I owe Richard a bit of an apology. I tried to record a video interview with him months ago but I screwed up the sound and it was unusable. Then last week I did an audio interview with him, but I became convinced it wasn't good enough so I decided not to use it. So I made him do another interview on Monday. And he was relatively smiling and uncomplaining though-out the whole process. Good man.
I was really keen to do a good interview because I think Richard is doing more rigorous, useful and nuanced thinking than any planner around. It's particularly worth paying attention to because he's an actual working planning director not one of us pontificating, blogging freelancers who aren't really at the coalface. He's thinking smart and useful stuff about how to build the communications agency of the future, how to make television advertising work harder now (while acknowledging that it probably doesn't have a 10 year future) and how to create useful brand ideas (over and above communication ideas or product ideas). And he's the opposite of a knee-jerk thinker; he's informed and enthused about all the new communications possibilities that are arriving. But he also refuses to throw the baby out with the bathwater; he's committed to using all the tools and channels available even if they've been around for 100 years.
Now, listening back to the interviews I've realised there's really good stuff in both of them, and I probably should just have posted the first one. And there's also brilliant stuff in the second one. But now of course, there's quite a lot where we repeat ourselves. So I'm probably going to upload them in bits. Here's a taster, it's only about 15 minutes so it's a quick listen. I'll post the other stuff tomorrow.
We talk about television advertising, the future of television, 'the brand film', Douglas Holt, Glue, engagement, brand positions and other stuff.
MP3
