Gift of the Gabberer: Wes Hawes
As ECD of CHE Proximity Sydney, Wesley Hawes leads one of the most creatively awarded and innovative agencies in the world. He is passionate about ideas that infiltrate culture and get people talking. In his 20 years in the industry, Wes has created global campaigns for the likes of Lynx/Axe, The Guardian, Tango and Tiger Beer. He's also been awarded in every main category at Cannes. Except Pharma, but he's working on that. Previous to CHE Proximity, Wes was ECD at Marcel Sydney and TBWA\Sydney. But it was at BBH London where he spent most of his career, leading the global creative accounts for Axe/Lynx and Mentos/Vigorsol.
G: We are less trusted by the public than the politicians delivering Brexit. How does that make you feel? And why do you think it is so?
WH: It makes me incredibly sad to think people trust politicians like Boris Johnson and Tony Abbott more than us.
The same report also scored real estate agents above our industry as well, which is insane. Have you tired buying a house in Sydney? Cockroaches.
I think it shows our industry is still living in a bubble. We see all the brilliantly creative purpose-driven work clearing up at awards, but I wonder how much of it reaches real people beyond La Croisette?
If it did, I’m sure we’d be more highly regarded. More highly than cockroaches, anyway..
G: Do you think the (dis)trust placed in advertising professionals is deserved?
WH: To a degree. Maybe if every piece of communication from every brand was as entertaining, informative or engaging as possible, we wouldn’t have this issue of distrust. As this isn’t the case, I suppose some people see us as pests-that-stretch-the-truth.
Despite this, I still can’t fathom how a piece of communication – however bothersome it might be - can make us come off worse than politicians who lock kids up on remote islands for daring to escape their desperate circumstances.
G: You’ve worked in London, Amsterdam and Sydney. Is there a difference in the levels of trust placed in creative by clients? Account service?
WH: The main difference between those countries is the budgets, not the levels of trust or ambition of the clients.
The best agencies in the world have the most trusting clients, irrespective of the country they are in.
I firmly believe this. At CHEP we have CMOs like Brent Smart from IAG and Dean Chadwick from Velocity for example, who instill a level of confidence in their teams to trust their agency partners. That’s what you should look for when choosing an agency. Those relationships are just as important to me as reputations and previous work.
G: Is there a different level of trust placed in production companies from the agency? For example, how finished would you make something before you get a treatment on it?
There always has to be a huge level of trust between agencies and production companies. We are passing on our fragile little ideas for them to bring to life, after all.
When you think about it, asking production companies to pitch is essentially a process designed to determine which director and production team you trust the most.
G: What kind of role do you think trust plays in creating good work?
WH: It’s integral to the entire process. Every step requires a level of trust that the person touching it will make the work better. From planners interpreting the client’s brief to the sound engineer throwing a little ding on the endframe. I bloody love a little ding.
G: Could you name an example of where trust has really worked out?
Probably the most famous example was when our Lynx/Axe clients at BBH London trusted us to turn what was a cheeky proactive stunt to send one guy into space, into the next year’s fragrance variant (Axe Apollo) and the biggest global campaign they’d ever made.
That moment of trust became the catalyst for the Axe Apollo Space Academy and a two-year campaign to find the next generation of teenage astronauts.
G: Any examples of where it hasn’t?
WH: One painful example was during the making of a Vodafone ad years ago. An old man bounces on a bouncy castle at a kid’s party, rabbiting on about the benefits of flexible contracts that go up and down. Geddit?
It was one of our first projects after arriving in Australia and I remember at the time thinking we were making Australian’s version of Cadbury’s Gorilla. Spoiler alert. It wasn’t. We didn’t.
Everyone trusted each other to pull off the script, but in truth we had about 10% of the budget we needed. Don’t dig it up. You won’t get that 30 seconds back.
G: During your career you’ve invented things that don’t exist and sold them to clients as an ad, outside existing media. How important is trust when doing innovative work like this?
WH: Trust is always important. However, having limited budgets where you can’t afford traditional media channels helps too.
G: How do you generate the kind of trust that sparks that level of innovation with clients?
WH: Get in there early and help find the client’s biggest problem. It’s something Howie (Chris Howatson, Group CEO), Ant (Ant White, CCO) and the CHEP team are so brilliant at. We don’t just sit in Pier 9 idly waiting for briefs. We talk to our clients every day to find out what’s keeping them up at night. That’s what leads to innovative work like NRMA’s ‘Safety Hub’, Velocity’s ‘The Earnbassadors’, and the many others we’ve got in the pipeline here. It’s the best solution to the problem wins, rather than being restricted by media channels so early on in the process.
G: Your ‘Own the weekend’ spot for the Guardian is very different in tone from other UK broadsheets and from work for the same paper. I think ‘Three Little Pigs’ ran just before or just after. How did you get the marketeers to trust you to take it to a hard-sell and funny tonality on the Guardian?
WH: That campaign remains one my all-time favourites, despite it winning bugger all. You guys are always banging on about it though, which is enough for me! We were given a long leash because the weekend supplements needed a separate campaign to the master brand. It was a hoot to make. I spent a week personally tweeting people as a Guardian lawyer threatening to sue anyone who had used the phrase, ‘the weekend’, without adding our ‘Guardian and Observer’ prefix. That level of trust is key to making irreverent work like that. Oh, and Hugh Grant. He helped.
G: How do you inspire and build a culture of trust in your team?
By working closely with teams and not being a dick.
Ant, the CDs at CHEP, and myself are all very hands on. In my opinion that level of collaboration inspires confidence in the department. It’s never solely on the teams to crack ideas, it’s everyone’s responsibility, as we’re all in it together. That philosophy extends beyond the creative department too. We all have each other’s backs.
WH: By ‘not being a dick’ I mean the teams hopefully see me as an approachable mentor they can trust. I grew up working into some rude, lazy, socially awkward egomaniacs. I always vowed to be the opposite if I ever got to their level.
G: Is there a direct correlation between the amount of trust in a client relationship and the creativity?
WH: Yes. 100%. I’ll draw you a graph. Actually I can’t, this is a written interview. Imagine an axis of ‘Trust’ along the bottom and a ‘Creativity’ axis vertically. The line goes up, trust me.
G: Trusting your gut is a part of being the ECD. Are you always sure you’ve found the best solution when you see it or do you secretly think there may be a better solution, if only you had more time?
WH: This question relates to the last. I trust my gut, but I’m always willing to listen to someone who is passionate about an idea. Basically, I’m not a rude, lazy, socially-awkward egomaniac.
ECDs are human. We make mistakes too.
By giving those ideas some room to breathe you might come around or see something in it that could become bigger than the initial idea you liked. Time’s important for sure, but so too is having faith and trust in those around you and being open to having your mind changed.
G: Who would you most like to be in the circle of trust with?
WH: Are these the frivolous questions at the end of an interview? Cool. I’d say Donald Trump. I’d love to see just how dark and sordid he actually is. Then I’d betray Donald’s trust and help the Democrats impeach him. He would be mad. Probably flood my twitter account (@wezmiester) with babyish profanities and insults. Then I’d have to go into hiding in the bush. Then I’d probably get bitten by a red belly. It’s never a happy ending for anyone in Donald’s inner circle.
G: Who do you trust most?
WH: My missus. She’s brutally honest and gives zero fucks about advertising. If she likes an idea it normally means we’re onto something. She’s my research group and a good barometer for real world. She also definitely trusts politicians and real estate agents more than me too.
