Judymay Is Listening – Irene Fogarty, Elspeth Proudlock, New Ways

Welcome, everyone, to Women's Radio Station. You're listening to. Judy Mae is listening. I'm Judy Mae Murphy. And joining me today in our little remote studio, we have a few people, we have our wonderful guest, who is Irene Fogarty. She's a copyright and branding expert who has been at the top of her business for the last 20 years, working in New York, Paris, London, with the biggest brands, IBM, Coca Cola, in the biggest advertising agency. She's going to be telling us all about that and she's going to be telling us mostly what she has learned in her time and what that means for you, how that can apply to you. Also, as usual, happily, happily, we have Melies, our lovely technical producer, the woman behind Women's Radio Station, the one who keeps us all in place, keeps it all happening. And also we have Elspeth, our gorgeous associate producer, who is just so fantastic at just keeping. Keeping us alive, making sure that we're looking at things in a more interesting way, making sure that we're staying honest, staying on path, keeping it real, and else. How are you? Good to see you. I'm very well. That was a lovely intro. Oh, it's so true. I just. I love how everybody, Everybody brings their own thing to the show, don't they? Don't you find that they do? Definitely. Every guest that we have, everybody that we have on the team, that everyone brings their own thing. So I understand before we get into finding out about copywriting and branding, we might even find out how we can use this stuff for our show and for ourselves. But before that, how is the jazz singing coming along? You let us know last week when we were talking to Caroline that that was a thing that you were doing in quarantine, was that you're going to become a jazz singer. How's that working? I'm still a bit pitchy. I wouldn't say I'm Ella Fitzgerald yet, but it's coming along, you know? Well, I love that. Two things I love about that are, first of all, you're starting to use the word pitchy, which makes me feel like you're very pro. And secondly, use the word yet. Not Ella Fitzgerald yet. Yeah, you know what? Not yet. On day. There's a phrase from the writer Jean Cocteau that I really love, and he's said Victor Hugo was just a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo. And it's the same thing. None of us is a done deal yet. We're all works of art in process, in progress. So let's just make sure that we keep that progress going, that we while we're cocooning, while we're looking after ourselves, while we are self nurturing, that we're also making sure that we are bringing this bigger, that we have our chance to learn new skills. We've got a chance to reassess what it is that we're doing. So I'd like to welcome in my guest Irene. Irene, welcome to the show. Hello, Judy May. Thank you for having me. And thank you for such a lovely intro. You made me sound like I'm a big creative. You are. I don't consider myself at all. But I often find that with the people who are, you know, really in the trenches doing it year after year at the top level, you often don't see yourself the way other people see you. That other people were like, what? Wow, I'd love to be where she is. I'd love to be doing that. And because it can often be a slower build, it's something that it's harder to see from where you're sitting. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Obviously you're Irish, a fellow Irish woman. And how did you start with this? Because I remember we're of a similar age and when we would have been leaving university, launching ourselves out into the world, there wasn't as much world as there is now. There weren't as many opportunities. So what was your thinking when you stepped out and has that thinking remained consistent or do you find you've kind of gone in radically different ways as the years have gone on? That's a great question. I would say that first of all, I left UCD in Dublin in the 80s and I went to the States, probably leaving Dublin because I thought there wasn't much for creative people at the time. And I'm not sure that's true because I think when the economy was bad, Dublin was the most creative. But anyway, you either went into the bank or you moved to London or you went to Australia. And I got a green card and went to the States. And I think one thing, if there's one thing that can be said about New York even to this day, is that you always feel that you can find something. You find yourself, you find your career, it gives you this can do feel that no other city I believe can give you. And did you literally sort of arrive with a backpack in a dream or a couple of phone numbers would have been back in the day was that. It was exactly that. In fact, I hadn't finished my thesis. And the first day I was there, I was in a Diner with my thesis on a disc. Remember those? And all the money I had saved up as a waitress in Newport, Rhode island was stolen. So my passport, my thesis, which was the most important thing at the time because I needed to get my masters, I got everything back, minus the money. But I had already gone to a shoe store and bought a pair of high heels, which is quite, quite unusual for me since I'm nearly 6 foot. But I put on the heels, I didn't give a damn. I walked down the streets and I said, this is my city. And I have to say, I have never felt that anywhere else in the world. And when it comes to creativity, New York was the place to be. At that time, I didn't even know copywriting existed. I had studied English literature, written a few poems, good with words, but I didn't know copywriting existed. And I did several jobs that weren't suited to my personality. Until one day I wrote a brochure for a friend who sold pipes, some sort of industrial pipes in South Carolina. And whatever I did, he got back to me and said, we sold a load of pipes. After that brochure, somebody said, that's copywriting. So I went to the School of Visual Arts in New York and I took a course at night and I loved it. I started coming up with ideas, driving my sisters mad, showing them all my ideas. Every week you'd put them up on the wall, and if they were good, they'd put them on the other side. If they remained on the wall, you knew they weren't good ideas. And so that's how I built my portfolio. And what I love about that is the fact that you didn't go home at the first sign of disappointment. A lot of people, you know, if everything got robbed, including the thesis, and goodness, you got that back. Because money can be made back. Thesis are a little bit harder to recreate. But the fact that you then, you know, you got your high heel shoes on, literally, and you just said, right, that was your version of your big girl pants. Yeah, you just strode down the streets of Manhattan and then you made a whole bunch of other mistakes that you went into a whole bunch of other things that weren't right at that point. A lot of people will be telling themselves a story that life is too difficult or that they somehow don't have what it takes. So what was it, do you think, that kept you going at that time? Was it a kind of a tenacity, or was it a belief that the right thing would show up? Or was it just that certain people wouldn't let you go home. What do you think was the most telling thing that kept you going in the times where you weren't so successful? That's a really good question. Well, I think even architecturally, New York is all about up looking up. And I felt I wanted to be at one with the skyscrapers I was going up. That was my hope. Not even about making money, but more about you can be yourself, you can find something, you talk to people. It's all about, I don't know, it's a city that has an incredible energy that just gives you a positivity that you don't find in many other places. And walking down those streets, I knew that this was for me. So I felt at home with being tall. Didn't bother me the way it did when I was in Dublin. I was always known as the tall one and the giant. My name was in ucd, and that bothered me because I didn't even think of myself as being that tall. But also I didn't want to be singled out because of my height. I wanted to be singled out for something else. But I love that because that's almost like when you're literally around people who are bigger, that kind of gives you permission. So when you're around people who are saying, hey, I'm doing these great things, plus I'm 6 foot 4, you can feel very comfortable doing your next level of things and being six foot tall. Exactly, exactly. And this is something else with. As you know, we talk about this on the show quite a bit is, you know, finding Tribe. Because that kind of gives you permission, right? Yeah, you definitely. There is that kind of coming from a small town where you hear the same thing over again. I was always kind of picked on for being super pale. I didn't want to be known as the pale one. Yeah. And then I came to London and. Yeah, yeah. That then just let you see that you could be anything. So, Irene, what was your next big break? What was the first time you said to yourself, oh, gosh, this is actually working? Not only am I on the path, but actually things are clicking here. I think it was when I started to do this School of Visual Arts course. I already had a day job. I was writing recruitment ads for a recruitment agency, but it wasn't creative at all. So I kept going with coming up with ideas. And I think the first idea I came up with was for Valvic Water. And the brief was you would just have to come up with some idea for a campaign. And the brief was the purest water. So I did a scene. I got an old Giotto painting of Christ at the wedding of Cana, and the headline was, relax, boys, I can change it back. Oh, my God, that is so creative. The idea of Jesus turning water into wine. And you were just kind of like you were saying, I can change it back to water. Like, the idea of water is even better than wine. And you're also bringing in this iconic paint. That's genius. Wow. So I won a prize. It was a Berlin Cameron. A very big CD came in and he just said, I don't know who did that, but whoever did that, she gets the prize. So I got the prize. I think it was a fireman's hat. It didn't matter, but I would. That gave me so much. I felt so good. I got all excited and every week it was the same. My ads kept going on the wall. Can you remember any of the other ones that you did at that time? Yeah, I did two more in that scene. It wasn't easy to find biblical scenarios, but I got two more. But easier when you're Irish. Yeah, exactly. When you're Irish. I did. They were always a little bit irreverent and always ones with humor. I think that was my. It still is to this day. I try and bring in humor because I think humor is the emotion that makes people remember the product. But also, if you can get a laugh out of it, then people are going to talk about it more than if it makes you cry. So you were working for a lot of big brands then in New York. What are some of the more memorable instances? Do you remember the first time you went in and realized that your idea was going to cost X thousands to produce? Or do you remember a time when you sort of realized that this had to work because the company was riding on it? Was there ever a stage where you could feel that the stakes were higher? Well, yeah. I mean, I think going from the class, the course, I think I got the prize of the best creative in the course. And I always remember asking the two guys, Kuntzen and Murphy, two brilliant guys, do I have to be like you in order to succeed? Because these two guys were cocky, they were arrogant. They come in in skateboards. They were cool and I wasn't. And I always remember thinking, how. Why are they so. Like, is their ego and the way they go on important in this industry? Because if it is, I'm going to be in trouble. So I asked them and they said to me that they got 10 minutes less than 10 minutes of the big CDs, time every day in order to sell their campaign. And they said to me, if we act like this, it's a complete facade, but this is what we do. And I think it was also very dominated by men. It still is, but it was very dominated by men. So what they advised me to do, because they saw I wasn't that personality, was just keep going with the work, work hard, come up with the ideas, your ideas, and your work will speak for itself. Because at the end of the day, when someone sees an ad, they don't have an intro or a brief in front of them. They just. They just have the ad. They just have the ad. Yeah. And that, I think, gave me the confidence to say, okay, I mightn't have the bravado, but I think I can keep going. So I got into Ogilvy, which was probably the best agency work in at the time, because there was the, you know, David Ogilvie had that reputation, you know, the brilliant Englishman in London, that kind of Mad Men feel. So this caused you to move to London? No, it was in New York. But at the time it was kind of the agency and very hard to get into. So I got into it. Do you remember your first brief? Do you remember the first thing you did that was successful there? What was that? I was asked to work on Visit Britain. To ask to get entitled Americans to visit Britain, which I thought was an unusual assignment to give to an Irish person. Or maybe. Yes, depending on your historical taste. Yeah, So I remember because you had to talk to American audiences. So I remember I got a picture of Stonehenge and I think the headline said, come visit the Stones, the ones that date back to 300 BC. And it was a play on the Stones, the band, and it was a huge success. And from then I started working with the Visit Britain crowd and they were surprised I was on the account. But we had a similar sense of humor. So it worked. And you just had to know how to talk to Americans. It's all about knowing the audience. Tell us a little bit more about that. It's all about knowing the audience. Yeah. Because obviously, you know, we feel here on Dewey May's Listening that we know our audience. Our audience are mostly women who really are very smart, very sensitive, very caring, want a lot more out of life, and want to do it in a way that doesn't hurt others. That's pretty much what our audience is. So we tend to speak to that when people get it wrong. What happens there when people don't Know how to speak to their audience? Well, that's a really good question. And I think it's a question that marketing teams are looking at every day, especially now. I think that you can tell when a brand doesn't talk to their audience in the correct way, when they don't know their target or they just go off track sometimes. There's a campaign that, the recent one with Pepsi that kind of tried to. Oh, with the Jenner girl. Yes. Elspeth, do you know that I'm just being very ageist now? Elspeth, do you know the name of the youngest Jenner girl who was in that Pepsi act? Oh, Kendall. It was Kendall. Yes, that was it. Kendall. Okay. And yeah, so it was kind of off, wasn't it? Because it was off because I think it was trying to deal with so many things, world peace, trying to talk to the young people and it didn't hit on any of them and at the end of the day became a huge flop. And I think that was because maybe they were just. It didn't seem sincere. Exactly. That's exactly it. It was trying to touch on things they thought were important to talk about. But you know, you have to do it in a way that's right for the brand and as you say, sounds sincere. So yeah, I think that knowing your audience is the first thing for. But it's for any business. It's not just advertising, just as you said, you know who you're talking to. You create a program around that and it's easy to do because it's like who myself and Elspeth and Melies already are. So we don't have to change ourselves to provide that. Exactly. What's your first step then? When you are given a new contract and given a new brand to look after, how do you find out who their people are? How do you find that voice? Or do you normally know going in? Another good question. I think advertising has changed a little bit. But when I was there, traditionally you'd get a brief, usually a one pager, with the assignment to sell something and then you do your research. I mean you have to know who the target audience is. You look at the campaigns in the past, you look at the tone of voice, you see what worked well for them and you often look at the competitors to see what's out there. And after that it's like you read that one liner brief and normally I think the ideas can come quite quickly. It doesn't mean the first idea is right, but I think if you know the brand very well, if you've worked on it before, you usually know what they've done in the past, you know their tone. So it shouldn't. It feels like fun for me. It's like a puzzle, you know, you're working out a puzzle. It doesn't feel like pressure to find a business solution. So I guess you know that the answer is there and you know that you're going to find it, which is always great. And a lot of people say that to me about coaching. It's kind of like, oh, you're not really nervous sitting down in case you can't help someone? No, every single time I can help them. Just every single time you can come up with a really good idea. Have you ever been in a situation where you've had that really good idea and you've known that it'll work? You've known that it'll work with the audience and other people in the company don't get it or they feel like you should go in a different direction and they've got seniority. Has that ever happened? Does that happen in the industry? It happens every day. That often? That happens every day. You think that if you're the expert, yes. But, Elspeth, we talk again. This is something we talk about a lot, isn't it? About how sometimes we just. You just want people to get out of your way. Yeah, I was going to ask, I was going to say, do you find it hard to kind of put your voice up sometimes? Yeah. Which is a follow on question, but it's hard to kind of. Yeah. And the thing about it is, like, it's funny how you change with time. Like at the beginning, you know, you'd be, you know, of course you respect who your boss is, you respect the account people. But if you really believe in something, you try again to fight it the next day. You might wait if they're very against it. But with time you learn that there are only certain battles that are worth fighting. So you say, okay, not that you want to do an idea that isn't good, but if you know you've got something golden, you always try and push that. But if you can't, you just work on all the everyday accounts that you have to do and you save the big ones and try and do a couple of projects a year that are going to, that you can look back on and say, I'm proud of that one. Because there's always work we do, the kind of bread and butter we call it that we're not so proud of that we know is Fine. But there's nothing special about it. So I try and save my energy for the big stuff. But it's something that I think I would give advice to anyone going into this field is that you have to be very prepared for rejection. I guess that's pretty much every field. Yeah, yeah, yeah, every field. But like, you know, you're prepared to go in with what you think is the best idea, isn't always the best idea. First of all, sometimes the account person can tell you why it doesn't work, but you have to come back the next day with another 20 ideas that, that are good or another at least 10 that are. That can convince them that, okay, if we don't go this way, we go this way. This one doesn't work. We try this. So you're always, you know, you always have your reserve of ideas and creativity on the side in case it doesn't fly or it doesn't work or someone disagrees with. But it is disappointing when you know, you've something that could have been a great hit, that would have worked, that would have talked to the audience and it doesn't get made. And you do a film and you produce something that's quite expensive and it goes up and it does the job, but you know it's not the best one. Yeah. Do you find that you start to learn what it is that the tastes of the other team members that you kind of go, okay, I can't go with the thing I know will work, but I can go with the thing that I know they'll accept. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. You start to learn how they. They are the closest to the client, usually the account people. So their relationship with the client, very important to the creative. And just to clarify, I don't do all the brainstorming myself. I always do it with an art director or another copywriter or a graphic person. It's better. Two heads are better than one. But you both come with your ideas and then they either get better or you kill some or you just keep going. But yeah, it's a very good point. You definitely need to know the politics. You need to know the politics. I mean, there you can work on the best client, but if the politics are, you know, in a certain agency, there's a way of doing things you mightn't always get your best work through. Have you ever had a project that you succeeded in getting made and that you were very passionate about it, that it didn't do as well as you hoped? How did you kind of pick yourself up from that or if you did. Yeah. Were there any disappointments that you got through that you thought were going to absolutely fly? Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. I'm not very good at getting the results. Maybe I should. But yeah, I mean, it's true. Sometimes you'd be surprised when you do. Now you see this testing. So we test everything even before we would do go ahead and develop and execute the ad and go to production. So most of the time, how does that testing happen? What does that look like? It's like where they would take, say there's a shower gel for women in Russia. They would get the target women who use this shower gel or a similar competitor, put them into a room and say to them, what do you think of this idea? What do you think here is, you know, they'd have a storyboard of our idea, get their ideas, get the results. And they would do that for. They could do that three times. It's not always, you know, there's a lot of the jury's out on testing. But usually if the women, they usually make very good observations and usually the creative then is based on the feedback from these testings we do. Oh, that's so interesting. And is that still the case? Because my understanding is that there's not as much money in advertising as they used to be. So do they still have money for. Would testing be seen as so key that they must find the money for that or is that something that kind of goes out the window these days? Great question. Again, depends on the brand. Usually the bigger the brand, the bigger the testing. Now with social media and digital, there's a lot of brands who don't do the big testing. They just, they know their tone of voice, they know their brand personality and they trust either the agency or whoever the content managers are to just keep going. And you can see it. I mean, it's just like the Pepsi ad just to bring it up again. You can see when something talks to you and when it's off, it's off brand, it says something that it doesn't really believe in and it doesn't feel sincere. Do you feel that? Sorry, carry on. No, no, I'm done. Oh, I was just gonna say, do you feel like there's an increase in pressure of turning out projects now? As you said, there's people who don't do the testing and stuff and there's the increase of social media where you see pop up ads absolutely everywhere. You know, there has been an increase in the amount of advertising you see. Do you Feel there's the pressure to kind of turn out something. And is there a lack of. Yeah, like almost for the sake of it. Do you think these days it's just. It's more about quantity than quality? Yeah, I think that can be the case with certain brands. But then you look at the big brands, look at the apples, Nikes. They do it right. They do it right. They've got the beautiful big films and they've also got the social media and everything's consistent. They, you know, if they do an ad for iPhone, whether it's on TV or on your phone, you know it's them. It's always that. It gets your emotion every time. But, yeah, I think that there are a lot of brands right now who don't know what to do with this new disruption. They're just waiting to see what's out there. And other brands are very smart. They're able to readapt, even change their product into something that's of use to the community. And I think those brands who are putting their money where their mouth is, they're the ones that will survive. It's interesting. It reminds me of that book by Malcolm Gladwell called David and Goliath where he talks about how very often the Davids, the smaller operators, are able to turn the ship about in much smaller time frames and to just be much more agile and make decisions more quickly. Do you find that even the bigger companies are chunking down into that? Do you think that they have more autonomy now? Small, kind of like teams on the fly are being given more autonomy? I think they are now. I think that's. They see the value now. The day of the big agency and all the. It's gone. I mean, it's basically gone. You have to be agile. You have to come up with ideas fast using your phone. I mean, I'm looking at all the brands now that are making ads on their phone because of COVID 19. It's incredible. No production, but they're still keeping the brand message. It's just done in a more homemade kind of way, which I love seeing that with Jimmy Fallon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Still Jimmy Fallon. Feeling of that cheekiness. You still have the. You still have the sort of the structure. You still have the same, you know, characters appearing. I think that that familiarity is kind of important to people. That consistency is really important to people right now. That it's kind of like, yeah, it's changed, but we're all still here. And that's something that we want you to know here on wrs. Here on Women's Radio station. We are all still here. We're making sure that we are broadcasting to you every single week with fresh shows. You're listening to Judy May's Listening. I'm Judy Mae Murphy, your host. And also, you know that there are loads of amazing hosts on women's radio station. You've got our favorites like Hazel Butterfield and so many more. So please do listen to other shows as well as Judy May's Listening and also let your friends know what's going on because we really are all about being a tribe, a tribe of women who support each other. If you've got questions for me, just send them. You can send them to me via social media. You can send any questions you have about the station, any way that you'd like to be involved in the station. This isn't just for you to listen, that you get to have your say as well. And also anything that's just bothering you right now, reach out, let me know. And we'll make sure that over the next couple of weeks, we get all of your questions answered. Because it can be so easy to feel alone in this world, can't it? It can feel like, you know, things aren't working and the dream's not coming true and things are never going to be better and things aren't going to turn around. And we look at the evidence, and the evidence immediately around us can sometimes be seen to be supporting that as the reality. But the fact is that things change and they change again. And we can just control the things that we have control over. We can make sure that during this time we are eating really well, we're sleeping really well, and that we are reading the books that we always said we'd read, that we are doing our Pilates or our yoga or our stretching, whatever it is for you, dancing like a crazy loon around the kitchen, doing all that during this time so that your body and your brain know that, you know what, we are still here. The world has not gone away. It is still a safe and loving place. And in fact, we're having to become even more creative. So we have a supreme creative here as our guest today. I know she's so modest. She wouldn't like that description of her, but she really does have this extraordinarily creative way of being and living and thinking. So, Irene Fogarty, tell me, what do you see as the biggest change, not just in the last few months, but, but over the last few years? Because this is kind of a second wave, if you like. Of people having to get used to new ways. It was for decades quite consistent as a build in the advertising agency. And then things changed. How did you find it changed? And how did you find you had to change yourself to adapt? Okay, great question. And I think a lot of creatives are going to have to change themselves again after what we're going through right now. But, well, after being in the business for quite some time, and I'll have to be honest, luckily I always had work. I left Paris in 2018. So hang on, how did we get from New York to Paris? Oh, yes, okay, sorry. I jumped. I jumped a whole continent. I mean, lovely. That's my way of living. It's like, oh, wake up, where am I? Denver. Grand. But I imagine that you actually made it for more strategic reasons. I lived in New York, in the east village for about 10 years, having been in New York for about 14 years altogether, I just decided I really missed Europe, and I didn't know Europe because I had been in the States in my early 20s and went to college there. So I decided to come back to Europe, but I didn't want to go to Dublin. I wanted to go to Paris. I had this romantic image of Paris. The language, the men, all this rubbish. Your use of the word rubbish, I'm imagining it didn't quite measure up. Well, certain things did. Certain things did. I did learn. So tell me the career aspect of it. The career aspect. Well, what was good? Everybody was saying to me, why are you going to Paris? To. To do copywriting. They speak French in Paris. Which I knew that that's a fair enough point. It was fair enough point. But then they needed English copywriters, so that meant the competition was less. So the thing was, once you became known and I moved in 2008, which was the year when Obama won and the economy started to deflate worldwide. It was just by chance, somebody said to me, oh, you know, you're very. You predicted all this. I said, not at all. It was just by chance. But I got work very easily in Paris and it was hard. It was the cultural change, not just the language, that I found very hard. The French don't work the same way as New Yorkers. In what way. Is it more inflexible? Is it that the New Yorkers will just say whatever's on their mind and the French will be a little bit more diplomatic? Or is it more. Yes, it's that. And also, I just think in New York, that feeling that I had when I was in the city, that I can do things my way and change things. That doesn't exist in Paris. So is it more about toeing the line over there? Yeah, I think it's more about you're in an agency, you're lucky to be in the agency. Just do what you're asked and that's it. Yeah, be a good girl and that guy is your boss. And you know, you respect the boss in the corner office, whereas in New York there's no corner office. Everybody's on the same level, even the clients. I remember once we had a very bad meeting with American Express and they were quite rude to us. And we came back and told our creative director. He got on the phone and said, hey, I believe you were rude to my team. Don't do that again. That would never happen in Paris. In Paris, you would probably have to apologize to. Absolutely. You kind of kowtowed the client. And how did that sit with you? Very badly. Of course you can't change things. But I didn't have this. I think it's the social structure of the country that comes through. In the workplace, it's having the layers. In Ireland, we don't have that. We have a reverence. I think we're particularly irreverent to authority. I think it's something that is in our blood. We're as friendly to the janitor as we are to the boss, put it that way. In fact, we could respect the janitor more than the boss and we're not afraid to show that. So that's something I had to learn. And how was the actual job different? Because, you know, obviously in New York, although some would argue this, they didn't need you to translate. They didn't need you to be able to come up with a better version of English. I had a friend actually whose name was Adam, and he was a fashion designer. And his job for a very well known fashion company was to come up with the English words to put on Japanese clothing. And so he used to write these sentences that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, like I eat the flower happy and all these kind of things. And so that was kind of his job was to come up with English words, but they didn't even have to make sense. What was it that was expected of you? Well, gosh, that sounds very creative. Mine was more to work on global campaigns for the Nestle's Purina cat food in English, and then those ideas would be translated into French. So the global campaigns for products that would be sold in the States, the uk, Ireland, English speaking countries, that was my responsibility. So you'd actually come up with those and then you'd have to make sure that the French were able to translate them into their culture. Yes. And sometimes it was the other way around. Sometimes I was given the French campaign and asked to make it work in the uk. And that was tricky because it wasn't about translation, it was about finding a joke that worked with the UK sense of humour. Because, as we know, example of that. Gosh, there were so many. I can't think of it right now, but there were so many that were, you know, this was tricky because the creative team who came up with the idea for France the same campaign wouldn't work in the uk. And was it a question of puns or a question of just. That's not how we say it. It was that. And sometimes it was finding the same cultural joke that would work in England. Like, for example, there was a fantastic ad for the Parisian about the magazine. Yeah, the magazine, the daily paper. And it showed a guy. It's my favorite French ad. Showed a guy who has. Who's just steps in dog doo doo and is going up the stairs to his apartment. He's really annoyed, but just before he goes into his own door, he rubs his feet on the neighbor's mat and then walks into his own apartment. Okay. And that, to me sums up a Frenchman. No, but the idea of doing something without being caught, it was brilliant. That mightn't work in London. I don't think that would. Yeah. Translate to the kind of thing. How is that funny? What was funny was that it was like he didn't know anybody was seeing him. So what he did wasn't that bad. But he was doing it so he didn't mess up his own. It's just like people who don't live, who don't carry, you know, who don't remove their dogs, do. Do in Paris. They'll always do it when no one's around or no one's looking, but if you're there, they'll pick it up. Paris is just such. Because, you know, I've lived in Paris as well, and it is such a different kind of kind of culture. Elspeth, if you had the chance to work in Paris, what kind of job would you choose for yourself, do you think? Oh, I definitely. I've heard a lot about Paris. I've heard definitely mixed opinions and everything. I do definitely want to go there. It's my number one place. I would like to go. I think I've always dreamed of working in fashion when I was a little Girl, I wanted to be a fashion designer and that opinion changed. But I probably would want to do something in fashion, which is very basic. But I always like that idea of going to France and just working in fashion, just everything being so blase sort of thing. The thing is, I know you, Elspeth to be so sassy and if somebody says something to you, you'll just snap right back. Irene, how did that work in Paris? I think things have changed. I think that, yeah, I think that they could survive Elspeth is what you're saying. Absolutely. They need Elspeth. They need more of Elspeth in Paris. No, I think for the good. I think a lot of things have changed. The kind of old bourgeois, it's changing. The young people are much more open to doing things their way. They all don't want this cdi, the contract for life job thing. They want to start things. And I think in ways Paris is trying to accommodate for that, but it's not easy because, you know, it's. I always feel like compared to New York, being an entrepreneur there, it's a French word that doesn't apply to the French. Things are changing but it's going to take time and there's lots of startups now that are being encouraged. Loads of young people are trying to do their own thing. But, you know, with this economy and uncertainty, it isn't always a sure thing. But at least the spirit is there. It's definitely changed since 2008 when I was there and there's more people now speaking English than ever before. You don't need French, sadly to say you actually don't need to speak French in Paris anymore. Well, that's good because I know that elsewhere, us working on her Spanish, which wouldn't be ideal. So then Irene, you made the other move, which was more from Paris to London international thing, you. And also it started to become more about social media and more about digital technology, moving away from traditional advertising and more into fintech. So first of all, I've used words that I'm not even sure what they mean. So let's start with fintech. What is that? And then what was it that happened? What was it like for you living in that industry over the last five, six years when things started to become very different. But let me just start by saying that anybody who's been in the art business as long as I am know that there's big changes have come. Like every business, they've all been disrupted. Everything's about disruption nowadays. But advertising is one of the biggest Ones to be hit badly. So as a creative, you see there is less freelance jobs out there. There's, you know, there's positions people are taking just to have security. And in Paris, after five years working on Colgate, Palmolive, in Yonge and Rubicam, I decided to head over to London because I felt there were more opportunities there. But in 2018, I moved. In 2019, I moved and I saw that even the freelancers weren't getting that much work. So I had to rethink. And I think it's something a lot of creatives are doing at the moment. How can I use my creative skills in a different way? What industries are thriving? What is the new thing to be in? Because there's nothing worse than always putting yourself out there and you have a good portfolio, but your portfolio is no longer relevant, or there's just so many jobs and you don't know the recruiters or whatever the reason. A lot of our listeners have that, well, I feel like I'm not relevant because I took this time out to have kids or because I've just come back from traveling or because I'm too young, I'm too old. Your brain will always tell you that there's something, some reason why this won't work. But it sounds as if you just said, no, I just need to think differently. Exactly. That's exactly it. I just decided this is what can I do to maneuver my creativity into another area that I can bring value. And so I think I didn't pick technology. I think technology picked me because I wouldn't consider myself a nerd or a techie person at all. I'm very basic on anything techie. But I felt it was a good area to learn and to get involved with because it actually. Every business has been touched by technology. Every business has had to digitally transform in the past two to five years. So I was very. I love Lisbon, and I was very interested in the Web summit. Patty Cosgrove, summer fantastic Web summit that he's been running for the past, I think, 12 years, and the past six have been in Lisbon. So I bought tickets for that that were quite expensive, and I went with a friend, and for five days we immersed ourselves in this summit with speakers from all over the world, from Tony Blair talking about technology in politics, to Michel Barnier talking about technology and Brexit, to Rankin and photography. And one of the things that struck me that Rankin said is that advertising and photography as we know it is dead or dying. Wow. What did he mean by that? For one of the biggest photographers in the world to say that, you know, his craft is dead or dying. What was he referring to? Well, he lifted up his smartphone and said, we can thank this. I mean, now everybody's a photographer. Well, I am very grateful for the fact that Elspeth is my photographer. The fact that we're in our little studio in Covent Garden. Any nice picture that you see of me has been taken by Elspeth. She's just. She now has a knack. So I, for one, am grateful for the fact that everyone can be a photographer. But I think. Of course, absolutely. I have to see those photos. Elspeth, you'll have to. Do you have an Instagram page? Oh, they're all on my Instagram page. So I drag out to make my Instagram page. And then because she's so much younger, Elspeth is good at making her own Instagram page look great. While we're actually on that subject, Elspeth, what is your Instagram? If you want people to follow. Yeah, mine is my full name, which, good luck for anyone who can spell it, is Elspeth Crowdlock. And that's it. Everyone can go, follow me. Elspeth Crowdlock. Brilliant. Elsa Crowdlock. E L S P E T H P R O U D L O C K Elspeth Proudlog. And they can get to see you, they can get to chat with you. They can even, you know, if you. If you want to. You know, myself and Elspeth go through every idea for every show together. So if you want to reach out to Elspeth and say, hey, give me a drop. Awesome stuff. So back to this idea, then. So what I really love about the fact that you took yourself off to Lisbon was so many people, when they find themselves facing newness, which is there's a lot of newness around, what they do is they kind of go into freeze mode and they try to spend less money, go to fewer new places. But I always say to people, no, this is the time to expand. As soon as you start to contract that contraction, it's kind of like a downward spiral. But if you expand and you say, right, what ideas are there? What inspiration is there? Where can I go? Who can I speak to? Who can I get on board with this? Start adding people rather than subtracting people, it sounds like that led somewhere. So where does it lead to for you? Very good point. I think you need to go all out, not skimp down when you make these decisions. Well, I suppose just going to the web summit was just seeing a Completely new world and wondering, how can I fit in it with my creativity? What can I bring to the table? And so I saw lots of things, heard lots of people speak, and I realized there was a few people who kind of did the TED talk. They had, like, two minutes to sell their product, the elevator pitch, and they had, you know, young people with ideas. And I thought, gosh, that's the power of creativity. You have to be very economical with words, get your idea down, be clear, be simple. That actually is an art. It's not always about coming up with the big idea. It can be just being simple with your thoughts and putting them down clearly. And, of course, if you can use a little humor, I think that will help people as well. So I could. What does that look like when people get that wrong? And do you see that out in the world, people getting it wrong, not being succinct enough, not being just honest enough, not being playful enough? Yes. I mean, I think if I'm being really honest about myself, I wouldn't think that I'm the best seller of myself. I think it shows through my work. But when it comes to actually selling myself, I have to redo my website out there recently, and it was quite a painful task. And I know many creators find it quite hard to put a brand of, you know, to brand themselves, to put an image of themselves that's really them. But I think you have to find something that's honest about yourself that you can see. And I think the thread of my work and my career has always been humor. And I think being a little bit cynical and a bit funny and a bit humorous, you can see it throughout my work. And I've found that from recruiters or people who've hired me, they've said, we love the humor you used. What would you find are the mistakes that people are making at the moment with that? Do you find that in the current climate, if somebody is too verbose, if they don't know how to keep it succinct, do you find that people have even less tolerance for listening to someone go on and on and on until they make their point? Absolutely, she said in a very long sentence. I think you summed it up there. I mean, what I'm doing now, I'm working in a division of Barclays, helping them with their new ventures. They're all brilliant. I remember the first week I started, I had a little notebook, and I took down every acronym they used, and believe me, there were a lot. So I'd look them up so that I could know what they were talking about for the next meeting. And I realized they're all brilliant at what they do in their little niche, in their little world. But unfortunately that doesn't come across as being brilliant. When they go to write it or say it or explain it to people like me, they're doing it through a very heavy accent. Through the accent of bank. Exactly. Or just assuming people know what they know. I think it's so easy for all of us to do that. I know in the industry I'm in and the self help industry, we often use phrases like leverage. We presume people will know what we're talking about. When we talk about leverage or default or step up, someone says, what do you mean step up? Oh, step up to the plate. Make it happen. So I think it's easy in every industry to presume that people know what you're talking about, but you don't realize that it's actually jargon is that part of your job is to step in and go, how can we say this in a way that everyone will get. Exactly. Because if I don't get it, then I'm kind of the gauge. So it sounds like you were employed to be the dumbest one in the room. Exactly. The dumbest one. And then the one who tries to rehash what they say in my way. And then if they understand that, then we're on common ground. Oh, fascinating. Yeah. And it's really interesting because now I understand a lot more, but I too have to check myself and is this simplified enough? And get to it fast? You know, now we're dealing with COVID 19 and how are we going to talk to business? Businesses? And you know, before we can even talk to businesses, we can't talk about the new normal until it's already defined. And every day it's being defined. So you have to move a lot faster, really fast. And also what are we doing to help our clients, our customers, the community? We can't talk about what brands need to do and businesses need to do if we ourselves aren't doing it. So do you find you're having to work at a different speed from what you were doing in Paris and then before that in New York? Yeah, advertising is usually fast anyway. It's usually, you know, you have a deadline and you cannot miss that deadline. But this is changing day by day. I mean, anybody making content during this time will know you are just changing by the hour it's changing, which is really fascinating. So it's a different, you know, we don't Know what the post COVID 19 future holds? None of us know. I mean, I'm hoping it'll all be for the good and it'll mean a lot of good things and there's a lot of positive things have already come out of the past few weeks. But, you know, let's just actually project about 10 or 20 years into the future. Do you imagine that you'll still be working with in this same arena? Or do you see yourself, you know, retiring to the south of France to paint? Or how will your creativity keep coming out? Because obviously that's been the thing that has been consistent for you. And I love the fact as well that you, every time you made a change, you stuck to that as well. That's what I do. That's my strength that you focus on your strength. You didn't say I'm not good at this or no, I'm in trouble, that you said, no, I have this strength and you led with that strength. How do you see that strength going forward years from now? Well, I would just answer that last thing you said and I suppose it's true. I think I know all the things I can't do. I know all the careers. When you're fired from every job, you realize, stick with the thing you can do and stick with the thing you like, because at the end of the day, you're going to be doing it for the rest of your life. So anybody out there who's upset that they're not good at something, just forget that and stick with the thing you think you're good at and focus on that. I think that the advantage creative people have that in times of uncertainty, we're used to uncertainty, so we're always thinking of ideas. So right now I think that if anybody out there is looking for work or they're a freelancer, they've just come out of graphic design school, there's no hope of any work. Focus on what you do. Don't give up yet because you can use your contacts, you can use this time to really focus on doing creativity because it's in isolation that we become more creative. And when all of this, you know, when all of, when we can all go back to normal, whatever that normal is, you will be needed. Creativity is always being, is always going to be needed for. There's always going to be a need for creative minds, no matter whether it's advertising or anything else. So I think we should use this time to keep refining our work. Keep focusing on what you can do, think of ideas you could do. To help other freelancers and I don't know what I'll be doing. Yeah, exactly. I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I would like to think that hopefully I'll be alive in 20 years, but I don't know. I have no idea. I just go with the flow and see what happens. I think it's really interesting when you talked about, you know, that creatives will always be needed. It's funny how it's so easy for us to dismiss the thing that comes easily to us so that because we have minds that work in a certain way and can pull together ideas, create something out of nothing, we see that as, you know, somehow less important than the people who can go in and negotiate hard or the people who can time the market or the people who can create more mechanistic systems for businesses. And I think that we need to really work hard at that as creatives and as more caring people to say, no, there is huge value in the caring, There is huge value in the creativity, There is huge value in the feminine. Rather than just hoping that someone will let us stay at the table, realizing that we have more than earned our place at that table. Absolutely. And I think also the ad world, most creatives have a very love hate relationship. They love coming up with ideas. They don't love the business always or they don't love the brands they work on. Because at the end of the day, you're often selling products you yourself don't believe in. So there's lots of good we can do and I think we'll see that in the very near future where we can use these creative skills to help those organizations that are helping the community. Cool. Elspeth, what do you just. As we come to the last few minutes, what have been your takeaways from today? What struck you about what Irene's been talking to us about? Just definitely the whole, keep creative, don't let your voice be unheard. And I like your story about you find the high heels and strutting through New York. Absolutely. Yeah. The best image. That's kind of how we all need to go through life really, isn't it? Definitely. Fantastic. We have to keep looking up. Keep looking up. Keep looking up. Absolutely. And just one last thought, Irene. So do explain to us, what is fintech? Oh, Fintech. I gotta say, I was so embarrassed. I thought it had something to do with Finland, but no, but mice. It mice. Fintech is basically technology used in the finance world. And the UK has probably the biggest fintech industry in the world. Really? Yes. I would have thought America would have thought Asia. No, I think there are more fintechs in and around London than New York. And do you think those companies are they kind of like online banks, Challenger Banks, the Revoluts, the Monzos. You see all the ads? I keep seeing them when I'm in the tube or when I was in the tube. All the ads for the, for the online, it's more than enough. It's where you can use. You don't need a physical space for the bank anymore. You have, I mean I have a Revolut account. I don't know if you guys use any of these banks but if you ask any 25 year old in London what bank they have, usually it's a challenge. So Elspeth, what kind of Elspeth? Do you use those new banks or do you just use the old fashioned ones? I do have a Monza account. Yeah. Okay, there we go. All right. I was just like I said, I know Elspeth now is going to let the slide down but. No, you have, you even know what it is? I don't even know what that is. So that is proof that they go on. Wow. See that's just so extraordinary that you know, within a handful of generations we go from keeping it under the mattress to keeping it in the post office and having your savings account with your bank down the road and had to be down the road to just having something that doesn't have a down the road. I think that's absolutely fascinating and I think that we can know that whenever any challenge has come up in the world that we as humans have risen to it, that we have solved problems. Whether that is a problem of oops, Pepsi is losing all its customers because of this ad or how can we turn that around but that the creatives are really involved with making those changes. So just to say thank you so much to our Amazing guest today, Ms. Irene Fogarty. Thanks for having me. Absolute pleasure. And to. I will be pestering you to come back on the show very shortly. And so it's goodbye from me. I'm Judy May Murphy. You've been listening to WRS women's radio station. This show has been Judy May's listening. You can hear us live at 2:00 clock on Mondays and then also you can listen to the recording on WRS at 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon for the rest of the week. So thank you so much for listening and we will see you see you again next week and stay in touch because I am listening. And I do care. And we are all here for you. Big hugs.