My Creative Career: Guy Bradbury, creative partner at M&C Saatchi
As part of the My Creative Career series, the M&C Saatchi partner details how he almost became an RAF pilot, what it was like being at art college with Keith Lemon and the genre of music that inspires him the most.
Guy Bradbury / M&C Saatchi
Creativity is in Guy Bradbury's blood. With a sister who is a fine artist, a brother who was an architect for Sheikh Mohammed and another sibling who is head of design at Puma, family life was full of imagination. “My Dad always made stuff with his hands,” he remembers. “I always had a biro and a newspaper in my hand that I used to roll out and come up with these bonkers ideas.”
The creative thought he would follow in his brothers’ footsteps but admits that after a stint at an architecture practice during his work experience at school, he realized that being out on a site in the freezing Northern cold just wasn’t for him.
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“I decided that I wasn’t going to do A-levels. I rebelled against my parents and signed up to be a fighter pilot in the RAF. I had watched Top Gun or something” he laughs. “I went with my best mate, and he ended up training at Top Gun. My folks were distraught.”
Thankfully, a visit to the family home from an art teacher called Mr Drury changed the course of Bradbury’s career forever. The forward-thinking teacher confessed to signing him up for Leeds' Jacob Kramer College, having recognized his creative potential. His parents were pleased with the move, even if it was a bit of a surprise to the student.
At art school, while doing the graphic design course, he was mixing a crowd who seemed to know where they were headed. “Leigh Francis was on my course, aka Keith Lemon,” he says. “He wanted to get into film, even at that early age.” But Bradbury was less committed to a path. Growing up, he knew nothing about the advertising business aside from what was on the TV or radio and admits he fell into it by chance after meeting a lecturer who had worked in the sector. That teacher would take his class down the pub to come up with ideas, a move that played no small part in the initial appeal of a career in adland, he laughs.
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“It was even an accident that I ended up working in an ad agency,” Bradbury confesses. “I did my end-of-year show in February and I wasn’t even thinking about a job. Agencies come in and a small one called that’s called Rapp now hired me to be their coffee boy.” He jokingly adds that they were going to pay him about “ten quid” so he went with that.
“I moved around a lot in the first four or five years because I wanted to learn as much as I could about brands and channels,” he says. “It's only when you get some life experience that you can apply it to advertising. Real human insight is where the real learning comes from and you get better at it.”
Finding the right agency and mentors is important. Over the years Bradbury has worked at the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi and DDB UK after being hired by David Droga and Jeremy Craigen. In 2012 he went on the start his own agency called Atomic London which he successfully ran for almost a decade. It was during that time he worked on the Peperami account. The client wanted to re-position the brand for a younger audience and the 'chicken' and 'beef' sticks were introduced in a TV ad that spoofed sports commercials.
He cites campaigns for HSBC and Royal Opera House as two that he is proud of. The latter campaign called 'Feel Something New' featured ballet and opera stars captured by photographer Giles Revell. With a focus on movement and color, the film blurred the lines between moving and still images.
But he’s not one to look to the past, the work he’s putting out now at M&C Saatchi, including campaigns like 'Help Us, Help You - Get It Seen To' for the NHS, is his favorite.
“I don't look at my own work that often, I just keep trying to do better.”
Solving business problems for clients is where Bradbury gets his kicks. “I like to get into a room, understand what the issues are and how creativity can help solve them with a blank sheet of paper,” he adds. “It’s getting to the heart of a business problem and finding the most distinctive way to bring it to life and get the brand talked about. That’s the bit I love.”
It’s all about remembering to keep having fun too, the creative says, and getting clients into a space where you put positivity around a project. Alongside Matt Lee, with whom he runs the creative department, he's always looking for work that stands out. “We look for work that people give a shit about, first and foremost. What's the point of working on something if people don't emotionally connect?”
“One of the other things we have as criteria is: does it make us slightly nervous? We’re giddy. Sometimes we’ll see something and we have a kind of synergy. You try to keep the idea on the table for as long as possible because you're excited for what the potential that idea could be.”
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Nervous energy is good, he says. If that feeling isn’t there, it's probably because you’ve seen the ad before and you’re not doing right by the client. 'Hard on the work but nice to each other', is a mantra he lives by.
As a creative, he draws inspiration from everywhere, but he really loves Indian tribal music. A Tribe Called Red, to be precise. “I try and soak up as much as possible from the world around me and then at some point, it pops up in the work,” he says. “I jot little ideas down in a book and I’ll come back to them, it could be years later.”
It’s something he advises people looking to get into this industry to do, as well as reading as much as they can about advertising and if the opportunity arises, go for a pint with senior agency execs to pick their brains.
“Continue to learn and if you find yourself beginning to procrastinate, leave your agency and go to one where you do have access to senior people who want to coach you and make you better. Once you come out of uni, the real learnings begin. Life lessons.”