Creativity, Rankings, and the Future of the Industry with Kevin Swanepoel

Orlando Wood (02:34.48)
Kevin Swanapool, CEO of The One Club for Creativity. I'm so honored that you came on this podcast. Thank you so much for joining me.

Kevin (02:48.974)
Are you kidding me? This is amazing. Thanks for doing this. Always had a good time with you guys. And yeah, this is just a great opportunity. Really appreciate it.

Orlando Wood (02:58.17)
Well, it's a total treat for me. It's funny when I get to work a little bit with people like you over the years, I never get to ask them questions basically about their job and about what they do and things that I've been thinking about for ages. this is just, this is a perfect space for me to ask you all the things that have been kicking around in my mind every time we've met.

Kevin (03:21.58)
Well I hope those things haven't kept you awake at night.

Orlando Wood (03:24.422)
Well, they won't after today, so I'm excited about that. So listen, you're you know, mean, for people who don't know, can you explain the one club and and you know, and the one show and sort of what it is and you know, and yeah, can you explain the one club in the one show?

Kevin (03:28.653)
Awesome.

Kevin (03:44.942)
Absolutely. You know, the One Club is, you know, over 54 years old now and it really is the organization we are... The One Club is the holding company as such and the One Show is the award show that we put on. But most importantly, what a lot of people don't realize is that the One Club is a non-profit organization. So we are here to support and celebrate the global creative community. And, you know, in...

The celebration part is the One Show, which is our biggest global award show. But, you know, the One Club is actually think of this as sort of a brand of brands where we actually have the Art Directors Club Awards, which has been now running for 105 years. It's the longest running single award show for advertising and design. And then recently we also acquired the Type Directors Club. So

And then three years ago, we acquired the Art Directors Club of Europe. what essentially the One Club is, as I say, it's a membership organization. We are here for the creative community, but we are here to celebrate great work, but also support the individuals. So that's really what we do with the revenue that we get. And like some shows that are really for profit, not driven around profit.

What we do is we like to put that money back into the industry in some way, shape or form to support other underrepresented individuals or those students, let's say, are trying to break in.

Orlando Wood (05:24.112)
Yeah, I would say that the three hardest awards to win in the industry are the DNA D pencil, can lion and a one club pencil. And it's, you you guys are, you know, undisputedly like those, those, those three, I think the most prestigious award shows in the world. One club is undeniably the most prestigious, you know, award show in the United States.

Kevin (05:46.636)
Yeah, without a doubt and we are undoubtedly the largest show in North America. I'd go on to say that we're two or three times bigger than some of our other competitors. you know, it's just had this really hallmark of just showing excellence through the years. We had the annuals for many, many years, but nowadays it doesn't make sense to have an annual anymore because

You know, can't see the great TV work with the experiential work in an annual. So all those things live in a pretty amazing archive where we've got around about half a million pieces of work that is archived through the years.

Orlando Wood (06:30.682)
Yeah, I mean, for people who don't know outside of the industry, getting into the annual is, you know, was a huge thing. I know now that the annual is gone, it's, you know, the website is there, but winning a one club pencil is huge. having your work constantly validated by getting it into the annual was a huge part of a young creative's career.

Kevin (06:53.87)
You know, there's a great story actually and Fernando Machado who's you know, arguably one of the the best CMOs of all times and he tells the story of when he first got into the the business and he would take the one show annual and get the Language tutor to help him actually learn English via the one show annual, you know, so

Orlando Wood (07:20.282)
Yeah. Wow.

Kevin (07:23.756)
That is great, know, OK, break down the copywriting on this this particular ad so that I can learn English, you know. Amazing.

Orlando Wood (07:31.024)
Yeah. Yeah. mean, you know, so your job, seems to me a dual role. And I think that's why it's so exciting is that on the one hand, obviously, you're you're celebrating the industry with the awards, but the other half of the job, especially as a non for profit, seems to be to really curate excellence around discussion of the industry and what's happening and inspiration. How do you balance that role of curating excellence, celebrating the industry and then, you know, and then

celebrating and championing innovation when you see it.

Kevin (08:05.48)
Well, what's really interesting is I've been at the OneClub now, this would be my 30th year, and I've always been here to try and push the envelope. back in 1995, I was at Apple and we were working on this thing called the Internet. And I actually then proposed to the CEO of the OneClub that they should have an award show for interactive advertising. anyway,

the CEO took to the board and they turned around and said, well, you better get this guy to come run it because we have no idea what this internet thing is, you know. So, you know, I started the first interactive award show in 1996. And, you know, obviously then as things progressed, we adopted and embraced social media, mobile. But we were also the first to launch one show entertainment.

which was a standalone show in the convergence of entertainment and our advertising industry. And then what was really interesting as well, we pushed the envelope and we started the first award show for pharmaceutical and health and wellness advertising. But again, we have a really tough board and it went for, I think it was three years.

And then the board took a run and said, like, no, we can't award this. The work is just not good enough. So we actually stopped that. And it wasn't until probably the.

Orlando Wood (09:35.792)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (09:43.918)
2006, 2008 era, when then the work became good enough that we started doing one show, know, Pharmaceutical Health and Wellness again. always pushing the boundaries. We also were the first show to embrace AI. with the Art Directors Club Awards four years ago, we started an AI category. So, you know, I'm always looking at the trends, what's happening in the industry.

How is things changing? And then how can we adopt to ensure that we as an organization who rewards creativity, reward the most cutting edge stuff that's been done.

Orlando Wood (10:25.594)
Yeah, it feels like, you know, especially after COVID, there's been this sort of Cambrian explosion of conferences. Everybody's sort of desperate to sort of meet up. And obviously you have everybody gets together for the awards and then you guys have creative week, which is a highly curated, you know, event that week with lots of the awards, but also talks and panels and things like that.

With so many awards and conferences, how does the OneClub stand apart from the rest of everything that's been coming up recently?

Kevin (10:58.2)
Yeah, well, you know, what I to say is that when we have a look at some of the competitors that are out there, they will try and strive for the big thing. You know, they want to have a conference with a thousand, two thousand people. You you go to the one in the south of France and, you know, it's thousands of people. you know, for us, it's more about. Yeah, his name cannot be mentioned.

Orlando Wood (11:17.136)
The one in the south of France, should I not bring up the C word?

Orlando Wood (11:24.25)
Yeah.

Kevin (11:26.158)
You know, as if you could see, you never ever give the opposition a charm at all. So, yeah, you know.

Orlando Wood (11:32.038)
All right, well, it won't happen again. know I made that mistake earlier, but I'll rectify it. It won't happen again. Maybe I'll even bleep it out when I mentioned them before.

Kevin (11:42.062)
No, actually, it's good to have competition. But, you know, for us, it's more about curation is how do we how do we make spaces that are safe and closed where we can take, you know, 150 people and like during creative week, we have something called the executive creative summit. And that is imitation only. You can't just go out there and buy your ticket. And, you know, it is.

a fairly costly ticket, it's, you know, $1800. But what we do is we invite key stakeholders, which are the C-suite from agencies or brands to come in and have a closed door conversation in a very safe space. So you can ask anything. There's no crazy questions or there's no stupid questions, you know. So and the beauty of that is that it allows the presenters and the speakers. And when we talk about presenters and speakers,

We ask that people just present for 20 minutes maximum and then have 20 minutes of conversation. What we don't want is this forum where you might go to the Palais and there's a thousand people there and there's somebody talking at you and then they whisper away, they get in the helicopter, boat or whatever it is and you never see them again. We invite

Orlando Wood (12:45.552)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kevin (13:09.162)
discussions and we have these really great closed environments where you can have a coffee with Rob Riley from WPP because he's there in the audience or you can have you know a coffee with Susan Creedle. So we just make people accessible and available. It's about connecting people you know as a club, an organization. Connection and networking is really crucial to us.

Orlando Wood (13:23.824)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando Wood (13:38.404)
Yeah, I mean, how do you we spoke to Car Cusimano, festival director of the Tribeca Film Festival, and she was talking about how when they're watching the work come in, they sort of start curating the buckets of how everything's shown. And editorially, they start kind of creating an eye to what they're seeing that year during Creative Week. Obviously, you have a fair amount of control over who comes on a panel, who doesn't, what topics. How much of that do you?

Kevin (13:45.966)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (14:05.646)
curate versus how much of that are you surprised by the editorial outcomes of what gets talked about during creative week?

Kevin (14:13.708)
Yeah, honestly, it's very highly curated. You know, I'm doing that right now. I'm picking the speakers and sort of this year, one of the major themes that I'm looking at is how do we adapt faster than disruption? know, because this industry is really feeling it this year. There's so many changes. Obviously, AI is playing a big part in that. Not that we want to this year talk just about AI. Last year we...

the focus and the theme was on AI and not just talking theory, it's talking actual practical things. How do I, as a C-suite or executive, implement AI in a meaningful way into our workflows? But this year it's across the board more. How do we as an organization or as a company change faster than disruption because we are being disrupted

things are changing, whether it be the consolidation of some of the holding companies or just the way media is diversified so much. How do we adapt to that?

Orlando Wood (15:23.718)
Hmm. Yeah.

That's fascinating. you know, let's say so. OK, you've got that thing that you're noticing that is such a great way in, you know, a thin end of the wedge where you go, OK, this is this is really the nut of the problem, the absolute epicenter of it. So you've identified that problem. How do you go about making sure that Creative Week and the awards or the the one club organization as a whole laser focuses in on that? And how do you organize the right?

creative people to zero in on it.

Kevin (16:00.43)
Well, know, it's again, we've got an incredible board. So I got to the board and I I'm constantly looking for interesting speakers and people. And yeah, so we really dive deep into it. We don't do a pay to play model. This is not like a sponsor us X and you will get a speaking slot. There's no there's absolutely none of that. You know, we just want.

Orlando Wood (16:24.184)
I assume they they must who must not be named maybe use that tactic a little bit.

Kevin (16:27.502)
Well, if you walk down the cross-set you can see for sure, know, who's paying and who's playing.

Orlando Wood (16:37.166)
Right? Gotcha. But sorry, I interrupted again.

Kevin (16:41.762)
No, no, no, it's just really looking for the sharpest minds at that sort of influence or the inflection point where you've got one hand disruption and the other hand the people who are actually helping bring about change or navigating it in a way or an interesting way. know, so and what's really interesting about this year is some of the speakers that have been pulling in are some of the

Original founders who were at the sharp edge of the change of web when web started coming about and they were the digital forerunners those people who went from a traditional agency background to more of a digital background and they all are Curious they all love to how can I say? Play with the latest thing

Orlando Wood (17:17.786)
Bye.

Orlando Wood (17:40.251)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (17:41.31)
That's what I love doing. I just love experimenting and seeing what is going down. And some of these people, I think, will again lead this next transition, which is going for more of an AI generated platform, whether it be storytelling using AI or AI assisted services that might be implemented nowadays.

Orlando Wood (17:42.982)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Orlando Wood (18:05.093)
Mm-hmm.

Orlando Wood (18:08.592)
Well, that's interesting because I think that's the concern. So many of the things that I see is a lot of people getting kind of fat and happy and they're like, well, I rode one wave. The amount of waves I'm ready to ride is sort of done and I want things to kind of broadly stay the same. It's encouraging to hear that they're as excited about this, you know, thing happening obviously later on in their careers when they could be putting their feet up. They're digging in and they're excited about that change. That's that's wonderful to hear.

Kevin (18:36.992)
I'll you now, Lando, it was so funny that you say that because one particular person who actually does happen to be on our board was just saying, like three years ago, he was debating whether he shouldn't just hang up the shingle and retire. And we spoke last week and he said he could not be more excited about the future. could not be more excited about the changes and the interesting stuff that's happening.

Orlando Wood (18:51.376)
Hmm.

Orlando Wood (19:02.982)
Mmm.

Kevin (19:05.174)
And at such a rate, so, you know, and that's one of my things I love talking about is, is how do we stay curious? How do we stay really open to change? Because, as you say, it's so easy, you you you graded, let's just say one aspect, which whether it be storytelling or form or whatever it might be or going back in those days, you know, print, how do you?

Orlando Wood (19:06.895)
Yeah.

Kevin (19:33.426)
make that sort of change from one media type which was, you know, a given to this emerging media that's coming or platforms, not just media, but platforms as well. So I just think that today, if you're not curious, if you're not constantly learning, you're absolutely going backwards.

Orlando Wood (19:56.238)
Yeah, it's funny. Some people just love the game, you know, and I think that they will always rise to the top, won't they? I some people put in the work, win an award, get an agency, whatever it is, and they go, great, I can put my feet up now and coast. And other people are like, I was thinking about putting my feet up because everything was getting a little samey and I wasn't getting to do new, interesting industry defining work. I was getting a bit bored, actually. Holy shit, new disruption, you know, the

you know, Gary V comes to mind. He's always, you know, you get the sense that if everything changed tomorrow, he'd be like, sweet, the game continues.

Kevin (20:28.375)
Okay.

OK. Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I think just when we look at it, the industry is changing just so dramatically. I love this analogy that I put together. so the brands are the pie makers. OK, so they used to have this massive big pie and it was advertising and, you know, advertising was, let's just say, television, radio and print. And

There was this massive big pie that they had. And then along came this thing called like interactive or digital. And they came to the traditional agencies and said, hey guys, I need a website. I need this thing. And a lot of traditional agencies then said, well, we sort of can do it, but they would see a hesitation and then they'd go to, there's this digital agency here. So they would carve off this little segment of the pie and give it to digital agency.

Orlando Wood (21:26.692)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (21:29.41)
And then along came social and either the digital agency did it or they then turned around and said, well, there's a social agency out there. They carved off that big pile, got a little smaller. They carved off that and gave it to social agency. now curators are coming along. You've got AI coming along. You've got all these different things. Data was huge. either you as a traditional agency

adopted those skill sets or what you call is that pie just keeps on shrinking, you know, so, you know, for me, I'm a firm proponent of trying to get agencies to say, right, how do we build the skill set and the resources to be able to offer those services to those brands?

Orlando Wood (22:20.612)
Yeah. Do you think that being a nonprofit is actually its own kind of superpower when competing against other award shows that they won't be named, but maybe they have the stink of commercialism on them?

Kevin (22:29.258)
I did it.

Kevin (22:35.21)
We think of ourselves as Switzerland. are independent. We are not the hold'em to, you know, shareholders or the likes. And also, I think we are in that sort of bit of a safe zone where we talk freely about work, we talk freely about, you know, people and we have our own rankings, which is very, very transparent because, you know,

Other people put it out there that they have rankings, but then what they don't tell you is well they skew their different awards based on you know their secret sources they call it, you know, but all it is a way to to put their different shows higher, you know, it's like whether it be the the walk rankings or what you know, the other show in South of France does is you know, they give you

Orlando Wood (23:17.75)
really?

Kevin (23:30.83)
You know, your award is worth X, Y and Z. DNAD is worth X, Z and theirs are all skewed because they rank them higher because they own those shows. But, you know, when you ask them and they say it's transparent, but when you when you say to them, what is the weighting of each award? Oh, well, well, that's a secret sauce. You know, we can't just say that. And, know, what we've done is we've had this global creative rankings.

Orlando Wood (23:41.19)
Mm.

Kevin (23:59.222)
which is very transparent. The awards for each show is shown and it's clear you can add it up yourself. I just think, you know, that's just where we stand from sort of a non-profit side of things. We just try and be, you know, open and transparent and, you know, yeah, we don't try and sway things.

Orlando Wood (24:25.35)
Gosh, the Voldemort analogy is really apt. I mean, it seems like there's a dark arts of global advertising, weightings and rankings in terms of, you know, in terms of awards. I, I, I didn't know that at all.

Kevin (24:40.812)
Yeah, yeah, it happens all over. I think, you know, for me, what I try to do is really, we put the methodology out there and we put everything in black and white where anybody can see it, they can add the points up themselves if they want. But at the end of the day, you know, let's just call it what it is. If you're going to rank the best work, just show what it's won. Obviously, global shows are worth more than regional shows.

and in local shows.

Orlando Wood (25:11.994)
Yeah. But it does. mean, you know, just so people understand the economics of it, those sorts of things really do have an impact as you know, there are so many different awards. It can be very expensive to keep entering them. I ran a production company out of the UK called Biscuit Filmworks and we would look at our award budget every year and be like, OK, this has got to be spent judiciously. there, you know, and when you win an award and then you when you improve in rankings.

That's a huge PR opportunity and you're more likely to get sent scripts from creatives when they have a script. go, ah, like, I mean, in 2013, I think we're 2014 gun report named biscuit film works, the global best, most awarded production company. got significant uptick in scripts that following year. It had a real world impact on us, our ability to hire and real world things. We didn't, for example, in the UK.

There's a magazine called Televisual that ranks the UK market of production companies. And if you weren't one of the awards that Televisual used for its rankings, the chances that we were going to enter you were very low. And so it really does matter. It matters to the award shows. It matters to the production companies. And it matters to this economy of advertising, creativity and celebration.

Kevin (26:33.07)
Absolutely, and you know we like to see it as like a real think of it this way You know when you when you enter award shows and you win and you attract good people generally, you know people don't want to come work at an agency who doesn't enter a doesn't win because If you are doing great work and you're winning

Generally your books can get better, your portfolio will get better. So, you know, when you are winning, you attract good people because you've got good people and because you are seen, you get into pictures more because you've got the good people, you win the pictures and it's sort of a circular thing. But it goes the other way as well. You know, if you are not entering, if you're not participating, if you're not being rewarded, then you're not as visible.

and it will affect your business. As you say, I think that's a clear example of just if you do get into the rankings and you're up there, you will get noticed, you will get more business, you'll get more pitches or invited into those pitches.

Orlando Wood (27:37.36)
Yeah, because for the creatives in the agencies, if they win awards, they can lobby for a bonus at the end of the year. think that that's the the other thing is like there are real world impacts to people's mortgages, homes, you know, like, I mean, it's it's it's all very real. it's every time somebody's like, words don't matter. Or words are, you know, silly or whatever else. I'm like, no, they're they have a real huge part of this ecosystem that does translate into real life changes for the people in the industry.

Kevin (28:07.523)
It helps you retain and attract great talent, you know, because honestly, you know, if you aren't doing that and your creators aren't getting the recognition, you know, when they do get an offer from an agency who's doing great work, always winning, they think like, holy shit, if I move over there, you know, maybe I'll be able to step up. So, yeah, it's natural thing.

Orlando Wood (28:29.2)
Mm-hmm.

How you you talked a bit about competition. How do you compete against for profit award shows that, you know, that that have, you know, crazy. I know you guys have, you know, great resources as well. And as well, the, you know, the the advertising community holds your award show in such high esteem. And being a part of Creative Week is a huge thing for for anyone to be a part of. But how do you then compete on a nuts and bolts like, you know, just just

You know, depth of weapons and army personnel, you know, how do you compete with, with, you know, things that are, are for profit and, have huge amounts of resources to throw at every problem.

Kevin (29:15.823)
Well, honestly, you know, you being a nonprofit, we actually do have great resources because we don't get taxed, which is, you know, a huge benefit. But, you know, another thing is, I mean, we we're a team of 50 people and that allows us to have boots on the ground generally all over the area. And we spend an enormous amount of time on the road. You know, last year I probably spent five to six months of the year on the road. So.

You know, that's just what we do. That's the nature of the game. And this is also like like every business. And this is a people's business. This is about you. It's about the relationships, it's about the people. And we have got an incredible board of directors, both nationally and internationally. And so it's just those relationships that we we. As I say, I've these over 30 years and I've been

Orlando Wood (30:13.254)
Mm.

Kevin (30:14.095)
on the road for 30 years. I have a few miles.

Orlando Wood (30:16.794)
Yeah.

You know, you bring up the board, you know, obviously the board is the board of the one club is full of some of the absolute leaders from some of the biggest and most powerful ad companies, clients, know, people from Google, people from, you know, large agencies. It has you attract just the absolute best of of the industry globally. What sort of influence do they have over?

the one club in its direction at any given moment.

Kevin (30:54.413)
Yeah, they're a huge influence on what we do. You know, right now we are just literally in the throes of rewriting our mission statement. And, you know, I've asked the board to relook at it because, you know, things have changed so dramatically over the last five years. And I want us to ensure that we are relevant, that we are.

addressing the needs of the creative individuals. So, you know, right now, the board is incredibly engaged. We have different committees that work tirelessly.

whether it be the Hall of Fame, is obviously looking to induct people who have historically done incredible body of work and given back to this industry over time, or looking at where we should be going as an organization, what should we be leaning into? we are a...

as I say, a non-profit educational institution, a 501c3. So one of our mantras and one of our missions is to, how do we educate the industry? And I'm really thrilled to say that we also believe in inclusion and diversity, gender equality, going back.

We started up one school which was done to try and change the makeup of the creative teams in our agencies because there was a lack of diversity. And when George Floyd was murdered, we worked with

Kevin (32:40.559)
you know, the team to create one school, which is a free portfolio school for black creatives. And so we now have five one schools. We have four in the US and one in UK. And the board has been really supportive of, OK, we are an educational organization. you know, for that, have a look at this to say WPP, who's been a huge supporter and Rob Riley is on our board. And he is instrumental in getting the industry support for

one school, which is remarkable. There again, we have a board member from TikTok on our board. when we look at the industry changing and creators becoming more prominent, Sophia, who's a board member from TikTok, supported and helped us form one creator lab, which is trying to get young creators off TikTok.

and bring them into the agencies. So the board is super focused, super engaged and really help out at every length trying to sort of say, how do we train, how do we get people so that their skills represent what we need to do in our business today currently?

Orlando Wood (34:04.048)
That's fascinating because sorry, think that what I've seen a fair amount of is I've been, I've listened to panels or been on panels over the years about being like, we need the next generation more than they need us. And we need them to come into the industry. And then especially what I'm seeing in both the creator economy and now AI is these people going

Ooh, I've done some interesting work in the creator economy. I want to come into the industry or I've done some interesting work in AI. want to come into the industry and everybody in the industry going, no, we, we want the new generation, but not that way. And it's interesting to hear you talk about that path from the creator economy in, because it sounds like your role as an educational institution that's so built into your mantra that you, combat that.

Kevin (34:41.551)
Thank

Orlando Wood (34:57.242)
myopic vision of only going, no, they need to be grads and they need to go to an art school and then they need to make this progression. Then they need to be interns at an agency. Then the mail room that that that that light that has changed and there's more dynamic movement through those things. And undeniably, these people are creators. They're not creatives in the way that we're used to them. But it's amazing to hear you. You talk about that because it's it's a rare it's a rare thing to hear.

Kevin (35:26.863)
Yeah, you know, and really part of the board on this because, you know, the the five one schools that we have, as I say, they are free.

It's a 16 week intensive program and one of the most beautiful stories, know, as you say, usually to get into this industry, you had to go through a portfolio school. When we were doing our graduation, a couple of graduations ago, we like to ask the grads, know, sort of what did you do before you came into, you know, one school? we graduated 350.

graduates from one school and the one person stood up and said, no, he was a private investigator and he changed from being a private investigator now into the industry. And another one which is just so amazing the story, the guy worked as a welder in a metal factory.

Orlando Wood (36:11.11)
Fantastic.

Orlando Wood (36:23.408)
Great.

Kevin (36:23.647)
And he did this beautiful, beautiful post, man. I'll never forget it. He did this post on Instagram where he put his boots, you those hard steel cap boots, and he said like, I'm hanging up my boots, you know, and he's got a job in the industry. So, so, so amazing stories where you've got these diverse, you know, on that specific front, black creatives who

Orlando Wood (36:39.257)
That's great.

Orlando Wood (36:44.838)
Yeah.

Kevin (36:47.599)
haven't had an uncle in the business who don't have the context to get them into the business, but here they come. They do this 16 week intensive course. It's done part time because these individuals still need to go and have a job or food on the table. So they work at night. And then after this, we've got a really strong mentorship program. also it's a, you know, we have a career fair called We're All The Black People that really look to get these guys hired in the industry.

Orlando Wood (37:17.122)
Mm. That's great. Yeah, because it's you. We forget there's an inciting incident in all of our careers. And I don't know if you had this as well, but I remember being in Amsterdam. I I don't know what I thought I was going to do there, but I moved to Amsterdam with with. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. There was it was highly influenced. I did come straight out of college in New York. I was like, this is attractive. And my girlfriend at the time.

Kevin (37:35.171)
Like me? Little D?

Yeah.

Orlando Wood (37:45.99)
Kate Morrison, who's now she's at Google. She was at 72 and sunny, but we moved over there together. She got a job at one 80 in their business affairs department and Peter Klein one day had, you know, I came in to drop something off and he was like, here, sit down, watch this. And he showed me the Stacy isn't possible is nothing spot. And I just went, Oh, wait, I don't have to be an accountant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is

Kevin (37:54.755)
Yeah.

Kevin (38:04.728)
Incredible.

Kevin (38:09.261)
You get paid to do that.

Orlando Wood (38:15.13)
Wait, this is a thing? This is something I could do as a job? Fantastic. I don't have to be an accountant. don't have to, you know, like whatever those things were that I thought were being an adult job, the relaxation and sudden need I felt to get into being able to do this, where it was like at one part of me just went, thank God. I'm so glad that this is an option. And the other part of me went, shit, I better get in this as fast as humanly possible.

And, you know, and, and Pete, you know, helped me get a job, I think, cause he didn't want to lose Kate. She's a, she's a far better employee than I am, but I think he didn't want to lose her. And so he got me an interview for it to be an in-house editor at widening Kennedy. And I just, you know, and just across the canal. And it was so liberating. was so exciting. And I think that to be able to be a part of that for the next generation, whether they're coming in through AI or through.

Kevin (38:44.441)
Exactly.

Orlando Wood (39:13.54)
whatever, however they're coming in. think that's such a wonderful thing.

Kevin (39:15.575)
Yeah, well that's incredible that you are part of that journey because you know 180 Amsterdam was amazing Wyden Kennedy and Amsterdam also just incredible shops and you know, there was this huge big Exodus from South Africa and a lot of those individuals went from South Africa to Amsterdam which gave them then the option to getting into the UK or to Australia where or the US where it might be but I'm so

Orlando Wood (39:40.665)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (39:44.909)
interested to hear that that was part of your history too.

Orlando Wood (39:47.526)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so, you know, it's funny because I think of, you know, AI and social media to me have a lot of connective tissue, you know, and I think that there's there's been this sense that the traditional industry has kind of not ignored them, but I think social media, when it started, got a lot of the same blowback as as A.I.'s getting now. Certainly when I

When YouTube first came out, I heard a lot of the same things from creatives or producers within advertising, was it's full of a lot of crap. It's going to be armchair people doing shitty stuff, and it's just going to permeate and basically all the stuff that describes slop now. But undeniably, what we've seen is people who undeniably understand that medium. YouTube has taken off as the biggest distribution media distribution system in the world.

Kevin (40:33.155)
these.

Orlando Wood (40:43.28)
There are loads of creators. There are more creators now making their living or supplementing their income with their creativity than there was ever before. And I think that we're, know, are you seeing that same thing that I'm seeing that there is this sort of this, this similar reaction, right?

Kevin (40:57.519)
Absolutely. Absolutely. It's so funny when you say that because, you know, going back to those early days and, you know, the late 90s when people were doing incredible work. I remember the guys doing banners out of Brazil and they could make a banner do all sorts of shit using flash and that and it was like genius stuff. And there were big ideas put into little banners and then

Your traditional guys would be like, well, you know, nobody wants to do a banner, you know, that's It's like invasive, you know, but it's the same as you say in there. Then along came social and that's like, that's shitty short form content. And now it's a driven work, which is just, you know, but I have to tell you, let's let's just actually really be honest here. If you go and have a look at, I don't know, TV.

Orlando Wood (41:29.424)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (41:37.754)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (41:55.875)
In all the ads that you see, how many are great creative ideas and how much is not that great? You know, the majority of work that's done in an agency that pays the bills, it's great creative work. It's there to try and move a product for a brand, but it is not this incredible groundbreaking idea that's come through. You know, the large majority is, you know,

Orlando Wood (42:00.772)
Yeah, so few.

Kevin (42:27.203)
It's like what you see on most websites and the stuff. I'm not going to diss it because you know, just...

that's what agencies have to do. And that's the sort of the thing that pay the bills. But, you know, there is those groundbreaking moments and those groundbreaking pieces of work that you look back, there'd be BMW forms or Apple 84 or even even something, you know, let's just say the the statue that was done by McCann and put outside the.

Orlando Wood (42:49.402)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (42:58.47)
Wall Street. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (43:00.655)
Wall Street, you know, where it's not even an ad. You know, what is this thing? It's culture, for God's sake, you know, but, you know, Fearless Girl was was remarkable. And, you know, that's what I love about this industry is that there are these opportunities for people with great creative minds to come up with things that just completely change the rules and that stand out. And that's the type of thing we love to award. But, you know, there's also the other stuff that, you know.

Orlando Wood (43:26.81)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (43:30.561)
you'll be watching TV at midnight and you wonder how did the client approve that?

Orlando Wood (43:35.494)
That happens all the time. My partner who's not grown up in the industry is like, how did you, why, why do you care? How did you notice? Like I just, I assumed it was all bad editing. How did you know that that bad editing was particularly bad? I'm like, I just, the amount of time sitting in edit suites. how do you balance that though? Because undeniably AI is being used all over. mean, right now, I mean, you know, this, this

Kevin (43:39.034)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (44:02.63)
program I'm using to do this. And many people I know who have podcasts that talk disparagingly about AI use this Riverside program that I use, which has AI all over it. So they're, you know, it's, sort of almost impossible not to use it, but how do you go about managing

a creative awards ecosystem in such a polarizing state from a PR standpoint. Do you shy away? Do you like the fearless girl stand in the face of it and go, no, we're going to award what we're going to award. How do you manage that? I mean, does the one club even have the power to manage that? Or is that really just the judges? Do you guys?

influence the judges or say this is the perspective we think you should have? How does that work?

Kevin (44:53.891)
Yeah, we do brief the judges on our perspective and certainly I think there's actually a simple rule. AI really is another tool. I don't care what anybody says. It's going to help agencies and creatives produce work, probably work that probably could never have been done before. It's not about producing work quicker, cheaper and getting to the bottom. But I think...

So long as work produced by AI, the creatives and the agencies actually validate what they've done using AI, that's fine. But if you are creating something which is false, and I think that's the barrier, you know, where you start getting to a point where you've created something that is completely false and you are lying to the jury about

what you did, how you used it, or the outcomes. So, you know, I think it's like everything. If you've used a tool and it's good to the end and the means, and you're transparent about the way you've used it and how it was used, I think that that's fine. You know, it's when it's used for devious purposes to, and I'm not gonna...

Orlando Wood (46:19.142)
Mm-hmm.

Kevin (46:23.023)
re-legate the issues that happened in the south of France last year. But that was tough, where the jury was misinformed through the use of AI.

Orlando Wood (46:25.115)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (46:28.614)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Orlando Wood (46:39.706)
Yeah. You know, it's funny because I think that there is a social contract in advertising. You know, I mean, we obviously focus so much on the creativity, the execution, the craft, the, you know, how it was put together, whether it delivers on a creative idea and as well then on the back end, the metrics of whether or not it was a success. That's what we get very obsessed with. But the end of the day, the base social contract between the brand and the consumer is I'm going to make a piece of media.

It is asking you a specific question, which is to part with a certain amount of your money. I may even tell you exactly how much money I want you to part with and exactly when I want you to do it. This Friday, there's a sale for 99. You'll get this. You know, it's a, it's a, it's quite transactional on that level. And so much of what we're doing, my, my, stepfather, had a, a line that he would say is you're coming into somebody's living room and you haven't been invited. Try to leave them richer for the experience.

Kevin (47:37.389)
Yeah, exactly. I love that. I love that.

Orlando Wood (47:37.732)
You know, and yeah, yeah. And I think that when it comes to AI simply as a cost saving mechanism, I think it undermines the social contract, which is you're asking me to part with my money, but you're not willing to spend money to get me to do, you know, like we're, you know, the, idea here is at least be honest, because if you're not going to be honest, I then can't.

believe that your product is honest or that your brand is honest or, know, and those sorts of things. And so it's interesting that you brought it back to honesty, because I think that that's exactly right. I think on some level, we must never forget that that is the social contract and you can stretch it, but that's what we're trying to do is create media that has that relationship and is at least honest about

Kevin (48:25.295)
Yeah, you know, I know this word's used a lot in authentic, you know, just how do you create something that one really resonates with your audience? And some things will and some things won't. And, you know, if you use AI as a tool, the interesting thing I'm a firm believer of is that

Orlando Wood (48:28.912)
Hmm.

Kevin (48:53.409)
I was not going to. Let's just say replace a good idea. And no matter how great you use AI, whether it be video generation or image generation or even script generation, the the human idea behind that is what's going to make an idea good or great. And honestly.

The way I look at it, I think AI has the ability to go to the world's largest library, which is everything that's been created before, and it can pull from things. But the creative individual has got this insane ability to put things together that I don't think AI can do yet.

Orlando Wood (49:50.534)
Yeah.

Kevin (49:51.435)
Maybe it can do it on and I really don't know and it's improving so fast. We'll only know in the future if it'll get to that state. But you know, some of the ideas that we see where a creative is completely taken something out of context, but there's a human insight to it and then they serve that up and they might have used AI to create it or to execute on it, but

It's that tension that human curation, human like AI has never been in a relationship and has been heartbroken because your girlfriend went and found another guy or whatever it is. You haven't been through those human stories or tragedies or emotions. I don't know.

Orlando Wood (50:41.255)
Yeah.

Kevin (50:52.087)
I'm still very very...

hopeful that that won't ever be lost, that us as individuals and humans will still work with these AI tools to deliver on the ideas, the human emotion that we've lived and breathed and got to know.

Orlando Wood (51:05.542)
Hmm.

Orlando Wood (51:11.75)
Yeah. Do you think that, I mean, you know, obviously you guys operate globally. There are so many different, you know, global and regional tastes and trends and those sorts of things. Do you notice those, you know, every, every year, do you notice those regional trends or regional approaches to work and how they kind of change the global lens of, of creative celebration?

Kevin (51:36.481)
Yeah, you know what, and I actually really do. mean, I really have the best job at advertising. It's like incredible. I meet the greatest people, the greatest creators from all around the globe. And, you know, certainly, you know, if I travel to India, know, what you're seeing and the creatives and the the difference of the way people create in India to let's just say to you go to Thailand.

and you chat to the guys there in Thailand and they've got this most wicked sense of humor and then you have a look at that and it's got this real wrapper that is just so typical Thai, you know? And then you can go to Brazil and it's got a very, very different look and feel and I just love it. And this is going back a while in the early days when I first joined. You know, if you looked at South America,

Orlando Wood (52:19.458)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kevin (52:35.907)
You got two neighboring countries, Brazil and Argentina. Brazil, they were just great at print ads and then they got great at web and banners and stuff like that. There was this hotbed in Brazil and then you got across the border at Argentina and their film was insane, but they couldn't do print. Brazil was great at print, but they couldn't do the film like the Argentinians could do.

Orlando Wood (52:49.35)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (53:00.464)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin (53:05.857)
I mean, it is just beautiful to see the different flavors across the world and how culture has really impacted it and changed it.

Orlando Wood (53:15.236)
And how do you combat that? Because obviously, The One Clo is a global but American award show. I presume you want some level of American editorial eye on things, but also you have to make sure that it's not making the judges and the organization blind to the great and wonderful creative things globally. How do you combat that practically?

Kevin (53:39.763)
Honestly, know what we've seen which has been remarkable is when I first joined there was a jury of 12 and 12 people would judge the entire one show They would go on location for a whole week and judge all 22,000 entries now we've got 240 judges that judge the work again, we still around about 22,000 entries but

The difference is when we have a look at the makeup of the shows, we are very, very focused on ensuring that there are independents, there are networks, there are people from holding companies, there are freelancers. And then we also want to make sure that the jury room is gender neutral. So we need to have a 50-50 jury split. And then...

Is there diversity in the room? And it's not just diversity of, you know, is somebody Hispanic or white? But is there representation from different countries around the globe? And I'm proud to say, you know, the one show people don't really realize this is we are 60 % of our entries are international. Yes, percent comes from the US. But again, most big global shows

US is the biggest entrance so the split will be about the same 60-40 roughly split. So I like to say that we are a truly global show, global audience, global jury, but we do have an American accent. know, we do have our values, we do have our principles that we brief them and yeah so it's sort of I wouldn't say American centric but it's got an American accent for sure.

Orlando Wood (55:32.565)
How are you for time? you have two to three more minutes? Okay, great. Yeah, I mean, what is, is there anything that you feel the industry is getting wrong right

Kevin (55:35.034)
Yeah, I've two to three more minutes. Absolutely.

Kevin (55:45.04)
Yes, the thing that we've got wrong and we've got wrong for a long time, which is really sad is

I think that we haven't done a good job of making the case for a good creative idea and we've allowed, I think, a lot of our power to be replaced by either account services people and when I say our power I'm talking about the creative individual and not being in the boardroom and us as an industry.

coming up with a stupid idea of charging for our time as opposed to charging for our IP. know, when we, and you don't know what your IP will be worth, but if you just think that the person who actually designed the Nike Swoosh was paid I think $35 for that, you know? But if you also have a look at, you know, we'll come up with these great ideas.

Orlando Wood (56:43.529)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kevin (56:51.878)
Even take for instance the Time Redbox campaign that ran for years and years and years. It became the iconic vision of what Time stood for, its brand and everything. And we seem to just charge for our time as opposed to charging for our P and charging for the real intellectual property that we are giving to brands. So those are the two things I think

Creativity and our creative leaders when you have a look at let's just say the really great agencies that have been through time and they've always had somebody who has been a creative at the helm and they've obviously had great business people around them, but You know if you have a look at let's just say widen Kennedy, you know, that was led by creative If you look at could be Silverstein partners led by creative

Orlando Wood (57:51.283)
Yeah.

Kevin (57:52.348)
You know, I can go on and on and on, but I think we've got to take back our seat in the boardroom, take back our seat, speaking with the CEO, not just the CMO or brand manager. Yeah, think that's the two things that I think that we've, and obviously this was way before my time, but when.

American agencies gave up and left that to the media companies and just focused on the creative. then with selling it as time and billing it as time, you know, that was a big mess. So if there's any magic way, one that I could wave to change things, I'd love to be instrumental in finding a way to get us back into that C-suite.

Orlando Wood (58:34.93)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (58:39.581)
Yeah.

Kevin (58:49.766)
that we could talk to the CEOs about brand value and the idea on how powerful it is for brand.

Orlando Wood (59:00.241)
Yeah, that's an interesting perspective as well because I think that the everybody always says, you know, when media left the agencies, it was really bad for the agencies because obviously A, it was a huge amount of revenue and B, it was a amount of creative control over your output and how it's shown in the world. And I do think that what you've just brought up is a really interesting point because actually one of the big things we lost is the creative control. If you had a creatively led agency that

had control over the media, you had a much better and richer experience for the consumer of how that media was expressed in the world. That's a really interesting perspective. I like that.

Kevin (59:41.158)
Yeah, you know, and it's something we have to solve. I think, you know, going forward, how do we just figure that out? You know, just because now ideas and creative are being given away by media spend, you know. So, you know, when a media company is pitching for media business, they're basically throwing in the creative. But, know, the creative.

It's hard to put a value on creativity, really.

Orlando Wood (01:00:12.957)
Yeah, yeah, there's, know, there's in some respects media does so much of the work and usually the balance is what 10 % of the overall media spend is what's spent on creative and execution. And, but that's the thing that's gonna get it to cut through. That's the thing that's gonna get somebody's eyes to linger on it a little bit longer. And maybe that balance should be a little bit more equitable.

Kevin (01:00:34.427)
It's a deal.

And that's the difference between a good campaign and a great campaign. The media spin becomes more effective with good creative.

Orlando Wood (01:00:48.273)
Yeah, yeah. Well, Kevin, I've kept you over time. You've been so generous with your time. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I can't think enough. It's been, these are all the questions I've been wanting to ask you for ages, ever since we met. So I'm really appreciative.

Kevin (01:01:03.987)
Lenda, this has been fantastic, man. It's been a great morning chat and thank you for it.

Orlando Wood (01:01:08.009)
Great. Awesome. Well, just before we leave, you've got Creative Week coming up in May. A, do you want to like, let's get a little plug for it and B, what can people expect in Creative Week in May?

Kevin (01:01:14.97)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely, May 11th through 15th in New York City there is a full packed line up from the one show to young ones to the art directors awards on the Wednesday night and then we've got the executive summit which is Thursday and Friday and then we have an AI challenge which is crazy because we've done this now three times where we get

Creators in using AI and we put them against each other in this bracket and We're we're water winner the most creative use of AI in the in the end, which is really insane It's just like live cool party thing. We've got a DJ spinning. We've got an MC and two Creators go head-to-head they get given a brief and they've got ten minutes to solve it and come up with you know an ad

Orlando Wood (01:01:55.347)
Great.

Orlando Wood (01:02:00.851)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (01:02:11.593)
Great. Yeah.

Kevin (01:02:12.708)
around this reef and yeah and in the evening we announced the winners which is fantastic.

Orlando Wood (01:02:19.507)
That is fantastic. Well, I'm very excited. I'm going to be there. It's like I'm really excited about it.

Kevin (01:02:21.201)
Okay.

Kevin (01:02:25.822)
The beauty of that is, is what we're trying to do there is actually trying to sort of lower the fear level in the bar of being able to do it because what we have is these big screens that you can see the different, the two creators going head to head in the same brief and how they prompt.

Orlando Wood (01:02:43.827)
Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Kevin (01:02:44.978)
AI to get the resolve so you know, it's a teaching moment where you can say oh shit I never thought about prompting that way Oh what tools are they using and and trying to the difference because to get to the end objective It's not just a single tool you'll use whether it be Claude or open AI to come up with a prompt and then you'll put into a VO3 or or cling, you know, whatever you're using but at the end of the day it Makes it

Orlando Wood (01:03:01.383)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (01:03:06.909)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kevin (01:03:14.246)
a little more real, that people can say, shit, I've got this black box of secrets that I don't know how to do, like it was coding back in the day, you know, or I don't know how to code. Everybody can prompt. In fact, I actually think that some of the best creatives using AI are going to be copywriters because they can write great prompts. For God's sake.

Orlando Wood (01:03:15.901)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (01:03:20.349)
Yeah. Yeah.

Orlando Wood (01:03:33.299)
Right?

good point. Well I mean you also might be credited long term with finally bringing eSports into the advertising and creative community. I mean this sounds very exciting.

Kevin (01:03:46.546)
It's exactly what it is. It's like this eSport battle where you've got two people at stations going head to head, big screens, and this year we're going to be actually putting it onto YouTube live to stream it live as well.

Orlando Wood (01:03:52.712)
Yeah.

Orlando Wood (01:04:03.869)
That's a great idea. I'm very excited about this now. I think it's great mixture of formats and it sounds like a lot of fun.

Kevin (01:04:08.689)
Thank

Kevin (01:04:12.272)
Yeah, I'm trying to get Twitch to stream it as well so we can actually bring this to the gaming industry as you're saying.

Orlando Wood (01:04:16.969)
You have somebody from TikTok on your board! What are you doing going to Twitch?

Orlando Wood (01:04:24.303)
Sorry, don't worry, we can edit that out. Well, Kevin, thank you again so much, man. I so appreciate it.

Kevin (01:04:33.962)
It's been a blast. You take care Lando. Bye.

Orlando Wood (01:04:36.817)
You too, man. Take care.