Laurence Percival: December 2007 Archives
It's twilight in Manhattan. I stand in Rockefeller Plaza, agog at the energy of the place. Shoppers weave pell-mell through the clogged pathways, jostling their swanky carrier bags: Abercrombie, Ralph, Tiffany's. Skaters glide past a golden Prometheus to seasonally cheesy music. Giant illuminated dolls, sailors and soldiers, glow contentedly. Flags flutter in the chill winter air. The trees are ablaze with a galaxy of lights, and the mood itself is sheer electricity. Framed by the soaring elevations of Deco towers, the spire of St Patricks points to the heavens, and points us back to what Christmas really is - it's easy to forget amidst the bonkers theatre of a Manhattan midwinter evening. To round off the cosmic juxtapositions, a nearly full moon appears low over the cathedral. I capture the moment, the last shot of a perfect New York day.
I'd never encountered such a richly creative environment, and I just wanted to be here. No wonder it so inspired Woody Allen and George Gershwin and countless others; the power of ideas was tangible in the air.
We eat at achingly trendy fusion eateries - Ono in the Hotel Gansevoort, Mai House, we have brunch in the Eighties, shop in the Sixties and Seventies (until you walk round Barneys, you think Harvey Nicks has a lot of brands!), see art at the Whitney, and sample the districts - Meatpackers, Tribeca, Upper West Side, much of it completely new to me.
Here below is their new look. Reaction inside and outside the FIA has been fantastic - and there is much planned for the brand in 2008.
Next up was a brand new company created by our old friends at Ascot Underwriting.
No, this isn’t about the Eighties group Fat Larry’s Band that created the quite awful and uber-cheesy ‘Zoom’, a one hit wonder if ever there was one. (Fat Larry was the singing drummer!) It’s about a Creative Director who decided that to be in the best shape to make his company and his creative dreams come true, he had to drop The Gut. And about 45 pounds, 20 kilos or 3 stone in old money. No more Fat Larry, or rather Fat Laurence.
I don’t quite know how the weight crept on. Beer was surely a culprit. Three years ago I was getting heavier, but the pictures show a guy in basically reasonable shape. I used to lift weights and every gym bunny knows that when you lift weights you shed fat. But a back injury slowed me down, and even my regular morning aerobic sessions on the stairclimbers and crosstrainers – and the spin classes – began to fade out of my life.
One of the first ways you know you’re overweight is that everyone else starts looking really thin.
I couldn’t watch Match Of The Day. Gary Lineker is so freaking rudely thin. And so are all the other presenters. How? What do they do? What are they on? Do you have to have some sort of nuclear metabolism to be a football presenter? Even Adrian Chiles is thin. And watching the Joseph Technicolor Dreamcoat reality show, it made me bizarrely upset that Andrew Lloyd Weber is thin. Michael Winner is thin. My ex-wife is thin. My kids are thin. Arrrrgghhh. It’s crap being a fattie in a thinnie world.
Well at last I had to admit I was carrying a big gut and too much fat. Denial is not a river in Africa.
I’d catch The Gut in the mirror and wonder at it’s sheer sphericalness, almost like I’d swallowed one of the Swiss balls in the gym.
Enter Graham, personal trainer. He’s a bundle of Kiwi energy, loud and proud and with the kind of enthusiasm I thought only existed in American infommercials. I can’t bear it I changed next to him in the gym for four years, and never had the guts (although I had the gut) to ask for his help.
Fifteen or so sessions in, spurred on by his tangible life force and skilled encouragement, and I’m already halfway there. The fabulous foothills of 200 (pounds, not kilos!) approach, and then that’s when I start to look thin. Lineker thinness won’t be until 190, and the Holy Grail is 180. My hero Roger Federer – how can anyone be that good and that sportsmanlike and that nice? – is 180. (OK, I'll only be 0.00005% as good at tennis as him, but it'll feel better!)
So publically, thank you Graham. You’ve been a trainer, a shrink (in your words, My Dr Phil), and already a friend. And when you change your reality, you suddenly feel more creative, too. Fantastic.
And I wish I’d asked you four years earlier. From now on, Fat Larry’s banned.
This is the first day of our future. Percival, our agency, has its own website.
It’s a very simple site, because the truth is all agencies are just people, and while agencies will often build Byzantine towers of strategy and brand hierarchy and other self-justification, what we do is an achingly simple business. We sell things through the power of ideas.
This is perhaps a little blunt, but it’s on our creativity that we will fly. Particularly as an agency run by a career creative. Scary, but true.
We’ve already been trading six months, so technically Day One isn't really today.
But the projects for those clients that trusted a brand new agency were our priority, not our website. Now, as London tipsily comes to a halt for Christmas, we've grabbed some precious hours to put ourselves in the global shop window.
Officially, we’re up and running, and I feel we can say we’re an agency now, not a start-up. We’ve made websites, brochures, press ads, films, direct mail and all manner of converged media. And now finally, our own website.
The Captain has switched off the seat belt lights. Now let’s see how high we can fly.
Every creative needs their own private guru. But I share mine with countless thousands around the world: Julia Cameron, creator of ‘The Artist’s Way’ and ‘The Vein of Gold’.
Her CV is pretty intimidating: ex-wife of Martin Scorsese, reformed alcoholic, Film Director, Composer of Musicals, mother of a Hollywood actress.
She is a guide through the myriad pitfalls of a creative journey, gently encouraging and cajoling, but not in an annoying New Age way. Rather your favourite friend, she’s sometimes funny, sometimes provocative, but always there for you.
She controversially (not everyone likes Julia, as Google will reveal) urges you to sidestep the toxic advice of those close to you – even your loved ones may hate the change that a creative journey brings. She encourages a calm and regular work ethic, and tells you how to avoid the negative energy of ‘CrazyMakers’ – and jeez there are a few of those in our business.
Suddenly, when I read her I realised how jaundiced and blocked were many of the Big Agency Creative Directors that bossed my early career. Instead of encouraging the good stuff and letting the bad fall away, they’d hone in on little errors in consistency or kill great creative ideas with petty criticism. (I love that quote : ‘consistency is the hobgoblin of tiny minds’. Unless you’re talking about tennis!)
As she takes you on a journey, she describes exquisitely where she is in her own life (this is through a dozen or more books, all of which I read), and uses the environment around her to illustrate her stories. She writes of a gorgeous retreat in Taos New Mexico, and how toxic critics are like the rattlesnakes that lie in the sagebrush around her home. New York City is another frequent backdrop.
She gives you tools – Morning Pages (3 pages of handwritten notes about how you are, what you feel, every morning – I’ve never found the discipline to do this.) and Artist’s Dates (weekly solo visits to galleries or any kind of new creative experience - this I do!)
Creativity is often closely aligned with madness, and in her autobiography, the most honest you’ll ever read, she describes in literally painful words her experience of long-term mental illness. It’s strange to hear your guru be so frail, but it has not diminished my opinion of her one scintilla.
My manuscript, half written and unsold, but an achievement nonetheless, would not be there without her.
If you have a creative dream, or know someone who does, Julia really is an incredible gift.
What the hell gives me the right to write about Creativity?
Well, at base level I’ve made my living from ideas for a quarter of a century. More than that, I can honestly say that I’ve given many people their first break, and have encouraged some great work out of people whose previous creative records didn’t seem that encouraging. I’ve started three companies and generated quite a few jobs – a creative process if ever there was one – and created one of the most enduring campaigns in the British advertising canon: ‘The Sunday Times is The Sunday Papers.’ (17 years and still going strong!)
It's also not that usual to have the creative guy lead from the front in a London agency. A creative name on the door is common, but usually surrounded by account handlers and planners. To combine pure business and pure creativity is a little different. (Although very normal in Paris and New York, oddly.)
It’s not all sunny side up: I have a half-finished over-ambitious novel which has sat on my desk for six years. As I write this blog, I’m going to complete it and sell it. Well, that’s the plan. Eek!
But I passionately believe we’re all creative – maybe in different ways and in different degrees – but all it needs is a little encouragement and inspiration. Which is what this is about.
My father was a fantastic professional photographer, my brother is an equally good pro, and I also plan to revisit my favourite hobby, and I’ll share some of my new images with you here.
This is all about committing to positive creativity, creativity in the future, and the power of big ideas. I hope it turns out to be fun too.
Game on.
