0:00

I think maybe a crisis, a permacrisis. A metacrisis, an omnishambles, a clusterfuck calls for a kind of deeper kind of creativity, perhaps where we're really looking at models and we're really getting businesses, people, politics, think more deeply and to be more imaginative, basically, about what's possible, because doing more of the same doesn't seem to be working.Welcome to creativity for good, the podcast where passionate people from the world of charity, art and communications tell the story of work that's changing the world for good and how it's done. I'm demons today, I'm joined by Reuben Turner, founder and creative consultant at reword creative. Welcome Ruben.Hello, you doing Dave?I did say I would give you a chance to introduce yourself. I've kind of just done it for you. Is there anything else you want to say about yourself?Well, not really, other than I being involved, I suppose, with creativity for good. Throughout most of my career, we've known each other for 20 years, 20 years proximity London, and then, yeah, since then, continually really been involved with charities. Let's work with charities. I've worked with the social good and, and it's an interesting space, which suddenly everybody seems to be waking up toAnd now me and you, we're going to talk about creativity in a crisis. We were kind of talking before him, weren't we about this word? Perma crisis, meta crisis. Which do you prefer?Yeah, it's interesting that because in a way. I feel like we've had several waves of so I think somebody invented the term Omni shambles, maybe ten years ago, you know, we keep talking about this thing. John Alexander, who, who wrote, talks a lot about meta crisis, because in a sense, remember, is it a Davos they're talking about, they've got one of these terms. But basically, you know, it's as though, Oh, well, accidentally, all of these things seem to be happening at once. But actually a metris of it gives you the sense that there's more at play. And actually perhaps, I think a lot to do with them, climate and a kind of failure of capitalism, but it feels like there's more like layers of crisis rather than random things that are all happening at once. And perhaps that gives us a sort of deeper narrative about what needs to change.Because I was think, Oh, that's the whole reason for this pod, in a sense, is to and inspire and encourage one another with stuff that's happening for Google, because creativity is the one resource that there is no scarcity of and that can actually make a difference in all this. Bar bar in suggest Rishi sonac is now saying, no. The thing we need to concentrate on, and there is a sort of prevailing cultural narrative that says, when times are tough, you know, when the world is sort of running out of money, but already out of resources, you know, all of these things that the last thing we need is creative types, you know, mucking about, mucking about painting things turquoise and put on ballets, you know. But actually, arguably the way we're doing things now isn't working. And actually creativity is, that is the is fundamentally about, but imagining the way and things are done, reimagining the world in a better, in a better form, and actually maybe we have never needed. So that's the thing I'm really interested in is this cultural narrative that says, not now creatives, you know, there's a, there's a pandemic on not now creatives, there's a cost of living crisis. Well, but actually, is creativity really, perhaps it is the thing we need most.And let's go, let's go back in time to the beginning of of covered and way that, yeah, or less. Yeah. Because everyone wants to revisit that time and the way that, yeah, that did pan out, you know, when, when you had scientists or scientific language kind of leading the way, like what, yeah. What was the, what was the upshot of that when you could so easily have involved people who understand messaging? I think at a government level, there was clearly a moment that was their sort of not now creative moment where they said, we know, we need the scientists and everything to be black and yellow. They were trying to come up with a bunch of different sort of phrases which would reach the public consciousness, you know, stay alert being one of them, which is like, I don't understand how I can, can't say understand. But yet sort of, interestingly, you saw creativity happening all the time. You know, if you walked around this neighborhood, as I did every day, in people's front windows, you know, on pavements, in drawings, in all sorts of places. You saw that groundswell of people making messages, making supporters messages on billboards. I mean, Bill Hollywood did an amazing campaign where they got kind of creatives to, you know, they turned over their billboards, which are kind of useless from a commercial point of view, over to artists, you know, who are putting out these messages that people really wanted to say in here. So you kind of couldn't put a lid on it, really, even though, as I say, from the top, there was a kind of narrative that creativity was useless moment, clearly wasn't.if this pod is creative for good, you know, what do we mean by creative? That's a good question, because I think they response quite quickly. If creatives, as we know them in a crisis is quite often too, do something a bit superficial. It's like, can I make a poster, kind of make a Tshirt? You know, can we make a TV ad? can I get something out there? Tweet? I think maybe a crisis, a per crisis. A me crisis, the nominee shambles.A clusterfuck calls for a kind of deeper kind of creativity, perhaps where we're really looking at models and we're really getting businesses, people, politics, think more deeply and to be more imaginative, basically, about what's possible, because doing more of the same doesn't seem to be working. So I think ultimately we have to ask ourselves, you know, is this opportunity for a campaign? Is this a brief or is it a bit deeper than that? Is it an opportunity to, to rethink and really use our creativity?Do you think there's businesses who are kind of changing their whole sort of infrastructure to have like, I'm thinking of an example like that, flipping oat milk Oatly. I think where they had, yeah, they brought their marketing team, like to the very center of the organization and, and just restructured it to help them kind of do sort of social purpose in a more, yeah, more sort of holistic way.Oatly is fascinating story about how you take creativity upstream. Basically, as you say, moving away from being the endpoint, which is, you know, we create a product, we make some packaging, we have a strategy, whatever, we have a marketing plan, you guys color it in, you know, moving it towards putting creativity right at the heart of the business with the sort of power to influence everything, which is a bold, distinctive move move. And, know, they are selling an awful off hope well, because of it.Oh, but it's interesting, for instance, to look at companies like Selfridges, you know, who obviously have that huge heritage in that department store world. Now, those kinds of businesses are having to think about moving to a circular economy, a regenerative economy. And there the really creative ways now them to think about not just selling products, but renting products, think about the lifestyle, that life cycle of their products, to really think about new businesses, new ventures, you know, that come an opportunity off the back of that new ways for people to perhaps consume or use products. And that's just an interesting space to be in.Yeah, it does seem like fast fat fashion, the fashion world, as has, is kind of ahead of a lot of other industries, particularly when it comes to, yeah, looking at sustainability. And I guess because they're, their model has perhaps been on, under the microscope more than, more than most, you know, the way that the supply chains and that kind of thing. But yeah, it does seem like there, there's a lot of good stuff coming from that particular area sector.I think fashion is really interesting because, again, it has, in some senses, creativity, design right at the heart. Materials are incredibly important, but also it's an incredibly fast cycle. You know, they, they're putting new, entirely new things out every year and every season at the top of fashion, which is, can be a huge problem. But at some level, it also enables them maybe to innovate faster.Model, we should pause for a moment where say a few words about Vivien Westwood, who was an incredible kind of observer of the perma crisis. She absolutely got it that there was one going on. She completely understood climate, you know, population economy, all of these things that she was worried about. And yet was at the heart of a business that was, was and is pumping out, you know, new collections several times a year, creating more and more things, which I think was a, was a difficult paradox of the heart of her life, really, but, and, but an absolute radical in that sphere, who understood the power of fashion, to change things and to change culture.So she would take a moment, take a moment, have a moment's silence on a podcast to show respect.Yeah, it's good because you can edit it in later.Looking at the climate crisis Have you seen any kind of examples there where we're kind of tackling, you know, where, where, where people have got that messaging right and, and they're actually try something that's more inspiring or more hope filled Quite difficult, isn't it? To be hope filled in a world that looks be the, the way that it does with the prognosis that we have. And yet without hope, what is there? You know, we just kind of give up. And it's been really interesting. I think big business, big oil, whatever you want to term it, have the upper hand, you know, in using creativity cleverly to shape the narrative. So we all know the story of how a carbon footprint was invented, you know, too, by a PR agency sort of pass the notion of climate being a sort of personal issue rather the business issue, for instance.And they really were able to undermine sort of scientists kind of prevarication. But I think there are a number really interesting initiatives and coming forward. There's a thing and called the great green wall, which is a huge inter and international cooperative movement to really green large parts of the Sahara desert. She's fairly, not talked about, but in but an immense effort. An interesting thing about it, the great green wall, is that it's not really wall at all, you know, that's not really how it works. But the naming of it is something that has galvanized loads of people, politicians, governments, policymakers, international donors, around it. Because that sounds great.You know, you can see it in your mind. You can, you can, you can, it's concrete, you know, it's so even simple stuff like that, you know, makes a huge, can make a huge difference in the kind of public imagination. I think making things concrete, you know, is something that creatives, an artist really good up. Scientists incredibly bowed out easily. Politicians aren't great at the power of imagination to be able to see what's possible.And also, I think there's something about, it's a way of thinking about who does creativity and how, you know, waving towards model of creativity, which is much more about cocreation and equity engagement, rather than two guys called Mike sitting in a room. Caitlin Ryan, who we both worked with, had this model, which was like evolutionary what's the thing in religion, real learning, where it's like, now everything what creationism, creationists cafes, is evolutionary creativity. So it's kind of like, does it all happen with these two guys called Mike in a room and then now and it, or is it about creating a model that engages more people that's more authentic? That's more true, but it doesn't really have a and yeah, has less leadership, I suppose, has fewer heroes in it. As an example, there's a lovely example in this book, design emergency about covered in Afghanistan, which, you know, hit the country really hard. Didn't have very good medical infrastructure. And it was teenage girls, you know, from a for my school science program, who are designing respirators for the country and prototyping and getting them out to places. And it's like that kind of rethinking of who gets to design what might be exactly what we need in a crisis.Why do you think that? Is that because they were just so desperate?but I think they also had the imagination to go, we need to. But you think this thing from scratch, and were brave enough and ready enough to do time and they weren't thinking about existing infrastructures and resources they were just thinking, let's get on and do.how can we bring those sorts of can we bring that kind of culture into our, into our world? I think two or three things really interesting things are happening in agency land. Number one is the conversation around diversity, which really says we can't have creative departments just made up of the same kinds of people that they always happy. And we need to change that. Bring different voices in. There's a really nice campaign or an example from the us, where varies on, which is a mobile phone company that has offices, tends to have shops in quite some poor neighborhoods. And, and it was, it was a creators, you know, team who came from a neighborhood like that who said, one of the biggest issues that we have is it's really hard to vote. So varies on turn there stores into voting booths for the election.They found that there's a law that said you could open the voting a voting station wherever you want. But it was, that insight only came from having that kind of team in the agency. Nobody else who worked at the agency had any idea that was an issue. So there's a change there that's going on. Second thing, I think, is that when that happens, there's a change in culture. Some of the things that I found frustrating and amazing at GOOD was this group of young creatives who are much less interested in glory, much less interested in ownership, much less interested in being the stars, much more interested in collaboration, sharing, kindness, cocreation. And which is unlike the creative world that you in.What a bunch of suckers., quote, but amazing, you know, you find that, that, that that's different. When you change that creative and team, the makeup of that team, you change that culture.Were they, were they, how, where were they coming from? Were they coming in t2s how, how did they? A real mixYeah, some we put together or came in as teams, as creative teams, and they naturally gel. Others were happy to float, plug in, you know, great, bigger teams, all really enthusiastic about working with broader community. So working with young people from schools and colleges are working with people at Brixton, finishing school, you know, to add new voices into the conversation. All really, really came to do it, which is amazing. And I think that the other bet that's become really interesting is a sort of, I mean, it's a bit pointy and judgmental on social media, but there's a sense in which if you're going to talk about issues, you have to do it authentically. And therefore you have to engage communities in that telling. You can't tell people's stories for them, you have to tell them with them.So I think that's led to agencies naturally having to be bit more consultative, cooperative, you know, build a bit of cocreation in because otherwise it's not authentic. So it doesn't work. And also they get called out for it's a different model of creativity. That bit was right. It was nice up young. I mean, they drive me nuts. Why don't you?Okay, yeah, was gonna here for each other, you no, you did it. Yeah, it's but it's amazing.But I think who, one thing that I do miss, I suppose, is power of religious communities to like work together. Because however much we in the secular world, want to be like, Oh, we, you don't need that.There was a lovely Christian aid campaign that good did, I don't even remember where they basically did a, the Holy hack, where they basically got together loads of young creative Christians in a big church in Shoreditch and went, you know, what's the future of the organization? And they really like drew on that, that very generous spirit actually, which, you know, we've touched on, which is much less about like, what can I do for, for competitive advantage against somebody else? And more about how can, how can I work with other people? How can we share what we know? How can we build on what we know to and create some answers that haven't been thought of before?I wonder with like, like the organization's, if I think of someone like, yeah, like Greenpeace and friends of the earth, you've got this way of talking about environment that is geared to obviously talking to your, your kind of staunch supporter but you've kind of have to talk to them because they're the ones kind of paying for you to be there.It's in yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And it's like, the question we have to ask is charities, pressure groups, at scale, really the right answer? Because you when you look at the last few years, all of those organizations were completely blindsided by Extinction Rebellion, who now own that conversation pretty much in the public consciousness, despite the fact that Greenpeace, friends of the earth have been around since the 1970 s, you know, have achieved huge amounts, but not enough. And actually what, what we have coming along is an organization that doesn't need members, doesn't want subscriptions, you know, doesn't have an infrastructure, doesn't really have a leadership just wants civil action. And actually did get Theresa may to commit to net zero, arguably. So there's some real effectiveness in that, in, in, in looking at very different model. One of the interesting things with extinction rebellion, in early, early meetings with them, you know, we, we kind of went along and spoke to them and said, well, what do you need?You know, how could we help with membership? How could we help with fundraising? This was the stuff at agency level that we really understood, we're being funded by one of the world's biggest hedge fund managers, but I need your money. What we need is bodies on the street, people lying down in front of cars, getting arrested and sent to prison. That's a different kind of an ask of a creative agency. And actually, what they need from creative agency, for creative agencies to stop marketing fair lines and oil companies and petrol cars, disposable plastic.Hence, you know, they're showing up at Cannes every year and storming mean the beaches there. That's the only conversation worth having, really.So seems like we keep coming back to this thought of one of the more effective ways that we can yeah, one of the more effective things we can do is to kind of not be working within lot of the structures we have? That is a very interesting point of view, isn't it? M and some of the things that are happening at the edges of the industry, who knows if they'll ever looking at things like climate effectiveness. So instead of looking at creative effectiveness or commercial effect, saying, you know, what's the climate impact of our and creating a measure that you can actually used across different campaigns. I mean, and, you know, absolute bless Bennet and IRS, you know, who's leading that with, with some other organisations. But is the industry really set up to listen? Not sure that it yeah.When I think of my time, like within, you know, working in their charity, for example, you know, note, and I was as as guilty of this as anyone, but yeah, so much of our energy and focuses on, yeah, keeping, keeping this thing going Therefore, I think, think it, the idea of growth has become so sort of culturally embedded, isn't it? In the most, sort of like unpleasant economists and politicians in the world, but actually also in the charity sector, you know, it's hard to find charities that have a ambition to shrink, you know, an ambition to solve a problem and disappear, an ambition to radically sort of change what they do. Major impacts. Usually the, the idea of impact is Allied to the idea of scale. So the answer is get bigger, get more money and get more members, get more influence. Does that always quite solving? Clearly hasn't, you know, in climate terms, arguably.There's a very good bloke I work with called Andy Hyde, who was really good on that question. If bigger isn’t better for oil companies, why is it for charities?A lot of I like your faith question, though, that being able to call on a community positively engaged people?Well, I also think, you know, it's the majority of the world, isn't it that's a, literally a broad church. And, you know, at one end it's, you know, it's all about, let's save people and be all end all. And then, you know, you've got folks who are much more into a, yeah. Doctrine of sort of stewardship of the earth and, and that kind of thing.And, and, you know, where people do get that if they're motivated by something that's nothing to do with way that most of us and the way a lot the world is motivated, you know, there's huge, this huge, this huge energy and this huge capacity. There are green shoots of that in the us. Aren't there where people are actually saying, as you say, being a steward of the earth is the most Christian thing to do. And if you can really call on that in, in the us and reach that Christian grassroots there, really got power. But at the moment, seem to be it was, it's always interesting working with Christian aid that they're basically, I was trying to get to the number of why they aren't they just ox family, the sort of, no, it was good a name. And but it was that delivery mechanism, which is like, we've just got hundreds of thousands of churches and poor communities all around the world who are like actually delivering this work. Amazing infrastructure, right there built in. yeah.do you have any other sort of things you want to, you want to sort of go into before we know credits come up?I mean, maybe it's that call to arms to not limit our imagination.I wanted to do my bit about my, my book that I brought.Nice. Why don't you do that? That's great. And I could do I could. Okay, I do a couple.Well, I know that you further reading. Yeah, well, I suppose I was thinking about, yeah, one, one of the that's more visceral crises you could be in is on, under a totalitarian regime. And I loved some of the stuff in through's through Popov, it's book blueprint for revolution, where he was talking about the various ways in which, yeah, creative ways that people nonviolently protested. One was in Chile under, under Pinochet, people in the 70 s, they got, they got taxi drivers to drive at half the speed, and then, you know, other drivers, so for a suit, and people started walking, you know, much more slowly. And so you're literally kind of slowing down the economy. But obviously the biggest, biggest part of that is just being able to say, you're not the only one who disagrees with this regime, but finding a way to do it where that doesn't get you put in jail, you know, and, and disappear because everyone was doing it. I know you'll be familiar with the great cottage cheese protests in Israel 2006, which is also a good one in there.My other favorite is some, think, I can't remember what country, well, it might have been Syria, but they, they wrote just little slogans on hundreds of ping pong balls and release the ping pong balls down down the hills. And the regime didn't want these ping pong balls with, you know, words like freedom and enough on them. And so, you know, you had all these like, tough guy police, like running round trying to catch the ping pong balls in classic sort of what's so cool. Let's see, of anyway, I suppose, a bit Benny hill sort of star, like running around trying to catch them. And, you know, just lose that. They lose their terror when you see, when you see men.Lovely clip, I don't know if you've seen it as a German place all falling over in the mud.Which is a wonderful metaphor for how nature will win in the end. Yeah. But again, they just look absolutely ridiculous.Yeah, it becomes very absurd, very farcical. What were your book recommendations, Ruben?Oh, well, I've got a couple. So there's a very good book called design emergency edited by Alice Rawsthorn and Palo Antonelli, which is all about creativity in its broadest sense, around the world being used to address kind of crises that were in survey interview architects and fashion designers and illustrators and data visualizers. And it's just kind of fascinating and, and very hopeful, because it really makes you think again about potential to really change things. And there's another one that I'd recommend, written by John Alexander, an Arian Conrad, called citizens, which, which is really a call to arms. Stop thinking about ourselves as consumers and start thinking about ourselves as citizens. And again, it's one that just helps you reframe what creativity can do, because it says you don't have to look at it through a a kind of commercial lens.M, yeah, I'm gonna give both those a look It's just very, just looks very cool. So one you want to be seen with, that might be it.The main thing in it does help. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, Ruben. Thank you for your time.Thanks. Is lovely to see you. Thanks for coming all the way to Brighton.