Uncensored CMO

Jon [00:00:06]:
Welcome back, everybody, to uncensored CMO. Now, you might have noticed it's Christmas. And at system one, we love talking about Christmas ads. So I thought, who better than Vicki Maguire, who is the chief creative officer at Havas and the person responsible for last year's winning ad elf with Asda? And not just that repeated another star hit this year with a Michael Buble inspired Asda ad as well. I wanted to catch up with Vicky to find out a bit about her career. How did she get into this? Where she come from? What makes creativity so powerful? And find out a little bit about the magic in making Christmas ads. This is such a lot of fun. I know you're going to love it.

Jon [00:00:46]:
This is Vicki Maguire. Vicki, welcome to the show.

Vicki [00:00:49]:
Thank you.

Jon [00:00:50]:
Well, we're chatting about Sex pistols, right? So I remember designing the COVID artwork for my podcast, and I said to designer Colin, I'm like, I love the Sex Pistols. It has to be bright yellow.

Vicki [00:01:01]:
Yeah.

Jon [00:01:01]:
And I was thinking about creating my own font. Right. And do you remember, like, we're a similar age? Remember when you, like, used to type out your name to stick in the collar of your shirt?

Vicki [00:01:11]:
Oh, yeah.

Jon [00:01:11]:
And you had that, like those little guns.

Vicki [00:01:13]:
Yeah.

Jon [00:01:14]:
And you had that sort of stamp kind of thing.

Vicki [00:01:16]:
Yeah, like a dino print or something like that. Yeah, I remember that.

Jon [00:01:19]:
Give me that.

Vicki [00:01:20]:
I still got one. And it's about the size of a house brick. And I'm like. And that's all it does. It just prints out. It just pushes things out of plastic. And when you look at your kind of, like, whatever iPhone you've got, which holds umpteen thousand, like, music tracks, it holds your whole life. It's got all your bank details, it's got everything, right? It's got all the books that you read.

Vicki [00:01:41]:
And then this big dino print thing does one job, and it's about 14 times the size. And I'm like, still can't get rid of it.

Jon [00:01:50]:
But it's beautiful, isn't it? It's like the texture as well, isn't it? It's the whole thing.

Vicki [00:01:55]:
It's iconic. You know what? You will never find that in the design museum, though, really. But for people of, because it's lo fi and it's cheap and it's working class, because that's what we used to put tea and coffee on. Do you remember? It's such a shame. It's about. I mean, I could go on a rant about this for ages, but that whole kind of, like, you know, that kind of the snobbery if you like, around design. And it doesn't kind of respect things like this. And those weird old stencil sets we used to get from Wh Smith's to write on our school books, you know, that's low brow.

Vicki [00:02:30]:
And the same with Jamie Reed. I absolutely loved Jamie Reed because he unlocked something for me. I was, you know, I'm from Leicester, my mom and dad, I was still on Leicester market. My dad was a brickie and I didn't excel at school. I thought I was sick. Now I look back at it, I was bored and I was also dyspraxic. But I didn't realize that until about four years ago. So it wasn't a great time for me.

Vicki [00:03:02]:
I made some great mates, obviously, but it was not, I was not, I wasn't going to shine academically. And also nobody expected you to because it was a. In a working class school, in a working class area and nobody was expected to, you know, progress. And I just remember being really, really frustrated. And one of the ways I could ease my frustration basically, was the tail end of punk. So at about 13 or 14, I was going to, I was going to bands, yeah, me and my best mate, Tanuja Solanke, used to kind of like pretend that we were revising around each other's houses, but we were going off to. They did my hall in Leicester, or the Percy G, which was part of Leicester Polly that shows my age and going to see kind of like, you know, the bus carcs or going to see kind of like southern death cult or going to see all these bands. And it was when I saw Jamie Reid's artwork, I think it was a pretty vacant something like that from the Sex Pistols.

Vicki [00:04:02]:
It blew me away because it was scrap art and it was photocopied and I was sitting in an art class trying to get an o level to go to art school, having to draw a kind of like an eggplant or having to draw a bison skull, whatever the fuck that we were meant to draw to get to show that you were artistic. And I was shocking. And I saw this and I was like, wow, that just blew me away. So I started to try to put a folder together of all these ideas and I was surrounded by ideas because, like I say on Leicester market, you are. You are surrounded by people and language and, you know, they call it vintage now, but basically it was shit. Just loads and loads and loads of stuff. And Jamie used to bring this stuff together and make art out of it and that just blew me away. And so I did it.

Vicki [00:04:59]:
And I learned very early on, actually, that even if I, I could make up for the gaps in my talents. Bye. By just talking my way into it. Blagging, which is another skill that I got from Leicester market. You know, when you're skint, you can talk something up from two pound to five pound and that makes a difference. That's a pint, you know what I mean? So they're the kind of life skills, it's weird, you know, Dave Trott will talk about this, you know, being a kind of, you know, being a barra boy, you know, and moving up into, into the art world. But it really did. That time served me well, but Jamie's work was a proper light bulb moment for me.

Jon [00:05:40]:
Yeah.

Vicki [00:05:41]:
And it still is.

Jon [00:05:42]:
It still is. It's so distinctive, isn't it? It's just unforgettable.

Vicki [00:05:45]:
It's that spirit as well, though.

Jon [00:05:47]:
Yes.

Vicki [00:05:47]:
And you don't realize that you're living through it or you're doing something, you're doing something the wrong way because it's the only way for you. You know, I was, you know, I've got to thank my upbringing and my parents for not really putting any massive expectation on me apart from just wanted me to be happy, you know, and I can hear kind of, you know, my mum now go. Are you sure you want to go do that? And I'm like, yeah. Oh, okay. Well, as long as you wrap it and if, and if you don't like it, you can come back, back on the market. That is amazing because that takes like the fear of failure away. So whatever I tried, I'd always got my mum in the back of my mind saying, well, come on, you can always come back on the market, you know, and so I've never had the fear of fucking up and I fucked up so many times. But you always ended up in a different place, which is, you know, which is a good thing, I think.

Jon [00:06:43]:
And you learn so much, don't you, as well? Oh, I mean, it teaches you so much. And talking about kind of back in the day, I mean, one of my favorite campaigns from that era is tango. Iconic, isn't it? I mean, when I was growing up, probably the tango ads were the ones that like, just we'd all talk about. Everyone wanted to copy. Slapping the, slapping your mates around the head, you know, which now, I mean, blame. You'd get into trouble now, wouldn't you? Can you imagine all sorts of people.

Vicki [00:07:09]:
It was of its time, but it's still very influential. I mean, I didn't know that I was. I was a failed fashion designer. And again, another light bulb moment for me was when I met, when I was working for Paul Smith, who basically said, vicky, stop. Stop trying to draw and write your ideas down instead. Right? And that is when I started to listen to how people spoke, and I started to write, and then I ended up at Ted Baker. And this is pivotal for me, because Ted Baker shared an office with a newly created ad agency called Howe Henry Childer Cock loary. I knew nothing about advertising.

Vicki [00:07:48]:
I knew nothing about advertising agencies. But these guys were cool. And I used to go into their office. I mean, fucking hell. I mean, how they ever let me in. I used to go into their office and basically sell them t shirts. And I remember kind of like, Rupert would just let me walk in, you know, and he'd. And I'd be like, what are you doing? And he's like, oh, actually, we're doing this and we're doing that.

Vicki [00:08:09]:
And he. And then I'd meet people like Trev Robinson, who was a massive influence on me, again, because I was like, what are you doing to know? And he's like, oh, we're thinking up a script. And. What do you mean, script? And he'd show me, and I'd be like, how much do you earn? And he'd tell me. And I'd be like, fucking. You earn. You earn. How much for putting your feet on the table, surrounded by books and toys, just thinking of ideas.

Vicki [00:08:35]:
And he's like, yeah, pretty much. So.

Jon [00:08:36]:
It's funny when you put it like that, isn't it?

Vicki [00:08:38]:
Seriously. And it was huge for me, and they let me come in, and they let me see what they did, and they used to bring me into brainstorms and things like that. They were a massive. And I didn't realize how breakthrough and influential that agency was in the way that they were open, they were authentic, they were embracing. They were a band of outsiders. I mean, you know, you don't realize how rare it is to be not only be a female at that time, but also, you know, for Trev being black. But that agency just had something about it. And you know what? It's weird.

Vicki [00:09:23]:
I've never thanked Rupert for letting me do that, but it was a massive influence on my career and also how I tried to find my crew subsequently, because I know it's all about people at the end of the day. I've never chased. In all the places that I've worked, I've never chased the work. I've always tried to find the people that were my people, and we could do some good stuff together. And I got that from HHCL.

Jon [00:09:57]:
You're so right about people, aren't you? Because I think the more I progressed in my career, the more I've realized, you know what? What matters most? It's not the name above the door. It's the team you're doing the work with, 100%. Because if they got your back, if they inspire you, if you bounce off each other, you can do things. The other one can't do all those. That's what really matters, doesn't it? And yet, when you're young in your career, you just go, I want to work for that company because of the name.

Vicki [00:10:20]:
This is it. This is it. I think that's broken down. I was talking to some students that I mentor, and they're like, oh, God, where do we go? We used to know, but now we don't. And I'm like, that's brilliant. Just go where they will let you be you, and some people won't let you be you. You know, I've worked in places that just weren't a good fit for me. And back in the day, I used to think it was me, and now I know it was me, but I know that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing, you know? And that's.

Vicki [00:10:53]:
I remember once I went on the agency, because I think the people are still kicking about, but. But I've always had a fuck off fund, which used to be three months rent and. Three months rent and money for crisps, right? That's how I kind of, like, judged my career. And I remember being in one agency, and I was thinking, oh, this is not right for me. But I knew I'd got my fuck off fund. And I remember being in one particular meeting and I was like, oh, this is it. And I remember getting a pret a manger napkin and just writing, I resign on it and pushing it towards my cd, who laughed? And so I got another one and wrote, no comma, because I knew my punctuation. Then I resign.

Vicki [00:11:33]:
And then just, literally just got my coat and went, which is a ridiculous thing to do. If somebody did that to me, I'd be like, what the fuck? But I love that kind of the arrogance of youth.

Jon [00:11:45]:
That is a great feeling, though, isn't it? When you come to that point, you go, do you know what? I don't need this.

Vicki [00:11:49]:
I've got money for crisps. I'd be fine. Exactly.

Jon [00:11:54]:
Now we're going to talk Christmas ads. You know, because it's Christmas, right. And it's a good time to talk about it. But before we do, I want to talk about my favorite bit of work that you've done, which is incredibly moving. But the British Heart foundation, now describe it for people that haven't come across it, because I want everyone to hear about this, and particularly because, you know, in our industry, we like to award things and celebrate things, but actually, you know, and we talk about purpose, but flipping hack, this has got some pretty meaty purpose behind it, hasn't it? So tell us about the campaign.

Vicki [00:12:26]:
So the British. So this is the Vinnie Jones hard and fast for the British Heart Foundation. I remember the brief coming in, and it was quite a simple brief, which we thought, which was teach the nation how to perform bystander CPR. And we were like, okay, that's going to be cool. So we looked into it a little bit and we found out what the problem was. We thought the problem was that, you know, first aid and CPR wasn't being taught in schools, so nobody had grown up with it, but kind of the opposite was true. It's not that people don't know how to do it, it's that they don't want to know how to do it. Because if you know that you've got those skills, and somebody falls in front of you, has a.

Vicki [00:13:10]:
Kind of has a cardiac arrest in front of you, the onus is on you, so if you don't know what to do, you can go, well, hands up, mate. I couldn't do anything because I don't know what to do. So there is this positive deniability, which is, like, really weird. We also found out that one of the reasons why people don't get involved is because they think that they had to do mouth to mouth resuscitation as well. And 80% of the population would not give mouth to mouth resuscitation to anybody with a beard, which I thought was hilarious. So basically, if you have a coronary in the middle, so beard's bad for.

Jon [00:13:46]:
Your health, you are fucked.

Vicki [00:13:48]:
Seriously, they're just going to leave you. They're going to step over you. They don't want to do it. So we knew with all this kind of, like, with all this kind of intel, we knew that we'd have to do something that was stepping out of the medical and education field and play in entertainment education, so you would store it somewhere else in your brain. And props to the British Heart Foundation. A very brave client called Betty McBride, because we went to her and said, we're not going to use a doctor. We're not going to use a nurse. We want to use a hard man, Vinnie Jones, who's used to killing people.

Vicki [00:14:29]:
But now we want to show. We want to show him kind of like showing you how to save people with a little bit of sticky language. Hard and fast on the sovereign to stand alive. And she's like, Vinny Jones and. Yeah, what, the guy that's just been in the papers for bottling somebody two weeks ago? Well, yes, but she's like, okay, well, let's see where this goes. And. And it just went. Vinnie was act.

Vicki [00:14:58]:
Vinny was really good, actually. You forget that he's made over 50 films.

Jon [00:15:02]:
He has, isn't he? Because the acting in it is brilliant.

Vicki [00:15:04]:
Oh, mate, I had to watch 50. I mean, he plays. I mean, sorry, Vinny, but you play the same part in every film I've watched, but just happened to be the part we wanted him to play. Yeah, and he was, you know, his wife at the time had got heart problems, and he was like, yeah, coming over and I'll do it. And he was just a legend. And everything just fell into place. The casting was right, the people were right. And it just came out at a time where, you know, I think people just got sick of being told what to do and wanted to be entertained.

Vicki [00:15:39]:
And it was incredible. And it just blew up. Personally, it blew up for me, which was ridiculous because I've been in the industry for a very long time. But suddenly, like, oh, my God, who is that? And you're like, great. My 25 year meteoric rise. But more importantly, I think within, like, two days of it going out on air and, like, doing, you know, and going out on socials, we were getting reports back from kind of like, from. From the par. You know, from the ambulance service, from paramedics, from doctors saying that there were people starting to come in and that have been saved by bands, bystander, CPR.

Jon [00:16:18]:
I mean, that is amazing, isn't it?

Vicki [00:16:19]:
That year, it cleaned up in the award, you know, which is great. So, you know, I love, I can't lie. I'm a shameless lover of gonge. But we started to follow up on some of these stories. You hear 999 calls and, you know, the guy on the other end of the phone is talking, you know, the person that's called through CPR and, you know, one guy goes, no, no, no, it's all right. I'm doing the Vinnie. I'm doing the Vinnie. I'm singing staying alive.

Vicki [00:16:47]:
And you're like, you get. You get the goosebumps.

Jon [00:16:51]:
I mean, that beats everything, doesn't it?

Vicki [00:16:52]:
Seriously, that beats easily, you know, that beats every line, every pencil, every whatever. Because some. Somebody, I think at the time, I stopped counting at the time, it was like 75 people were walking around purely because somebody had seen the ad and had performed by standard CPR sometimes in the middle of Waitrose, and that person had basically been brought back to life. That is massive.

Jon [00:17:23]:
Well, just how interesting. I've always wondered, why is that campaign not still running today? Because it's just so good, isn't it?

Vicki [00:17:29]:
It is. I mean, you know, the British Heart foundation are a charity. There are other more important things to do. It's still being. It's still being used in schools. We did a separate. A subsequent campaign with Mini Vinnie, with Vinnie Jones still in it, which was a free copy of it to go around to every school and every sports club. It's still being used by the NHS to train.

Vicki [00:17:56]:
It's still being used by the ambulance service, I believe, to train. And it still does the rounds. It still does the rounds.

Jon [00:18:03]:
It does, actually. I mean, even. I think even last week, actually, I had someone ask me about it at system one, just going, oh, have you got that, Vinnie, the Vinny commercial as a good example of how to do a charity ad. Because the challenge with so many charity ads is they face into some serious issues, but they do it in a serious way.

Vicki [00:18:19]:
Yeah, exactly.

Jon [00:18:19]:
And unfortunately, it just takes. The average star rating in charity is like 1.6 star. Most charity ads just get ignored.

Vicki [00:18:28]:
I mean, it looks, you know, it when you watch it now, you're like, yeah, it makes so much sense. Which it does.

Jon [00:18:33]:
It does. Yeah.

Vicki [00:18:34]:
But again, it's the. Bravery is such a weird word, isn't it, when you talk about advertising? Because we don't run into fires. But it was such a. It took a lot of chops for the clients to come with us on that journey. But they knew what the benefits would be. Reaping the rewards. They knew the. The role that sometimes, especially charities, sometimes you have to step out of your world and into culture.

Vicki [00:19:00]:
You need to make a dent in culture. And a white coat telling you how to perform CPR wouldn't have done that. But, you know, a hard man in a camel coat would. So they knew there were risks, especially with Vinnie, but they could see the benefits. And the benefits were more people walking around, which is what they wanted to go.

Jon [00:19:21]:
90 seconds of entertainment. Unforgettable entertainment, isn't it? With a serious message that you just happened to get.

Vicki [00:19:28]:
Oh, I remember writing that script. That script was so difficult to write. There's not an ounce of fat on that script. There's apps. Everything is timed. The director, Wayne McLammy, who'd done the great schlep to get people to vote for Obama, was incredible. And we literally sat and just timed it out meticulously because there was so much information you need to get in, which is medically right, but do it in an entertaining way. Yeah.

Vicki [00:19:59]:
I love that. I love Vinnie.

Jon [00:20:00]:
I even love it down to the couple of hard men in the background that just start moving with the music rather awkwardly. It's all the little details, all those.

Vicki [00:20:09]:
Bits, they were great.

Jon [00:20:10]:
So many. All the crafty bits in there that are amazing.

Vicki [00:20:13]:
I mean, can you imagine doing the castings for those? It was terrifying. It was like we were getting some.

Jon [00:20:18]:
We were on the hardest.

Vicki [00:20:19]:
We were really getting some hot. We're like, you're not an actor, are you? I think I've been thrown out of.

Jon [00:20:24]:
You can even have really hard men or you have good actors.

Vicki [00:20:27]:
Yes.

Jon [00:20:27]:
Find the Venn diagram across those two is kind of hard, isn't it? Well, talking about, let's get into Christmas, because obviously, system one, we measure every Christmas ad.

Vicki [00:20:39]:
Oh, I know you do.

Jon [00:20:40]:
We make a lot of noise about it because we love it and like to celebrate the great work that happens. And last year, you were the top scoring Christmas ad with Asda elf. Congratulations.

Vicki [00:20:51]:
Thank you very much.

Jon [00:20:52]:
But not just that. I think this is. Now I need to go and check the database, but I'm pretty certain this is the happiest ad of all time, because what we do is we measure emotional response, so what people feel when they watch the ad, but this, I think, is the happiest ad we've ever seen because it is just wall to wall happiness. But I'd love to know, like, it feels. I mean, as, you know, looking in, it just feels, like, really audacious, you know, to get will Ferrell elf in Asda at Christmas. Right. How did you pull it off?

Vicki [00:21:23]:
Do you know what? If it is the happiest out of it, my crew would absolutely love. That's better than any award or anything like that. That's just brilliant. Yeah. I mean, it was an interesting journey I've been to have us. What, now? It'll be four years in January now, and. And it's a noisy little agency. Yeah.

Vicki [00:21:50]:
I've got some really, really, really good people, both in my department and in the agency, and we just. We share. Swag is the wrong word. But we share a common belief of fuck it, let's just do it. Yeah, and we don't, like, you know, like I was saying, you know, some of the stuff coming up in, in my career and some of the people that I've worked with and, and I, you know, there is a difference. There are yes people and there are no people. And it's the people that say, yeah, let's push it. You know, I've worked at some places where they're like, oh, we'll never give that script to that director.

Vicki [00:22:24]:
He'll never say, no. You don't know. You don't know. Let's just give it a go. So I remember sitting around, I think it was like January, February or something, and we're like, okay, what we gonna do for next year? And Mossin, who is kind of like head of Asda, is like, come on, then, let's just bring it. Yeah, let's take the gloves off. Let's see if we can bring a little bit of cheer. Asda are brilliant, right? They're one of my.

Vicki [00:22:50]:
They know their customer better than anybody else I've ever worked with, right? They know what to do for them. They know when to make them laugh. They know when to kind of like, you know, do the right thing. They give free meals for kids during the holidays. They give old people, you know, the over sixty five s, a cup of tea or kind of like, you know, soup at a roll and all that kind of stuff over the winter months, months, and make sure they've got somewhere to go. They do their thing. Community is massive for them. They know that they cannot fuck Christmas up for their, for their families, so they do absolutely everything that they can do, and that includes bringing the lols, right? So, yes, that was the elf campaign, but there was a lot of food discounting and kind of like, and food value ads running around it, but we knew we needed a center.

Vicki [00:23:41]:
A centerpiece. I don't believe in putting an idea in front of what you're trying to sell. So we were like, okay, who is the best person who loves Christmas as much as Asda do? Asda customers love Christmas. They're the ones that decorate their houses. Yeah. They're the ones that put new pajamas on, on Christmas Eve, right? They're the ones that will just make sure that their kids are having an absolute time and nobody goes home. Nobody goes home hungry. Right? They love it.

Vicki [00:24:10]:
And we weren't going to let them down, so we were like, okay, who loves Christmas almost as much as our customers? Do. And like, wow, is it da da da da da? And then we're like, oh, elf. Actually, that could be really interesting. Now, we knew that Will Ferrell has turned down millions to do elf two. We knew that it was one of his favorite films. We knew that that film was 20 years old. And much as I'm not saying that will Ferrell would not look hot in a pair of green tights now, but, you know, we were like, okay, if he doesn't want to, you know, redo the character, what else can we do? And I remember watching that film the first time for a bit. You know, I watched it once, and I've probably watched it about 150 times, subsequently doing that campaign.

Vicki [00:25:04]:
And there were bits in that film that you thought, actually, if you took this and dropped it in, you know, an Asda store, that'd work, wouldn't it? And the only person I could think that could do it would be Danny Kleiman. So we just had a bit of a chat to Danny and just went, we've just done a little cut of all of the bits in Elfden that actually we think that we could. Can you do something with it? And he was like, what I would have to do is take all of the. All of the learnings, you know, all of the best CGI and then degrade it so it looked 20 years old. And we're like, oh, okay. So he works with Framestore, and Framestore were like, yeah, we've got the best people on it, but they're going to have to make it look a bit shit so it fits in with the original film. And they're like, what the fuck? So we found a kind of way to do it. And we're like, yeah, it is going to work.

Vicki [00:25:58]:
We could do it, but we're going to need will. Oh. So we're like, okay, how do we get to will? So we start to get to Will, and then Will is like, I've never heard of Asta. Yeah, quite rightly. You don't live in the UK. So he was brilliant. He was like, tell me what they do. Tell me what they do for the community.

Vicki [00:26:19]:
And obviously, we've got a whole raft of stuff to show that. You know what I mean? These are the good guys that did this. And he's like, okay, that's interesting. Okay, tell me what you want to do. So we wrote a script and we showed him, and it was so weird. He was. It was the last email I got at night, and it was the first email I woke up to in the morning. And it was like, Will.

Vicki [00:26:44]:
And it's like, oh, you have a thing here where it's. You know, we. It. You know, buddy eats a pig in blanket. Well, you know, he only eats from the four major food groups.

Jon [00:26:58]:
He's still playing out.

Vicki [00:27:00]:
He really knows his shit. And we're like, so literally, Asda were like, well, we'll just make some that are maple syrup. Cupboard covered. So we go back, hey, Will, what about if we covered them in maple syrup? Yeah, great idea. And you're like, wow, this is incredible.

Jon [00:27:14]:
The Asda product development team were quickly.

Vicki [00:27:16]:
Seriously, it became that level of wow. It was. It was. I mean, it was brilliant. So. Absolutely loved it. But one of the reasons. Not.

Vicki [00:27:26]:
One of the reasons, I think that it kind of, like, it took. You know, it got out of ads and into culture is because people weren't necessarily expecting it from Asda. So we're on set because we have to shoot some of it live action. And we have. We have a standing. We have a buddy alike who looked nothing like buddy, but was the same physical appearance, but not the same character. And Danny needed him to block him and da da da da da. But he looks shit, to be perfectly honest.

Vicki [00:28:03]:
And we're at Black island or somewhere like that, and there is another agency shooting and adds on another stage. And they can see that Asda are shooting, but they don't know what we're doing, because basically, Danny is almost like Stanley Kubrick. He's under this kind of thing, trying to do his matches, and nobody ever sees him when he, you know, he doesn't come out very often from under his tent where he's trying to match shots. So basically, all they saw was Asda and this really bad looking elf. And they think they put two and two together and got 15. And I remember, like, two months later, you know, everybody starting to go, what John Lewis is going to do and what. And then I hear the story, and they're like, oh, we've heard that you're doing a. That you're doing.

Vicki [00:28:52]:
You're doing elf, but that it could look a bit ropey. And you're just. Because that's all they've seen. You've seen this badly dressed kind of like, you know, this guy looked like he was on a stag do in the elf costume that you get off Amazon. And we're like, yeah, yeah. That's what we're doing.

Jon [00:29:10]:
It's true in the nicest possible way, because at system one part of my job is to watch all the Christmas ads.

Vicki [00:29:16]:
Oh, you have such a hard luck.

Jon [00:29:18]:
You actually have to do this. It's about 80 as well. It's more than you think. You know, honestly, last year, I mean, you know, there are some guaranteed winners. You know, like mechanical. For example, with Kevin, the carrot or cocoa has come back with a new and an old one. They do two every year, bring back the trucks and they come up with something new to compete with themselves, which is quite funny. But honestly, last year, everyone was like, wow, no one saw it coming.

Jon [00:29:42]:
You know, you kept it really under wraps. And when everyone saw it, they're like, blimey, that is amazing. Because it was just universally light. I mean, elf as a property, I just think is. It crosses generations, doesn't it? It just. Everyone loves it, you know, and it just had that universal appeal last year.

Vicki [00:29:59]:
But it's that thing, isn't it? It looks really obvious now.

Jon [00:30:03]:
It does, yeah.

Vicki [00:30:04]:
Elf is my favorite Christmas film, and. But also, I know how I feel when I see somebody using one of my favorite tracks on an ad. I'm like, you've ruined it for me. And I have to admit, and I don't think I've admitted this, but I have to admit, there was three quarters of the way through, we knew it was going to work. It looked great. Danny just. You get out the way. Danny climbed me.

Vicki [00:30:27]:
You just let him do his thing. I'm like, this is my favorite ad. Have we fucked it? People are going to go, what have you done? What have you done? You've ruined our Christmas. But that lasted for about half an hour. And then I'm like, listen, you know, we're bringing it back, so.

Jon [00:30:45]:
But in a way, the authenticity of, like, retrograding it, I don't know what the term is, kind of degrading it back to 20 years ago, but that's what makes it work, because you were respectful of the original, weren't you? Weren't trying to recreate it in a modern day sense in the store, which might have felt a bit like, oh, yeah, they just, you know, they're just kind of using it. It was very respectful of the original.

Vicki [00:31:04]:
A lot of that was will. A lot of that was, do not use AI. Yeah. Do not clean it up. I mean, literally, he, you know, this is, you know, it's his body of work. And there was respect that he had that rubbed off onto absolutely everybody. You know, he was like, okay, what director you gonna use? And we're like, well, actually, here's. Dan is real.

Vicki [00:31:29]:
And, you know, Danny's got everything on there from kind of like comedy to bond credits. And he was like, yeah, oh, yeah, okay, we're in good hands. And. But you had to be massively respectful to what you're doing. And then some of the moment, you know, there's a. And then some of the moments, we're like, we got a bit too far on that. There's a lovely bit in the film where Buddy is coming to New York, and he's walking down whatever street it is, and he finds some chewing gum stuck under the subway railings. And he's like, that shot we used to get buddy to taste a pig in blanket.

Jon [00:32:07]:
Oh, clever.

Vicki [00:32:08]:
And I'm looking at it thinking, does it gross or is that cool? So, you know, it was a lovely, lovely thing to work on. And again, it was one of those things, like, nobody saw it coming, which is great. It's not, you know, we didn't keep it under wraps as nobody was asking.

Jon [00:32:24]:
Yeah, exactly. Which was great. On the list of things people are getting ready. Exactly what John Lewis gonna do. Is Kevin gonna do another smash hit?

Vicki [00:32:31]:
Yeah.

Jon [00:32:32]:
You know, will coat sick or twist all the usual conversations. It just went straight, you know, which.

Vicki [00:32:37]:
Again, I think just adds to the kind of, like, the mystique. But it is nice, I have to say. Yes, shiny stuff is lovely. But, you know, being able to get into a cab and not, you know, and your heart not sink when they go, oh, you know, all do you do for a living, then? Oh, working advertiser. Oh, really? What you do? Oh, I do. Da da da da. Anything I've ever seen. Well, actually.

Vicki [00:33:01]:
And then just kind. And then just sit back a little bit drunk and just let, you know. Let the cabbie tell you how we would have done it. It's great.

Jon [00:33:10]:
We should do ad ratings by cabbies. I mean, honestly, that would be.

Vicki [00:33:13]:
Oh, my God.

Jon [00:33:15]:
We could film this thing where you get in a cab and you ask the cab, say, what you seen on tv recently, mate. All right. And then see what they think. That would be the cab ranking the.

Vicki [00:33:25]:
One, mate, seriously, that is quite possibly the best thing I have heard for a while. You should definitely do that.

Jon [00:33:35]:
We should film it. It'd be a bit like the James Corden thing, you know, where they're filming kind of in the car and they're singing along from the back. And then this had the soundtrack in the car and everything.

Vicki [00:33:44]:
Cab rankings.

Jon [00:33:45]:
There we go. Come on. You had it here first.

Vicki [00:33:47]:
Got to be good.

Jon [00:33:49]:
The other thing, actually, before we move on to this campaign as well, the other thing that I can see, from the data, you did brilliantly. It's very rare to get 100% attribution on any ad because there are so many Christmas ads and people go, oh, was that the John Lewis one? Was it the m and s one? That happens a lot. 100% of people that saw it knew it was Asda. That's the thing that was magical about it, is it was set in the store, but the green and the. All of it just made it unmistakably. As to. And, you know, advertising doesn't work unless you know who it is.

Vicki [00:34:18]:
Right. No, that's great. That's really good. It did help with. It was green.

Jon [00:34:24]:
It did. Well, I know. Exactly. I did look at it and think, ah, yeah, nice. Just simple things like the green.

Vicki [00:34:30]:
Yeah, we played that game. We're like, what can we do with a hulk? Nothing.

Jon [00:34:33]:
Yeah.

Vicki [00:34:33]:
What about Shrek? Scary.

Jon [00:34:35]:
Kermit the frog? Yeah.

Vicki [00:34:37]:
No, it's been used. No, it's funny.

Jon [00:34:39]:
Kermit the frog could do it.

Vicki [00:34:41]:
I think they did a Warburton's a few years ago.

Jon [00:34:43]:
Yeah, that did incredibly well, actually. That's a five star anyway.

Vicki [00:34:48]:
Yeah, it's got a dog in it.

Jon [00:34:50]:
Exactly.

Vicki [00:34:51]:
And we know that dogs help.

Jon [00:34:53]:
Well, I did forget to mention earlier, by the way. So, Vinny, I think from the system, one database is the highest scoring charity ad of all time. That doesn't have a dog in it. Yeah.

Vicki [00:35:02]:
If I could have got a dog.

Jon [00:35:04]:
In there needs to be, like, a dog kind of adjustment, like, kind of thing on that.

Vicki [00:35:08]:
Yeah, there should be. Definitely the dogs. Yeah. The bone scale, where is it on? Listen, if I could. If I could put a dog in every single one of my ads, I would do.

Jon [00:35:16]:
Yeah. 100%.

Vicki [00:35:17]:
Yeah.

Jon [00:35:18]:
It's every. Every year we do this. Well, I say every year for the last two years, I've got Ritson on the podcast talking about the best campaigns of the year, and most of them make complete sense. Yeah, yeah. Get it. That was really good. And there's always, like, a fairly average dog ad, and he's like, what?

Vicki [00:35:36]:
Yeah, the dog factor. Yeah, that's not a bad thing.

Jon [00:35:39]:
Nothing can be done about that.

Vicki [00:35:40]:
Oh, I'm with you.

Jon [00:35:41]:
So I guess the obvious creative question then becomes, what on earth do you do? Having probably made the happiest ad of all time, what happens next? Let's start with this question. When do you start thinking about next Christmas? When does the brief land for you?

Vicki [00:35:56]:
It's always on brief. So it's not. Oh, my God. So here's the thing. We did not think. I think it was about January, February. We were not sitting there going, oh, how do we top elf, right? Because as soon as you think you have a bar to hit, it blocks you. Christmas may be seen as our super bowl, but it is the biggest trading time for a supermarket.

Vicki [00:36:25]:
So it would be naive for a creative to think, oh, well, we did elf here. Why don't we do and just think that the top layer is everything. It's not. There's some serious money trade. There's a lot riding on Christmas, not just financially, but emotionally. You cannot let a family down at Christmas. They have to be assured of price, especially these days, and of quality. So the first thing you look at is, what headwinds are we going into? What business problem or opportunity do we need to get around? So, as does things, has been a perception of quality.

Vicki [00:37:09]:
Their quality, maybe not quality was not seen as good as a lot of its contemporaries. They have spent millions on getting their quality right. And all year we have been doing things called the Asda taste match, where everybody else has been price matching. We've been taste matching. Independent tests have told us that we are literally, we've got, I don't know, 200, 300 items. I think it's 200 items that taste as good as or better than Marks and Spencer's for Nasda price. They have massively invested in that. So we knew that quality was going to be the one big signifier.

Vicki [00:37:50]:
They trust us on price now. But quality Christmas, sometimes you trade up. Yeah. You don't need to with us. And we knew that that was a thing. So we are literally looking for, again, the same. We know that construct works. Yeah.

Vicki [00:38:10]:
Who's going to be the Asda colleague? It works internally for Asda colleagues, who are thousands of them. And if you. If you've lost your colleagues within that bad ad, then you can feel it on the shop floor. Yeah. If you give them something to be proud of, then they're a foot taller. And you've seen our ad, or have you heard this? This is on the ad and all that stood at. Right, we love that. Right.

Vicki [00:38:35]:
That's. That's brilliant. You've got the whole company behind you then. So we're like, okay, it's a colleague. Who's it going to be? Who number one? Who loves Christmas as much as we do? Who says quality? Who says sophistication? Who will do it with a wink and a smile in an ASD away? Right. And literally, I remember, I think it just came off a line that I think it was Natalie Gordon wrote which was pop the booble. We're like, whoa. And then there's that thing.

Vicki [00:39:02]:
He'll never do it. But you know, what he does might. And it's kind of like, okay, well, what would maybe get him? Well, what about an a lister? Like, Buble will need an a lister director, but we need somebody that can really dial up the comedy but without overblowing it and making him look a bit. A little bit hokey. And then we thought, Taika. And again, oh, he'll never do it. Well, let's ask. And I would love to say it was because I shot his very first commercial in the UK, which was fun.

Jon [00:39:39]:
Drop that one in.

Vicki [00:39:40]:
I know for the oldest, you made.

Jon [00:39:43]:
Him what he is today.

Vicki [00:39:44]:
Well, you know, I don't take the credit. My name isn't on the Oscars, but we shot an ad together even when I was a kid. For friends reunited.

Jon [00:39:54]:
No.

Vicki [00:39:55]:
And I remember phoning hungry man up, going, who's Taika? Around? And I was like, I'm gonna pull in. And I said, you never remember. And we're like, well, let's just. Let's just send him that script. And it was great. And he was, you know, it's a. He obviously, he knows Asda. He's an anglophile now.

Vicki [00:40:14]:
He's, you know, he's Mister Rita Aurora. But the appeal to do something for a supermarket with such latent love and a big, big footprint in the UK, a big, fat populist ad with somebody like Buble, was a bit too much for him to resist. And he's like, oh, actually. So we had a couple of chats, and he was always around the world, beaming in from somewhere at some ridiculous time. And he was up for it. And then as soon as Buble knew that we got Taika, Buble was like, okay, this is interesting. And then they just started talking. And, you know, Taika would be like, oh, I spoke to Michael about da da da da.

Vicki [00:41:00]:
And we're like, mate, we'll get out of your way. And he was an absolute delight. He is a. He's leading man material.

Jon [00:41:12]:
Has he acted before? Because he seemed very natural, doesn't he? I mean, obviously, he's done a lot before me, but the comic timing was there, sort of smiles, the camera, the. All the subtleties were in place. Wasn't it, in a way that you.

Vicki [00:41:23]:
Thought, honestly, this is. This is him and tyke, the bromance between, like, taika and Buble. We just, like I said, we just sat and just made sure the food looked and tasted amazing. That was our job. That was odd. You were like, oh, my God, that, you know, Michael, you look amazing. I just want to clock that cheese a bit. I mean, you know, we were literally.

Jon [00:41:45]:
How's the shine on the.

Vicki [00:41:46]:
Yeah, you're like, sausage roll. You know, exactly. That sausage roll looks a bit. Looks a bit sad.

Jon [00:41:51]:
I noticed the cheese was lined up beautifully, by the way.

Vicki [00:41:57]:
Honestly. And it just. It literally just all came together and that, you know, and it's amazing. And I. And like I say, you don't. If you don't ask, you don't get. And we asked and we got, and we asked and we got. And it's great.

Vicki [00:42:12]:
And there's the thing that's, I think, is out. Don't know whether we put it out yet or out on social. There's a little film with the bloopers.

Jon [00:42:19]:
Oh, I love that.

Vicki [00:42:20]:
And then not even. It's not a 10th of what we can actually say. He swears more than I do.

Jon [00:42:26]:
Oh, you got to get those bloopers out there.

Vicki [00:42:28]:
Yeah, no, there will be. I think they come out this month on social just as a little teaser. But, you know, the man is loved. So, yes, it's not elf, but. Oh, my God, it's the latent love. And the outright pouring has been brilliant. And this has been a big year, hasn't it? I think there's been some. I mean, it's been interesting because we're just trying to work out, like, John Lewis changed agencies, Sainsbury's changed agencies, Morrison's have changed agencies.

Vicki [00:43:03]:
There's a lot of new, fresh work out there, a lot of new strategic thinking that have gone into these. And it's been real m and s have changed.

Jon [00:43:14]:
Yeah. Very, very good, because we get the data, we can see it, but we've never had so many top. So the top score on the system on database is 5.9. Right. And we've never had so many five point nine s. And you got five star two in a row. Only coke and Audi have ever done that before. So, in a very elite company.

Jon [00:43:38]:
But, yeah, the amount of good work, I mean, it's almost like. You're quite right. You said it earlier about the retail. Retail at Christmas in the UK is just ridiculously competitive. The year is made or lost, isn't it, by whether people choose to have Christmas with Asda or choose to have it somewhere else kind of thing. So a lot at stake. And also those behavior changes at Christmas run into the new year as well. So it often makes the following year.

Jon [00:44:00]:
So it becomes incredibly important. And it's like, I don't. I mean, we were talking before about Super bowl, but comfortably. Christmas in the UK scores on a system on database way ahead of Super bowl. So even the biggest advertising event on the planet.

Vicki [00:44:15]:
So what are Super Bowls? What does Super bowl score out?

Jon [00:44:17]:
Well, surprising, actually. So with five star scales, 5.9 being the maximum, Super bowl only averages 2.7. Wow. Which is only a little bit more than average, which is really surprising. But you tend, and you tend to get one or two five stars. I mean, not that many, but you get quite a lot of sort of crypto ads, really sort of, like, out there kind of ads that don't work. So you kind of drag survives down. But if I look at Christmas, you'll probably get 25 star ads or something like that, which is in the top 1% on the database.

Jon [00:44:47]:
So you're talking about the best. I mean, 5.9 would be like 0.1%. I mean, you're getting the very best of the very best, but across a number of, you know, a number of agencies, number of advertisers, it's incredible, really.

Vicki [00:45:00]:
It is fascinating. What I love is the way that people interact with them now. I mean, you know, when, you know, when I hadn't got a Christmas ad in the game, when we didn't have a client that did Christmas, you would look at the outpouring across x Twitter, or you'd look at the outpouring, you know, in like, you know, in like, your. Your feeds, and you'd be like, haven't you got anything else to talk about? But you realize that it's so big and. But it's on the scale of the way that we would talk about something like line of duty.

Jon [00:45:40]:
Yes.

Vicki [00:45:41]:
Right. It's coming out. What do you reckon to that? Oh, I don't know. And you just realize that. Are we filling a cultural void because tv is crap? Yeah. Or, you know, is this something we should be? Should we be in longer form?

Jon [00:45:55]:
It's becoming a story in its own right, though, isn't it? It's becoming a narrative. And Christmas is about having similar conversations, similar events, similar traditions. And it's become part of that, isn't it, really?

Vicki [00:46:05]:
It is funny, isn't it? Especially. There's a few ads this year about knocking traditions, but we become one in our. We've become one ourselves, ironically.

Jon [00:46:12]:
Yeah. We haven't.

Vicki [00:46:13]:
We knew.

Jon [00:46:14]:
Who knew? There we go. I must ask you about Cannes as well, talking about creativity, because you were a judge this year of not only lions. But titanium lions.

Vicki [00:46:22]:
Oh, my God.

Jon [00:46:24]:
Talk about pressure.

Vicki [00:46:25]:
The Dan Wyden titanium lion.

Jon [00:46:28]:
It can't get much. Does it get any better than that? I mean, it must be like the.

Vicki [00:46:31]:
Top of the top.

Jon [00:46:32]:
I mean, what kind of pressure is.

Vicki [00:46:33]:
That to put on yourself? It was ridiculous. I mean, look, I love judging. Yeah, I judge a lot at Cannes. So while everybody else is on a boat or at a party or kind of like Eden Rock and whatever, I'm stuck in a drafty room with really bad coffee and very few snacks, looking at the best of the best, trying not to kind of like to mask my imposter syndrome because I'm sitting next to Dave Droger, an opposite Sudan Creedle. You know what I mean? It's like, what the fuck? But it was brilliant, though, the titanium. You do your shortlist and then the shortlisted agencies present to you.

Jon [00:47:12]:
Oh, I didn't know that.

Vicki [00:47:14]:
Its.

Jon [00:47:14]:
Wow.

Vicki [00:47:16]:
Insane. Yeah, its amazing. And its humbling and frustrating because you didnt do the work thats there and inspiring all at the same time, which is why you complain, because you have to do a lot of online judging at home. So basically, most of your weekends are taken with judging 200, 300, even 400 pieces of work to get to the. But then you get there and you look at the shortlist and you're like, wow. And I love it. And people, you know, people sometimes are down on awards and I totally understand it because they are. They are expensive and it looks like it's just that, you know, the puffery of the few and.

Vicki [00:47:54]:
And then the scheme of things, it means for cool in the outside world. But you set the standard. You can see where, you know, advertising is a cultural barometer. You can see how we're moving on. You can see where the conversations are going. And also, if you do win and you win big, they become a bit of a beacon for talent to come to you. And that is important because this industry is about people and it's about the talent that you bring and more diverse talent you can get into your agency, not just geographically, but culturally and class, which is. I'm a massive.

Vicki [00:48:35]:
I'm a massive believer in makes your work better. So I will always put my hand up shamelessly.

Jon [00:48:44]:
So if I wouldn't. But if I ever found myself in the room presenting to the jury. Right, what are your tips on? What do you do in that moment? Because that's a big deal. Right.

Vicki [00:48:55]:
It is. I would make sure that. I think you allowed four people to present with you. I would make sure that that team are representative of the campaign or the problem that you are coming in to solve. We had a lot of white men stand in front of ads to fix different ethnic, you know, ethical and ethnic problems. And there was a little bit of white saviorism that we were like, oh, hold on a minute, that doesn't ring true. Yeah, but when you could see the authenticity and the drive and the passion behind some pieces of work, you were like. You were with them all the way.

Vicki [00:49:46]:
Yeah, it's fascinating. It's. Honestly, I think everybody should get a chance to. You actually can sit in. In titanium. You can sit in the jury room. So if we meet each other again on that shitty bus like we did this year, going to Cannes, if we could actually get out, in case nobody's kind of striking or whatever, then literally go and sit in the titanium jury deliberations because they're amazing.

Jon [00:50:15]:
You'd learn a lot, wouldn't you? I mean, talk about a classroom. That'd be the best classroom you could possibly want.

Vicki [00:50:20]:
If I'm not judging next year, that's all I'm going to do. I said, I'm just going to sit at the back and take notes.

Jon [00:50:25]:
It's funny when you describe the kind of room you're in. Actually, this year, because of the podcast, I got a press pass, which is quite cool. So literally access all areas. I got to sit in the press, you know, the press release room where all the big announcements happen.

Vicki [00:50:36]:
Got to have my little balcony. Yeah.

Jon [00:50:38]:
Got to go and sit with all the journals and write up my notes and then. Anyway. But they gave me this room right at the back of the palais, you know, sort of the fourth floor, you know, blocked out. But I was next to the titanium judging room, so I know exactly what you're talking about because it wasn't glamorous. It's not.

Vicki [00:50:54]:
Seriously, you know, you're in there for.

Jon [00:50:56]:
Like, you're not on a superyacht. Kind of like sipping champagne. You're in a proper room.

Vicki [00:51:00]:
The worst thing is you can see the superyachts. I know there's one window.

Jon [00:51:04]:
Do you know what gets even worse now? Because I think my room is next to your room, right? And you've got this beautiful view of the superyachts, right? So you're absolutely right. It's rubbish for recording podcasts because all the lights coming in. So we said, producer James and I had to find this cardboard. We actually had to cover the windows. We didn't even get the view.

Vicki [00:51:24]:
So you couldn't have. You needn't have been in cannes at all.

Jon [00:51:27]:
We could be anyway.

Vicki [00:51:27]:
You could have lied.

Jon [00:51:28]:
Yeah, I know.

Vicki [00:51:29]:
It's, you know, it's a. It's a nice 72 and sunny outside when really you could be doing it from Canterbury.

Jon [00:51:36]:
Exactly.

Vicki [00:51:37]:
That's hilarious. Oh, you're just, you know, got to pull that card next year.

Jon [00:51:42]:
Indeed, indeed. That's good, Vicky, it's been an absolute blast. Thank you so much. Been lovely. So I could talk for ages about all this kind of stuff because it feels like we just got started. Lots I'd love to ask you about, but it's been so much fun and can't wait to see what happens next. Right, no pressure.

Vicki [00:52:01]:
Thank you very much for having me.

Jon [00:52:03]:
Pleasure. Thank you very much for listening or watching uncensored CMO. I hope you enjoyed that. If you did, please do hit the subscribe button wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching, hit subscribe there as well. I'd also love to get a review. Reviews make a big difference on other people discovering the show, so please do leave a review wherever you get your podcast. If you want to contact me, you can do.

Jon [00:52:25]:
I'm over on X at uncensored CMO or on LinkedIn, where I'm under my own name. John Evans, thanks for listening and watching. I'll see you next time.