Neal Davies is an advertising executive with many talents. He has painted, engaged in political activism and tried his hand at salesmanship. Currently, Davies, 42, is a partner at Naked Communications, where he helped launch the first U.S. outpost of the U.K.-based advertising agency in New York in 2006.
Recently, Naked expanded, opening a second U.S. office in Minneapolis. Clients include Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, Nike and Coca-Cola. It currently employs about thirty people in the U.S. and over 200 globally.
For his work at TBWA/Chiat/Day New York, where he was employed from 1999 to 2004, Davies won a Grand Effie award in 2003, for a campaign for Embassy Suites Hotels, and a commercial Emmy award for a pro bono campaign for the Joe Torre Safe at Home Foundation.
FINS sat down with England-born Davies to discuss his impressions of New York, why he advises people to always own a dictionary and how advertising is like Christianity.
Shareen Pathak: Where did you start your career?
Neal Davies: My first paid job was as a painter. I painted pipelines at a chemical plant in Europe. There were literally millions of miles of pipeline and it was fantastic. I was out in the sun, I read the paper, did a bit of painting.
SP: So why did you get into the ad business?
ND: I had decided to settle into the marketing area. So in 1990, I joined the professional photography division at Kodak, where I would solve people's problems. They'd call and ask 'How do I print onto this paper?' and I'd tell them. I then became a technical sales rep. I was given a company car and a box with files of people with Kodak accounts in central London.
I noticed that Kodak was losing the professional photographers, the advertising and fashion photographers, because they were all moving to Fuji because Kodak was too expensive. So I wanted to bring those guys back, and I started hanging out with these people to find out how we could. I ended up knowing a lot of guys from ad agencies and made some connections.
In 1997, I joined Simons Palmer [then a London ad agency] to run an account for Sony Playstation.
SP: What happened when Simons Palmer was bought by TBWA later that year?
ND: I stayed for two years and then moved to TBWA's New York office in 1999. It was like being in a movie. I'd be in a cab and out loud, I'd say 'Christ, I'm in New York,' and everybody would stare at me.
There was a period of wide-eyed innocence which lasted until Sept. 11.
New York is great. I expected it to be aggressive and brash and pushy. The London ad community is a lot harder and forceful. Here's it was friendlier and collaborative.
SP: You moved to McCann Erickson for a little while. Why'd you go back to TBWA/Chiat?
ND: I was working at McCann with an agency called Tag Ideation, which aggregates all McCann clients with a common audience. So I did some marketing for Xbox, alcohol [clients]. I didn't necessarily enjoy what was a much more corporate environment. It felt removed. I've always liked to roll up my sleeves a little bit.
Within six months, Chiat called and asked me to work on Absolut Vodka, and I left.
SP: What has been your biggest challenge?
ND: Absolut Vodka was definitely one. It was an interesting problem because we have always had some of the most famous campaigns in the world but the ads were selling the ads, not servicing the sales.
It became an issue within the agency. 'We're not changing the campaign and anybody who talks about it gets fired,' [was the sentiment around the office].
So finally we needed to get back to the basics. The fact that Absolut was called Absolut for a reason. It meant something. Absolutely pure vodka. We got away from the visual of the bottle and back to the purity.
That "basics" approach taught me a lot of things for Naked.
SP: What is different about Naked?
ND: We're not linked to output. We are focused on the right idea and the right answer.
For example, we worked with Kleenex to launch a new premium line product which had the lotion weaved into the product. What we knew was that when consumers touched it, they went "Wow." But this is about getting products into people's hands. So we created an environment in stores and other places where people actually got their hands on it. It was the biggest sampling exercise Kimberly-Clark [the maker of Kleenex] had ever done.
Other agencies have a muscle memory. It's like going to the butcher and asking what you should have for dinner. Of course he's going to say meat. But we don't have a vested interest in recommending a medium.
SP: What keeps you up at night?
ND: The long term effects of having worked in a chemical plant.
But more than that, the responsibility I have to keep ahead of the game. It's tough.
And my twin four-year olds. They contribute to the stress.
SP: What advice would you give for people looking for a career in this industry?
ND: I was once told I needed to have more enemies. It might be true. You have to be lucky, for sure. But relying on chance isn't enough. As long as you're confident and articulate and have an opinion, you're good.
When I recruit, I enjoy conversations with people who didn't study marketing and advertising when they were at school. I like people with a traditional academic background. People who can articulate an abstract concept. It's a valuable skill.
And one more thing. Get a dictionary. Look up the word 'alacrity.' It's my favorite word. Like Christianity, in junior positions in advertising there's a promise that you will be rewarded in the afterlife. It's true. If you have friends on Wall Street who are making a ton of money and you aren't, don't worry about it. Sit back. Wait your turn. It'll come.
Write to Shareen Pathak
