject to consensus and sort of averaging out. So I don’t know, I do think there’s gonna be

I d I do think the best of the independents will will th continue to thrive.

Orlando (33:35.363)
Yeah, it’s you know, I think that one of the things that we’ve seen is obviously the last wave of disruption that has been slowly eating everybody’s lunch for quite some time is the disruption to distribution, the ability to put something out on YouTube, you’ve got global distribution immediately. Now with AI, we’re seeing this disruption of production. and some of the conversations that we have with the studios are around the idea that they might look over the next ten years.

Justine (33:50.512)
Mm.

Justine (33:55.737)
Yeah.

Orlando (34:05.218)
They might start to act a little bit more like a professional sports team that’s going out and scouting talent. That there’s now going to be creativity not just coming out of creative production hubs, but creativity is going to be coming out of somebody’s dorm room, somebody’s high school project, and that you’re going to see something, it is going to cut through, and you’re going to go, who is that? And I think that’s really quite interesting. I mean, when you think about

The creative well you’re going to for the next generation of creatives, do you think it’s still the, you know, you know, Central St. Martin’s and an art school onto, you know, a a grad program into the creative department? Or do you think it looks a little bit more like a production model where they’re trying to find directors from anywhere and they’re just signing them and repping them? Like, you know, I I I I know that the the fundamental

Justine (34:59.962)
Mm.

Orlando (35:02.934)
Orchestration is different, but do you think that changes the the types of ideas agencies will start to get when they’re not necessarily they’re coming from people who show incredible talent, but aren’t necessarily curated through a well-worn path of advertising creative development?

Justine (35:23.458)
Yeah, I do. I think it’s gonna be a bit of everything. I think there’s the everybody needs to be a maker now. I mean the creative department is full of people that know how to use the tools to make anything, you know, and I think that’s kind of cost of entry. and so I think it’s going to be creative pe people who are driven by something that they’re obsessed about, whether it’s, you know, design or art direction or copywriting or fashion or whatever. It’s like the

Obsession thing, which is always kind of power craters, I think it’s just it’s going to be even more important. and I yeah, I think and we’re already kind of seeing craters coming from different places, but I don’t know that you know, I just know that our ability to just produce a lot is not really gonna have the value that it that it has. You know, it’s gonna have to be the stuff that really is is interesting and different.

Orlando (36:20.482)
Yeah. Yeah, because I think that, you know, there are what what do you think then defines a good piece of creative work that uses AI in the execution or in the strategy? The example I hold up all the time is the O2 Daisy thing of the old lady who wastes scammers’ time being like, I would love to give you my credit card if I could only find my wallet. I think that that’s really fun. And their execution of it was end-to-end AI.

And they used AI in the creative idea. And then something like Sebastian Strasser’s Real Real Spot, which, you know, the creative strategy was about what is real. And so then when the execution is revealed to be AI, that I think is a really nice payoff. There are obviously sloppish examples, but what do you think, if you are going to use AI in your execution, what are the ways that you think are

Justine (37:06.328)
Mm.

Orlando (37:17.536)
acceptable and then what are the ways that you think are are potentially a a a goal on the horizon to strive for?

Justine (37:25.92)
I think that and look right now, I at right now it’s still so obvious that I that that AI is being used to the point where it’s a distraction from the communication. So to me, craft is communication and so it’s every choice that holds you.

holds your attention to the piece of advertising that you’re that you’re that you’re watching. So at the moment I look at AI the the the using AI as a as a sort of production tool is a mistake because it’s like all you can see is how bad it is. You know you’re trying to you’re trying to watch about an ad about a thing and it’s like all you can you it’s so obvious that it’s AI that you can’t even hear the message. So to me

Unless it’s about AI. And then, you know, I saw this you know, the Luma thing, that you said the dream brief. my friend Jason Kreer led that. And I thought that was a really clever concept to get creatives to use Luma. And if anyone doesn’t know this story, they they asked creatives and we’ve all got these bottom drawer ideas, these things that scripts that we fell in love with and just weren’t gonna happen because they were too expensive to make. And so he invited creatives to make their

Orlando (38:27.427)
Yeah.

Justine (38:43.428)
ad their bottom drawer ads with Luma and anything that was going to be submitted to Can Lions and one of Can Lion I think it is would win a million dollars. So it’s just a cool use of you know a cool way to get people to use the the platform. But I would say anything where you are using AI and it’s genuinely not

Orlando (38:54.562)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justine (39:06.19)
Like I mean and you look if for things like like animations, three D things, we’ve been using VFX for years. Like, yeah, absolutely, use it for that. no one knows that it’s AI. But if you’re trying to create human characters, like synthetic

actors and i and nature environments. I mean it looks so fake that it’s almost impossible to hear the message. And so to me that’s a craft fail. And until it’s able to do that, I would say avoid, you know.

Orlando (39:29.934)
Yeah.

Orlando (39:36.054)
Yeah. Are there ideas that come across you de your desk where you go, ooh, okay, like that that seems exciting and interesting versus ideas that come across your desk where you’re like, no, that’s actually anathema to to what we should be doing. I mean, are the are you seeing those, you know, happening more now?

Justine (39:55.202)
In with relation to AI.

Orlando (39:57.175)
In relation to AI, you know, I mean I I would imagine that something comes across your desk that’s solely about cost savings using AI and and not hiring as many people and you go, Yeah, probably not. You know.

Justine (40:07.706)
Well, without getting I don’t know why when this is coming out, without I don’t wanna get in trouble, but then you know, we’ve had a couple of pitch

Orlando (40:16.43)
By the way, you get the opportunity to edit anything you know, you want out out of this. So sit down. Okay.

Justine (40:20.75)
I would always finally talk about it. yeah, there’s been a couple of pictures lately where the the prospective client has asked us to use AI and to create final assets and show how we’ve used it. And you know, I’m torn about that because it’s really kind of like

you know, asking you to replace yourself. show how your value how you don’t have value. So that to me is a little cheeky. I don’t know that we are quite there yet. so yeah there’s been a little that’s that. But in terms of ideas coming across my desk, you know, we’re not really

Orlando (40:42.019)
Yeah.

Justine (40:58.894)
I just think the sort of self-ref referential AI thing, AI for the sort of as a concept of itself, is already like done. So my team isn’t really doing that at the moment. But yeah, I’m sure. I’m sure there’s gonna be. There’s more there’s always more coming. But you know, I’m I’m delighted that all that everyone in my, you know, I mean I’m in Amsterdam at the moment, a team here are all like

Orlando (41:17.623)
Yeah.

Justine (41:24.396)
really embracing using the tools. We’re customer zero for some Google tools and Adobe and things like that through our sort of global relationships and so you know we get access to to try things out quite early so fun.

Orlando (41:30.723)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (41:34.478)
Yeah.

Orlando (41:42.115)
Yeah. That’s great. You know, we talk a lot about AI productivity. and what I love is that, you know, you talk very high up in your bio and and put it right up front that after 25 years of c holding your breath, as you called it, you stepped away and learned how to sort of breathe again. and I love this idea that your year away taught you that for creativity to to work and blossom inside you.

Sometimes it pref it depends on being profoundly unproductive. and I sort of I love that duality because we’re always just talking, you know, about more and more and more productivity. What did you learn from that experience of stepping away? And what did you bring back from it?

Justine (42:27.044)
Yeah. I mean I really crushed out. I went well so I worked at seventy two a long so joined seventy two ten years ago, did that role for a few years. at the beginning of COVID I went to Gray for a couple of years. and just like it was right and COVID and I basically started

great in the same day and we it was an a very intense job and I you know two and a half years in I just really crashed out for all kinds of reasons. But I I took a year because I was like I was in no

There I was just in no shape to take another role at the time. I was like really, I think I know a lot of people did this. Like COVID came in and I was in New York. I wasn’t leaving New York ’cause I just started this job. All my friends went back to Australia or back to the West Coast. And I was like, I’m gonna just throw myself so hard into this job. And I worked twenty four seven and I just did not have an understanding or I just thought I could just keep going, you know, and I just did not have an understanding of like

what it was doing to my nervous system, what was doing to my health. And so, yeah. And so taking that year off was, I just kind of really had to rebuild my nervous system. I ended up finding out I had you know, I had an autoimmune disorder, I had, you know, anemia. I was like nine blood transfusions in one year. I was like so like ill. And I just really had to rebuild and like kind of re

Orlando (43:52.546)
Yeah.

Justine (43:56.965)
like really to like take care of myself in just like really fundamental ways. I went and did I went to Mexico and did like this like wellness retreat and learn how to do things like breath work and you know all kinds of things. Anyway, what I did learn is like I I had realized in that time when I was kind of pre-crashout

Orlando (44:09.187)
Yeah.

Justine (44:19.384)
You’re just doing, doing, doing. You’re up in your head as a as a decision-making creative leader. And you’re doing a lot of, you know, there’s lot of big clients and big pictures there. And all my decisions are in my sort of intellectual part of my, you know, my head. And and nothing was coming from the gut, you know, nothing was coming from the sort of creative energy. And I realized like having that time out, I was like, I was able to kind of rediscover the sort of true.

Orlando (44:27.714)
Yeah.

Orlando (44:33.474)
Yeah.

Orlando (44:37.87)
Mm-hmm.

Justine (44:46.448)
creative energy in my body and like listen to the sort of the gut feelings again. and I really kind of feel like that’s that’s

I I can never get too far away from that again because I can I can always tell when I’m getting too logical and too in my head, I’m never gonna be making making very interesting decisions. And so, you know, we’re in a pretty p busy period at the moment at 72 and Sunny, and I’m like, you know, jumping from meeting to meeting and go, you know, being decisive, and it’s like I can tell that I’m it’s not the best version of me. I need to go and like, you know, sit in a mountain. Yeah.

Orlando (45:02.37)
Yeah.

Orlando (45:14.722)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Center. Right. I mean, but but what is that? You know, like, I mean, in terms of what your what you kind of went through and noticed was happening in your body, is that something that the industry endemically caused in you? Is that something that you were bringing yourself in terms of the pressure you were putting on yourself? When you’re diagnosing that, where does where does that come from?

Justine (45:35.384)
Yeah.

Orlando (45:51.298)
So that we can maybe, you know, identify it when it happens to us.

Justine (45:53.157)
Yeah. Yeah, I think it comes from look, there were sort of personal things going on at the time as well that I you know, that would be boring to talk about. But I think there’s definitely for me coming up in an industry as a as a female creative, we were mostly surrounded by a department of male creatives. And so I always had this kind of story that

I had to work twice as hard as anyone. I had to kind of be more them be the most impressive person in the room. I always had to sort of show up with more to just be there, you know. And I think I never kind of stopped to reassess. At any point, I always had this story that I had to overdo it and over-deliver to just even qualify. And so I think I’ve just really.

I really and that when a job like that comes on, it’s a big job, you know. I think there were 250 creatives at the department in my department at the time. It was a huge agency in New York. And there was just there’s no there’s no point where it’s sort of it doesn’t want to give you a break. You’re just gonna keep going. and so it was it was just a it was it was actually perfect because I got to the point where it’s like I am

cannot do this. I’m failing everywhere. I have to get out of this. And and it’s given me this perspective that I’ll never not have, you know? So it’s like it it broke me, but also was such a gift because it’s like, I I I feel like I I mean from the outside it probably doesn’t look like I failed epically, but I feel like I failed epically. And when you fail epically at something like that, it’s like

Orlando (47:31.97)
Yeah.

Justine (47:42.973)
and then you don’t die. That’s the other thing. It’s like you don’t die from it. So then you’re like, I’m still alive and so now everything is okay. I can I can fail again. And it’s you know, it’s a freeing experience actually. Yeah.

Orlando (47:45.816)
Yeah.

Orlando (47:52.781)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Orlando (47:59.029)
I love that because I think that so many the narrative around it for so long is well, you’ve got to explain away that time that you took off. And I think that what I love about, you know, what I’ve known of people who have talked about you and and reading your bio and all that is that you lean into that as an absolutely fundamental new way of who you are in the way that you show up to work ever since that happened. And I think that that’s really interesting and admirable. And the way that you’ve

Justine (48:08.121)
Yeah.

Justine (48:24.718)
Yeah.

Orlando (48:28.384)
messaged yourself around it, I think is really inspiring because I think that it will hopefully mean a lot of other people will go, okay, like me crashing out potentially is more of an indictment of the system that I was working in necessarily than an indictment of myself.

Justine (48:45.102)
Yeah, but I also definitely made I created the situation and I think I actually I do think it’s almost disempowering to me to say it I was a victim of the so circumstances because I definitely created the situation that I found myself in and and I will always create whatever situation I find myself in and

And I think the reason I like to talk about it with people is because I think that the, you know, we there’s a lot of straight A students and very high functioning people in our business and a lot of good girls and a lot of people that want to do well. And I’ve seen a lot of people, you know, kind of crash out. And I also want people to know like

I am thriving now, and it doesn’t mean you have to go, you, you, you have to leave and never come back. You can actually kind of collect yourself and come back better than you ever were. And and I do, you know, like I said, I’ve got almost 30 years of experience, and I I actually feel like I’m more valuable than I’ve ever been because of the moment that we’re in with tech and all of that, because the discernment and the personal sort of

You know, the reflection I was able to have in that year. yeah, just gave me a wisdom that I probably wouldn’t have had any other way.

Orlando (50:06.326)
Well, and that begs the question. So what are when you’ve come back, what are your red flags or watch outs, either from the company or with yourself? When you walk back in and you go, what are the things that make you go, I recognize that? That’s the first step in, you know, me working every weekend and me do it, you know, like, or or is or what is it personally that you go, I’m letting myself succumb to this feeling of inadequacy? Or what are those signposts for you since you’ve come back?

Justine (50:27.672)
yeah.

Justine (50:32.623)
Yeah.

Justine (50:36.464)
Watch out for me. When I’m not, you know, in that time I also went down this path of like learning about, and I was in a in a group of women, a cohort of women leaders who are doing a program called Conscious Leadership with Joyce Chen, who’s an amazing leader, sort of a leadership coach in the conscious leadership group. She’s in San Francisco. And

Orlando (50:37.73)
Mm-hmm.

Justine (51:03.876)
They talk a lot about about sort of being in your feelings and sort of being able to identify your feelings. And I have learned that being able to sort of spot where I am in my body. And if I if I lose sort of the ability being like, I feel nervous about that. I feel like an afraid feeling in my body, or I feel yeah, I have to be able to be be expressive about like where I’m at.

physically in my feelings and the red flag will be is is if I lose that and if I can’t be that with be be that open with people and and be able to be articulate about it with the people that I’m around. But so far it’s been it’s been pretty good. You know, I’m I’m in some teams where the everybody seems to respect each other’s humanity. So it’s working out

Orlando (51:56.121)
How do if you do notice that happening, how how do you bring yourself back? What are your tactics for that?

Justine (52:04.138)
I would be honest with my team and be like, and you know, especially my my partners, where I’m like I’m I feel extremely I feel like nervous about that or I feel I’m scared for that feeling. And I’ve I think as when you kind of articulate your feelings, and also by the way, joy and and creative energy are two of the sort of heart they talk about five core feelings: joy, fear,

Like that.

my god, I can’t believe I’m like look the five core feelings that are like that make up all the other feelings, but being able to, you know, just talk about when you have creative energy for something, and that creative energy is like a feeling of being turned on by an idea. And this is by the way, probably why a lot of creative departments and agencies in the past have gotten in trouble pre me too. you know, there’s a lot of creative energy rolling around agencies, people, it’s like a turned on feeling. It’s like I need to.

Orlando (52:36.248)
That’s all right.

Justine (53:04.722)
Like create this thing, you know, and it’s the same feeling that you have when you have an attract attraction to another person. It’s the same feeling in the body. so I’m going off a little bit on a tangent here, but I think being honest, being honest about this is the feeling I’m having in my in my body, and it’s it’s it’s information that’s just as valid as like the, you know, the synthetic research,

Orlando (53:30.626)
Yeah.

Justine (53:31.064)
respondents that you’ve we’ve that we’ve pulled to tell us what an idea is, if about an idea is valid or not. I think that’s like, you know, I think that’s what it is, you know, and I think that’s what that time gave me is like this real sort of fluency in my in my sort of physical physical, in the information that’s coming from my physical body about ideas, people, about you know, situations I’m in.

Orlando (53:35.16)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando (53:51.608)
Right.

Orlando (53:55.843)
That’s great. No, I love that. Cause I think that, you know, I d I’ve definitely have have had I, you know, projects that were killed and it felt like a breakup. I mean, I mourned it for days and you know, and you do you do feel it. I mean, when the client says, No, I’m not buying it, you’re just like, it hurts. It hurts in your chest.

Justine (54:04.297)
yeah.

Justine (54:11.778)
It’s the it’s it’s sad it’s joy, sadness, fear, anger, and creative feelings. Sad and then everything’s a mix by the way. It’s like RGB. It’s like every color is a mix of those three colors. Every other every feeling, emotion is a mix of those five things. But the sadness that you feel when an idea, the grief that you feel, it’s like a bit of sadness and a bit of fear, like I’m that I’m not I I don’t get to make that and I’m afraid I won’t have an idea like that ever again.

Orlando (54:24.706)
Yeah.

Orlando (54:36.835)
Yeah.

Justine (54:41.876)
the great thing is, the great news is once you’ve been around for 30 years, you know that there’s another great idea. I I I know that I haven’t made my best work yet. I absolutely know there’s another there’s there’s tons more great work coming because it all comes, you know. so yeah. I don’t sit in the sadness for of that too for too long now. It’s one of those things where it’s like, we just on to the next.

Orlando (54:42.178)
Yeah.

Orlando (54:56.236)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Orlando (55:07.042)
Yeah. Yeah, you’ve you’ve I’m I I just feel it, you know, from from hearing about you to speaking to you, you know, and you described yourself as a heart-led creative leader. And I I think that that that very much comes across, you know, and and you know, in this massive current apparatus, I mean, advertising is one of the biggest, you know, media apparatuses on the planet, and it’s increasingly being driven by machines, you know.

What w what does it mean to lead from the heart without becoming overly sentimental about the past? What what what can you orient around going into the new world?

Justine (55:47.033)
Yeah. I I think it’s a thing that you opened with, which is like being care caring about people, you know. And I think sometimes look, caring about people can also mean making sure that you’ve got the right mix of people, that your that your stars are surrounded by

s o other stars that can make help them shine. And sometimes I have to make hard decisions about that. And I think sometimes that kind of in leadership that can define you. And I but I think it’s it always comes from caring about people and making sure that they’re in an environment where they can thrive, you know, creatively. They they they’ve got the sort of air that they need to

to to to be at their best, you know. I think that’s honestly that’s it. And and you know, like the job right now is like it’s pretty it’s pretty crazy. It’s like it’s a lot of transactional meetings, but it’s not always like that. It’s just like that at the moment.

And I think in the sort of quieter times, it’s taking the time to be with people and be, you know, be a human together. It’s mak making going on production is always like a great relationship, the bonding part period. It’s always it’s always when people get like a real sense of each other’s humanity because you’ve got going into the making together is like is great, as you would know. and then it’s sort of just like look yeah, making sure we have a culture of looking out for each other.

Orlando (56:45.804)
Yeah.

Justine (57:15.428)
It’s a little bit easier to be honest in Amsterdam because the Dutch system is like very much built. excuse me. the Dutch system is very much I’ll say that again. It’s a little bit easier in Amsterdam because the Dutch system is like really designed to

to support healthy, you know, work balance. So it’s it’s kind of nice to be in a place where it’s like, we actually need to be consciously taking care of each other. because burnout is not acceptable in the Netherlands.

Orlando (57:46.754)
Yeah.

Orlando (57:51.983)
That’s true. Well, many emotions are not acceptable in the Netherlands. so I mean it begs the question, you know, obviously you’re you’re an inspiration to a lot of creatives. They would love to have the career that you’ve had. You know, you were the first female chief creative officer at Gray. You were, you know, you’ve ha you’ve been at so many of the greatest agencies in the world. You’re navigating this conversation around AI and and doing, you know.

Justine (57:56.195)
Yeah.

Orlando (58:21.792)
overseeing the output of one of the great creative agencies in the world right now. For creatives coming in, what is your greatest advice to them, either personally or creatively?

Justine (58:35.224)
it would be to it’s you know, it to start early and really be cultivating a high taste level. I actually think it’s about just being exposed to great films, ge ge get being a complete, you know, obsessive about all the art forms outside of advertising because honestly that’s where kind of it un my career kind of really unlocked.

You know, and I started to doing be doing more beautiful work and more artful work when I started to find the time to become a real sort of culture nerd. so like go to every show, go to every film, like go to every everything, and just make that your education, because it all finds its way.

Orlando (59:13.624)
Yeah.

Justine (59:28.752)
Poetry, read, you know, read things that aren’t on your phone, like read just be be just be a sponge for all of that stuff because it it be you know not only it becomes like the richness of your of who you are, it’s just it finds its way into the into your work in ways that you know that make it really special. So and give you a great com makes you a great conversationalist when you’re sitting around trying to come up with ideas with your creative partner.

Orlando (59:28.782)
Yeah.

Orlando (59:53.603)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. Coming from a well, you know, if the well that you’re drawing from and the things that you’re referencing are all just advertising, you’re probably doing something reductive. You know, or that’s been done before.

Justine (01:00:06.712)
Yeah. And also like I know it’s really it’s really like we love I mean advertising’s always gonna be obsessed with young people. but it’s we you know and we love young people who are super online and super fluent in, you know, social media, but at the same time, you gotta it’s I don’t know that that’s going to be the the it’s not going to be the only thing of value for young creatives. It has to be all the other stuff too. Finding the time.

Orlando (01:00:34.777)
Right. And so what would you what would you say and like, you know, ’cause obviously so many of the the speeches we’re seeing at graduations, people are booing AI. What would you say are the things that

Justine (01:00:49.264)
Keep going. we haven’t.

Justine (01:00:58.873)
Yeah, yeah.

Justine (01:01:23.92)
Hello? Yes.

Orlando (01:01:26.837)
Okay, still recording. So yeah, I just have have one more question. Is is, you know, the the other, you know, we we’re seeing so many kids booing AI at these graduation graduation ceremonies. And and that I think speaks to a lot of the nervousness around AI coming for a lot of the jobs that they see as their path in the future. What would be the thing that you would tell them to, what muscles should they be flexing to make sure that they are.

Justine (01:01:29.316)
What?

Justine (01:01:46.008)
Mm.

Orlando (01:01:56.553)
doing the things AI can’t do, that they stay relevant, that they, you know, are coming out with tools in their creative arsenal that make them better with AI, not replaceable.

Justine (01:02:08.59)
Yeah. I’m gonna give you a an annoying answer, and that is like of course they we they should be learning how to use the tools, but what is going to be the future premium is going to be on originality, this like sense of difference, this p having a perspective that that deviates from the from the middle. And so

It’s gone I don’t know the answer to what where the jobs will be. All I know is the middle is going to have no value, so

Embrace what like of reject the algorithm that is telling you what what your taste is. Reject the algorithm, reject the averaging of yourself, and and continue to find, like listen to the body, listen to where your energy is. Go after the things that you become obsessed about. Those are the things that are actually gonna make you interesting and and different in the future. So yeah, like learn all the tools. We’re all gonna need them. I think we’re gonna be in a situation in the future where it’s like.

you’re if you don’t understand AI and you don’t have a ton of agents working for you you’re gonna it’s gonna feel impoverishing like you you you everyone’s gonna need to I think there’s a lot of incredible value in what’s coming what’s gonna help us but in terms of creative careers learning things but then also having a really defined like building your own taste and it’s not just like

Finding the cool brands and mashing together together, there’s this concept called what’s it called? Like luxury slop slop or something like that, or taste slop or something. I don’t know if you’ve done this. It’s like it’s not just finding the top things that everybody that are like luxury. It’s like go find the interesting shit that you are uniquely excited by because that’s actually going to be your point of difference.

Orlando (01:03:46.42)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Justine (01:04:03.75)
I do think there’s still going to be, for a long time, there will be creative departments making, you know, making ads and make, you know, creating culture for for brands. And so that job isn’t going away, but the but only the best, you know, most interesting people will be able to do the job. So there won’t be as many people doing it, but the ones who are doing it will be will have a point of view on culture.

Orlando (01:04:17.204)
Yeah.

Orlando (01:04:21.192)
Yeah.

Orlando (01:04:29.97)
Yeah, you you had mentioned at some point that that people need the courage to put something personal into the work. What does personal mean inside, you know, commercial creativity?

Justine (01:04:42.17)
Some examples. I mean, I think, you know, I’ve worked on I I love like the the the reason I’m still doing this and I keep will always, you know, enjoy is because every project that comes along is like a mirror, you know, it’s like this the every brief is like it’s like a hall of mirrors when you’re like, it’s like, what is this? What’s my memory surrounding this? What’s my real relationship to this? What story do I have about this that

I can excavate that nobody else has. And I think that’s what what I’m talking about when I s when I say that is we worked on I’m sorry. we worked on I’m just gonna turn my sorry I didn’t realise my phone was on. we worked on Secret when I was at Winning Kennedy, this which is the It was so fun, you know I before

Orlando (01:05:24.501)
That’s right.

Orlando (01:05:29.94)
Yeah. I love that campaign. It’s so great. Yeah. Yeah.

Justine (01:05:38.469)
Before, you know, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but when I joined White and Kennedy in twenty eleven, there were nine women in the creative department and there was a hundred and eighty creatives. And I think there were twenty-six creative directors. And I think at the time there was one woman and then she left. and so I my myself and Ruth joined and we were girl 10 and 11. So it wasn’t an agency that was

really tuned into sort of those girl girl thinking, you know. And so because of the success of Old Spice, we were just kind of handed this campaign, handed this brand, sorry, secret. And by the way, when they asked me, hey, we’ve got a new client, it’s secret, I was like and they were like, Do you want to work on it? And I was like, well I don’t can’t say yes until you tell me what it is. And they were like, it’s secret.

Orlando (01:06:09.138)
Yeah, yeah.

Orlando (01:06:30.401)
Right, yeah. Yeah.

Justine (01:06:31.884)
I I I had no idea that Secret was a Gedo brand at the time. So I was like, they were like, it’s secret. And I was like, okay, tell me. so but we had to build a team of girls to work because I’m you know this idea was like, you know, s we had this idea about stress being stress tested for stress tested for women.

Orlando (01:06:36.508)
Ha ha ha.

Orlando (01:06:40.66)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Orlando (01:06:54.248)
Yeah, it’s a beautiful campaign.

Justine (01:06:55.856)
Yeah. And so all of the stories that we did in the campaign were real stories from ourselves, you know. And I think that’s what made it beautiful. It’s like, you know, having a nervous conversation about, you know, finding out that your coworker that’s not been there as long as you is getting paid more and like you should also be getting paid that much. Like that’s like a real story. and so it was so fun. All of the every story came from a from a girl in our team and and there was a couple that didn’t make it out as a girl who

Orlando (01:07:13.748)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Justine (01:07:24.248)
told her boyfriend that she didn’t want to have a baby and he wanted to you know it was like this hard conversation. Things things that but yeah, they were they were great. did really well for them as a brand. So yeah. I’m happy

Orlando (01:07:32.787)
Yeah.

Orlando (01:07:36.38)
It’s a great example that that campaign of something that executed so well, so delicately, you know, you just, you know, so many people think that cut through and and creating a big ad nowadays is about all the bells and whistles and about, well, AI can now make an explosion for nothing. And it’s like, you know, arguably a girl talking to herself and trying to g herself up for a for a an employment conversation.

just in a mirror is all you need. And as long as you have the humanity of that show up on film, terrific actress, directed beautifully, shot great. I mean, it was, it’s, it’s fantastic. And it’s it was so simple and worked so well.

Justine (01:08:06.704)
Yeah.

Justine (01:08:14.19)
Yeah.

Justine (01:08:23.982)
Yeah, I love that spot actually. Eva and Ricardo shot that and it was so good. Yeah. and then there was yeah, that that whole campaign. And then we also I wrote a spot for Old Spice. So I keep looking out the window ’cause like that’s where my that’s where my memory is. yeah, we I also wrote a spot for Old Spice. You know, we had this brief that was about

Orlando (01:08:29.848)
I love Eva. Yeah.

Orlando (01:08:42.748)
Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Justine (01:08:51.82)
you know, for for teen boys, you know, it was like a spray a new sort of sprays, old sprays brief. And but the the the brief was like, you it’s for teen boys, but their moms actually buy it. So, you know, we have to want them we have to get them to want it, but we also get need the mom. It’s like a dual audience. And you know, this challenge was like we sit I remember the creatives were sitting around going

Orlando (01:08:57.524)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (01:09:07.154)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justine (01:09:12.878)
And I’ve and I said, but like when my brothers became teens, like my mom didn’t want them to like, she didn’t like any of the girlfriends. She was so not she would not be doing anything to help them like become attractive to girls. And she still reta remained kind of like terrible mother in law. But anyway, so that’s where kind of that insight came from is just like talking about our own experiences and making a comedy about

Orlando (01:09:21.46)
Yeah yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Orlando (01:09:41.331)
Yeah.

Justine (01:09:42.34)
These moms who would sort of stalk their sons on dates. So anyway.

Orlando (01:09:45.32)
Yeah. Yeah. And it resulted in Mom Song, which is a huge hit for for Old Spice. And you know, it’s a gr that’s a great spot. yeah, I love that one. But yeah, well, listen, Justine, I’ve I’ve kept you too long, but thank you so much. This has been so great. You’re you’re the best. And and everybody speaks so highly of you. Of course I speak to people before

Justine (01:09:54.116)
Yeah, it’s fine. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you.

Orlando (01:10:09.48)
You know, I I speak to you and everybody’s just like, my God, you’re gonna fall in love with her and she’s so charming and she’s the best. And you you absolutely live up to it. You’re you’re terrific and I’ve really enjoyed chatting with you. Thanks so much.

Justine (01:10:22.874)
Thank you, such a pleasure. Thank you so much. And like who I don’t let me know I have to pay and my out there in the world.

Orlando (01:10:28.34)
I’ll make sure they hit you up for a rose in can next week. All right, terrific. Well, thank you, Justine. Thank you so much for taking the time. I so appreciate it.

Justine (01:10:32.72)
Please, please do.

Justine (01:10:39.963)
Pleasure. Thank you.