Pat Murphy:

Hi, and welcome to the MCA Prodcast – your fix for everything innovative in advertising production. I’m Pat Murphy, and I’ve been working in this industry for more than 35 years. I’ve seen a lot of changes, but know that there’s many more around the corner .

Every couple of weeks on The Prodcast, you get to hear from one of the movers and shakers who are shaping the world of production for the future. And we’ll dive into some of the key challenges facing our sector today and how we’re best placed to overcome them.

Today, you’re going to meet Darren Richardson, Senior Partner and Global Chief Creative & Technology at VIVALDI group although when I recorded this he was the Global Chief Creative Technologist of VML Y&R. Darren’s been working at the cutting edge of creative campaigns and companies across the world for more than two decades, and is an expert in emerging technologies like deep fake and unreal engine and understands what meta-humans might mean for your next campaign.

He also admits to having shelves full of books, just like me, that he never read, but there’s a good reason for that. When I think of Darren, I of course, think of new tech and how it’s impacted our industry. And it’s only just the beginning. How is tech going to shape advertising production in the next few years and how is it already changing the landscape? And which companies are ahead of the game?

Welcome, Darren.

Darren Richardson:

Thank you very much for inviting me. It’s very good to be here.

Pat Murphy:

It’s what we called the Prodcast. So there’s a bit of a play on words. Fantastic. So let’s get started straight away by discussing your background global creative technologist. What does that mean?

Darren Richardson:

Yeah, it’s, it’s a good one because I think that the, the global creative technologist or creative technologist is a word that’s been bated around for, I would say around 2005. And then the, the actual term creative technologist is, is multifaceted. So it can be like people who are more tech focused on the production side of, of programming – an experience developer and producers. And it can be also on the creative side, more leaning onto working with the programmers, etc, and then bringing stuff alike with more of a creative Islam, looking at a big idea, and then how you could actually have a creative edge to that with technology and bringing those two formats together, delivering a non-traditional format.

Pat Murphy:

Is this just an excuse for, for you to just carry on playing with geeky stuff? Eh,

Darren Richardson:

Yeah.

Pat Murphy:

<Laugh> yeah. You’re like kid in a kid in a toy shop. Aren’t you really?

Darren Richardson :

I am, I am. It’s you know, it’s one of those things where people, when people ask me what my job is and I tell them, they, they say, so you don’t actually do any work then. Because it is actually something that I really enjoy as a, a hobby as well. Somebody once said to me, what books are you reading? And I said, I’ve got a bookshelf and I’ve got lots of books on it, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t actually read that many books. What I do is end up surfing the internet, looking for new innovations, new technologies, following decent blogs and Twitter feeds to actually see what’s the next cutting edge innovation that I can potentially use creatively.

Pat Murphy:

So you’re getting paid for your hobby, which is not a bad thing, is it?

Darren Richardson:

Oh, it’s, it’s awesome. <Laugh>

Pat Murphy:

You and me both. So I’ve always said that as I’ve been growing up in this industry, I’ve always thought, ‘oh my goodness, someone’s gonna find me out at some point’

Darren Richardson:

<Laugh>. Yeah, yeah.

Pat Murphy:

You know, how does someone from a traditional creative background, which is what you are, you know, how do you keep up to date with technology, you know, and how, how can that help you be a better creative?

Darren Richardson:

It’s funny you say that it’s probably because since we’ve known each other, Pat, that I have been like this you know traditional creative. But I actually started my career as a programmer. So I left university and I was actually programming banking software. And then it was only when – I don’t know if people will remember – but it was something called Macromedia flash hit the ground. And it was an animation digital software where you could actually bring experiences to life. I got into that and then I got into digital creative director roles and then I went into the more traditional and then I learned the dark arts of, you know, film production, etc, working with the likes of 180 in Amsterdam on the added as world cup mm-hmm <affirmative> and then Crispin Porter Bogusky working on acts out there in Toronto as well.

Darren Richardson:

So I would say, you know, to, to answer the question, I kind of, it found me as I said, I started off as a geek. And then creativity found me and I just fell into it. I loved it. I loved what you could do by bringing these two mediums together. Not to say that I don’t still love doing the, the TV spot, but I also like doing something that’s very experimental making new products, new innovations as well and campaigns for clients. This, this coming together of, of programming and creativity. It’s like it’s using both sides of your brain, which, you know, some of us find hard to do some of us find easy to do. I’m one of these lucky ones that find it quite easy to do, to use my data side and then my creative to let everything go out of the box side as well to create better solutions. So yeah, I find keeping up to date, which was your original question – like I said, I think that I don’t read lots of books, but I do honestly spend a couple of hours in the evening. While my wife is reading a book in bed, I’ve got my iPad open and I’m surfing the net looking at what’s the, the latest and greatest thing out there to play with.

Pat Murphy:

I was gonna ask you that question is where do you find the resources to keep up to date? So you, you kind of scale the internet or are there other places that, that you look at? I mean, obviously you, I see a lot of your LinkedIn postings and some of them, I guess, kind of go, ‘wow, that’s fantastic’. You did one the other day around some deep fake technology I think it was the Robert de Niro thing. Yeah. Fantastic, amazing. What incredible technologies do you think in creative production have made the biggest amount of difference in the last couple of years, we’ve gone through two strange years, right. <Laugh> since I last spoke to you. Yeah. And you know, things have changed in that period of time. What technology do you think has driven the creative in last two years?

Darren Richardson:

A technology point of view? For me, it’s, it’s a love it or hate it. It technology wise, I think is the deep, fake it’s meta humans. And I wrote an article a few, a few months ago about unreal engine and the, the way that it’s, it’s amazing how you can actually quickly create a meta-human and how realistic it actually is. If you look at what they’re using in, in films today like the Gemini Man – Will Smith, right. I’ve dunno if you’ve seen that film, but his younger self is, is pretty damn good. Considering it is actually completely a metahuman that they’re brought to life and used as he’s as younger self. So for me just in the creative industry that’s the big one, especially in production as well because you know,

Pat Murphy:

Unreal engine you’re talking about. Yep.

Darren Richardson:

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Unreal engine. Yeah. Unreal engine where there was another thing that was they did a Morgan Freeman. And they put the real Morgan Freeman. Yeah. That that’s and put it side by side, you would not have been able to tell the difference.

Pat Murphy:

I was blown away when I saw you post that the other day and went, oh my goodness. That was incredible. Really, that Morgan Freeman clip that you, that you shared on LinkedIn and you know, we’ve been working with the unreal engine as well. Our team have been doing some production out in Poland. In fact, we’ve been doing about 13 to 14 scripts across there’s a combination of locations and interiors and stuff, but you can go from literally one location to an interior, to another one mm-hmm <affirmative> literally at the drop of a hat and press a button. And you know, the lighting is so controllable and all of the post production is done kind of in camera. So it’s an amazing bit of technology where you can literally switch from one to the next, to the next, just at the touch of a button.

Darren Richardson:

Yeah. Yeah. There’s a, there’s another thing that I came across, as I said, my midnight surfing where meta humans are actually really big influencers on social media as well. That that amazed me at that. There’s a web website that actually has like 35 verified virtual humans, meta humans, however you want to, to name it and they’re out there and they’re selling insurance, they’re selling clothes, they’re selling fragrances s and they’re completely virtual and they they’ve even got one. That’s actually a sausage, I know it’s not a, metahuman, it’s a sausage, but you know, that’s how bizarre it is getting today. But yeah, I, I, I think that it’s, it fascinates me how the kind of metahuman or the digital selves, et cetera, are, are enabling us and technology and creativity these days,

Pat Murphy:

You talk about meta-humans. But the word metaverse for the uninitiated, what does that exactly mean in a couple of sentences?

Darren Richardson:

<Laugh> it’s well, again, it’s one of those things that a lot of people are disbelieving in and thinking it’s a fad and others are thinking it’s the future. So the metaverse is huge, right? It’s, it’s it’s another place where people come and gather it’s where the, the, the next generation are doing most of their socializing talking, gathering, playing together.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. My kids as well, by the way, <laugh>, they’re already on – my kids already. They’re there they’re in Roblox and Minecraft and all that kinda stuff.

Darren Richardson:

Exactly, exactly. So it comes down to Minecraft. It’s Fortnite, it’s Decentraland. And already, you know, brands are playing, playing in the, in this area as well. They’re yeah, there, there’s a few cases that I, I know of where they’ve set up like shops, environments, so you can actually purchase stuff there. And, you know, with, with the metaverse as well, there comes the NFTs, right? So the non-fungible token where

Pat Murphy:

That’s a whole other thing.

Darren Richardson:

Yeah, exactly. So with that, it’s another currency, that’s another world. In some ways, you know, being a tech and a geek I obviously it fascinates me, but it also concerns me a little bit, to be honest about living this kind of virtual world versus the real world. One of your first questions was where do I find creative inspiration? I find it online, the geeky stuff, but you find a lot of your creative inspiration by walking around, getting out in the real world, looking at culture, looking at insights, looking at nature. And I think that a lot of that is going to be missed if we carry on going the way that we’re going with with the metaverse.

Pat Murphy:

Do you think it’s a healthy thing for, for kids particularly, you know I mentioned my own children getting involved in this and’re only kind of nine years old. And sometimes we worry about it because they get so immersed in this stuff that they don’t wanna get off the computer.

Darren Richardson:

Yeah. I think it’s interesting. I was a gamer from when the spectrum came out, I was there the ones who waited 30 minutes for the tape to load up just to play this little blocky pixelated game. And there’s a lot of data to say that gaming can actually help children compute can actually help them in their learning, but there’s a, there’s a balance. Right. And I think that that’s the, that’s the trigger and the is the, where is the balance before it becomes unhealthy. And then you get your children where you’re having to drag them off of Fortnite to actually just go out and play football with you or go for a walk. So I I’m, I’m mixed to be honest, I, I think that it’s it’s good because it’s cognitively it can help with the learning especially gaming environments like Minecraft, you mentioned – great for cognitive learning and Roblox got lots of e-learning triggers in there in the gaming as well. Where it becomes unhealthy is where it’s they’re so immersed that real life is forgotten about. And you try and turn turn it off or tell ’em that dinner’s ready. And then they’re, they’re shouting at you <laugh> and then they get, you know, the mood states changed. So I think that I think it’s good in small doses.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. Yeah. Now look, Darren, there are many creative departments are now filled with very young teams and a lot of the seasoned creatives kind of gone off and doing other things. Do you feel something is missing now and how different is it now when taking a client’s brief?

Darren Richardson:

Yeah, no, it is, is like, you know, there’s many problems in our industry right there. There’s, <laugh>, there’s not just ageism, there’s many others as well, but we, we are in an industry where I believe that it is part of it. I’m not going to deny that.

I think it’s it is up to the creative leaders to build their departments in a way that it is a nice mix. You, so you have got seasoned creatives because they’ve got obviously a lot of value, a lot of experience that they bring to the table, but then you’ve also got, the younger generation that are coming up. They’re hungry not to say that the older generation are not hungry. I’m, I’m hungry. I’m sure you are as well, Pat. So it’s not so that we are not, but they’re coming with different cultural insights. They’re living in a different era than we were brought up with. So I, I personally like to bring a mixture together in the creative department and when taking a brief to be perfectly honest, we we normally get the the try to do it, which is the account, the planner and the creative go together because they’re all gonna have different inputs, different questions to then challenge the brief, to make sure that you get the best solution.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. I was interested to see that Mark Denton, the celebrated commercials director and the ex-creative director, he’s gone in as an intern mm-hmm <affirmative> back in St. Luke’s and I thought that was a fascinating story. He wants to kind of upskill himself. Yeah. Not a bad thing.

Darren Richardson:

Yeah, exactly. That’s why I think that we all can learn. And it doesn’t matter if you’ve been in the business 25 years or one year, you you’ve still got stuff to learn whatever stage of your career you are because there’s new technologies, new innovations new ways that people are interacting with the likes of Snapchat, etc, that a seasoned creative might not know about, but teaming them up with a younger creative will, will help that and get a better solution that actually, you know, addresses the cultural and the target audience.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. No, I agree with you. So look, let’s look forward, projecting forward over the next few years. What do you think groundbreaking tech will look like in the, in the next few years,

Darren Richardson:

Well look, I, I think we touched on it, some of it already, which is the, the metaverse.

I think that places like Decentraland, Fortnite have opened up their doors for brands. So if I just think about it from my area now, which is advertising that I, I think that there’s a, a great opportunity there. There will be a fee obviously to open the doors of Fortnite and Decentraland, but they’re already partnering with big brands. They’re having concerts there there’s already commerce solutions being integrated into the metaverse. So you don’t, you know, you don’t necessarily just have to buy NFTs. I’m sure they’re gonna be opening up to other currencies as well. And you know, I think that the way I look at it is – the opportunity is be where the, the audience are.

Darren Richardson:

And there’s, they’ve got Nike stores, etc, in, in the, in the metaverse. Why can’t I not only have an NFT version of my Nike shoe, why can’t I then get that in a few hours delivered straight to my home as a personalisation service as well? So I think that there’s great opportunities for commerce there. I think that soon you’ll see KPIs in client briefs. So it’s not just awareness campaigns that we’ll be delivering against. It will be commerce solutions and entertainment column solutions, as I like to call it where we are connecting maybe the traditional creative, which is the entertainment side and the films and the content with then commerce as well. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. So I think that that’s also an opportunity connecting those two,

Pat Murphy:

Which clients are doing it well now at the moment.

Darren Richardson:

Well, there’s, there’s a few. I think Wendy’s are doing really well. I’m not just saying that because I’m VMLY&R. <Laugh> I, I, I think that they are doing amazing. They’ve just launched the Wendyverse on the meta horizon worlds where people can interact, play games together. But the one I really love was where they hacked Fortnite for the Wendy’s burgers pizzas. So they went and smashed all of the the fridges in, in fortnight. And then all of the other players caught onto this. They started doing it, so they became a massive movement and it was just simply by hacking what was already there. So it was again looking at culture and then looking at how you can hack into it as well. So I thought that that was great.

Darren Richardson:

Theres Microsoft, the adaptive controller which was a game changer, not, not a pun there, but a game changer in the people with disabilities, allowing them to then play on the the platform. And I’ve literally just been today judging Ad Forum Phoenix awards. And I saw this idea from Germany, which was to stop walkers, you know, the, the pig who bottleneck when there’s accidents on the on the motorway or highway, they would say in the states and they start filming with their phones and just via a simple QR code, which when they get their phone out to start filming, it pops up the message worth telling them, obviously not to, and it’s bad to because obviously it’s, it stops the emergency services getting through quicker and causes accidents as well. So from things like product development, hacking cultural into the metaverse and even down to using a simple QR code, which most people would say, well, that’s not really very innovative. It is if you use it correctly. So it’s, that’s what creative technology is to me is using innovation and technology in a way that people haven’t necessarily done before.

Pat Murphy:

Do you think the traditional advertising idea, you know, that’s the stuff that you and I kind of grew up learning. Yeah. Do you think that’s still applicable in, in this world of digital?

Darren Richardson:

Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I think that that’s where a lot of digital stuff goes wrong because it forgets about the idea. It totally forgets about it, and it just goes straight in with what’s the tactic, what’s the innovation. And then you’re missing the key, the key point, which is what’s my brand message. What is the message or idea that I want people to go away with? Not just, oh, that’s a cool wizzy bang thing that I just played with. And then they forget about it in five minutes. You want them to go away and think, oh, well that was a great product, a great experience that came to life via the technology and innovation and the storytelling. That’s why I mentioned entertainment, commerce, because that’s something that we coined in a pitch last year. And for me, it’s the future of how entertainment or the, the content that we talked about from a traditional point of view and commerce solutions come together.

Pat Murphy:

So look, Darren, we all love great ads. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> my favourite was the Hamlet photo booth. That’s my favourite of all time because of its simplicity and just brilliant execution. What, what’s your favourite ad? And does it stand the test of time? <Affirmative>

Darren Richardson:

That’s a good question. It’s cuz there’s obviously, there’s, there’s hundreds that you can probably point out, but the one I’m gonna say one that I absolutely love. I’ll tell you why before I tell you what it is to reveal. It’s because it has a great product message in there. It’s humorous. I, I think humour is missing from a lot of creativity these days. And I think bringing that back is, is great. It’s done in short formats and long formats. So it’s great for all platforms and the storytelling of the content can go on and on and on. And it’s old spice, the man your man could smell like,

Pat Murphy:

Yeah, fantastic. And interestingly, you know made by Proctor and gamble, of course, who are the owners of Old Spice who were traditionally not that kind of advertiser. They were very much a kind of man-in-a-white-coat, product benefit, whatever. Yeah. Emotional advertising wasn’t really in their kind of DNA, but they changed dramatically. Didn’t they?

Darren Richardson:

Yeah, it, it did. And I think that that just shows that, and this is something that I think clients need to kind of be braver, like, you know, Burger King like Old Spice. Yeah. And be brave with their creativity, trust their, their partners in production and the agency to bring the stuff to life. Cuz you know, we know our stuff, we’re passionate about it. We’re not just a production line and it’s not a cookie cutting machine. We’re all passionate about what we do. So I think you can do great work. Like the Hamlet photo booth, like Old Spice, like Burger King work like Wendy’s as well. If you just trust the agency and the production partners to do the best job that they can.

Pat Murphy:

I completely agree with you a hundred percent. Darren. Finally, what is your top three tips to creatives and producers want to come into the industry right now?

Darren Richardson:

We’ve heard me talk a lot about keeping up to date. So I think number one, keep up to date with what’s possible. There was a saying, and I remember seeing on, on, on people’s walls in the office, around the agency and it was ‘Cheap, Fast and Good’. You can only have two. That’s not the world we live in today. I’m afraid. <Laugh>

Pat Murphy:

I completely

Darren Richardson:

Agree. I think that when you are looking at techniques and innovation in how to do creative and production better, cheaper and still at a speed and of an amazing quality that’s what you should be looking at is, is how to do that. So keeping up to date with what’s possible, number one.

Pat Murphy:

You could add a couple of other corners to that triangle couldn’t you sort of more and different would be another two you could add to that.

Darren Richardson:

Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly.

Pat Murphy:

So yeah, no, I definitely agree that those three it’s totally relevant that that corner of like good, cheap and fast doesn’t really exist.

Darren Richardson:

So it doesn’t, it doesn’t anymore. And it used to be a little funny meme that everyone used to put on their walls, but yeah, in today’s day and age, that’s exactly how the world works. So that’s how we as an agency in production companies need to work as well.

Pat Murphy:

Yeah. Yeah. I think I’d have one to, to the top three tips for creators and S one. The one that I would add to that is we’re in the business of relationships. Yeah. So make sure that you are building the best relationships you can because that’s how you get great stuff out.

Darren Richardson:

Yeah. I agree. I agree. Relationship is, is key. Is the trusting. I was mentioning a second ago. If you haven’t got that, then, then then it’s all over basically. Totally. The other two, I’d say be a sponge. Don’t think, you know, it all, we talked a bit about the seasoned creatives and the the, the young breed coming in today. Don’t think, you know, it all and be open to collaboration no matter how long you’ve been in the business. No matter what your job role as well, because I, I think it’s great. You get some of the best work out of the collaboration and bringing account strategy and creative and production all together in the same room and brainstorming out that’s again, the best solutions there. And then lastly, I would say it’s a little phrase that me and my partners came together for our little team now is stay humble, hustle hard. And it’s it’s, you know, We do have to put a lot of hours in this industry. We both said, it’s not like work. It’s like fun what we do. And it’s super rewarding, but you do have to put a lot of work in. So I would say that ‘stay humble’. Don’t think that you are amazing because there’s always something out there that’s more amazing. So just try and be the best you can and hustle hard and keep, keep working effectively as long as you’re doing it as well,

Pat Murphy:

Amazing place to finish. That was more than three tips, actually. That was quite a few more than that, but that was great. Darren, thank you so much for doing, joining us on our MCA podcast this week and hopefully we’ll get a chance to talk again very. Darren, thank you so much.

Darren Richardson:

Thank you very much for having me, Pat.

Pat Murphy:

I wanna say a big thank you to Darren Richardson for taking time to talk to me today. I loved how Darren said that even with the biggest advances in technology, getting out into the real world is still your best bet for finding creative inspiration.

To find out more about the MCA Prodcast. Please head to theprodcast.com where you’ll find details on all my guests links to their favourite ads and full transcriptions of all the episodes as well. If you’d like to feature on the prodcast or have any comments, questions, or feedback, please email prodcast@murphy cobb.com. I’m Pat Murphy, CEO of MCA – do come and connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram of which all the links are in the notes for this episode. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to my guest today Darren Richardson, my team at MCA as well and all the guys at the production team at What Goes On Media.

Catch you again next time. Thanks very much for listening.