An ad guru finds NZ is the perfect career choice, says Ashley
KEY POINTS:
As one of the rock stars of the Asia-Pacific advertising world, Todd Waldron could have had his pick of jobs in any country.
An American who grew up in Singapore, went to university in the United States, started work in Hong Kong, married an Australian and moved back to Singapore, M&C Saatchi New Zealand's new executive creative director wasn't without options.
So why New Zealand? It's not the centre of the advertising world.
"There were about a million small reasons why I thought it was about time to leave Hong Kong and Singapore together. Me being American and my wife being Australian, those were the first two places we started looking. New Zealand wasn't exactly on the radar for us."
But he heard about the M&C Saatchi vacancy and became intrigued.
"The more you think about it, the more New Zealand seemed like a much, much better choice. It's one of the most creative countries in the world. If you look at the Gunn ranking [the global evaluation of media creativity], it's usually in the top 10.
"There's great creativity coming out of here. I'd say it has a lot of the advantages of Australia, with very few of the disadvantages. The more we thought about it the more we thought we really wanted to live here."
The suggestion he could have earned much more somewhere else doesn't dent his enthusiasm that he may just have moved to the creative centre of the universe.
"I thought their offers here were better. When you're leaving Singapore, the first thing everyone says is, 'Oh, you're going to hate paying tax', because tax in Singapore is like, 15 per cent, so it's just a little bit of money every month.
"[In] Australia, the tax is 50 per cent, which I get. What I don't get is it doesn't seem to get me anything. In New Zealand it's like 40 per cent, but schools are free - good schools, world-class education. Free. Twenty hours of childcare - I get that, you're taking my money but I'm getting something in return.
"In Australia it's, like, I give you 50 per cent of my money, but are schools free? No, you've got to pay for that. Well what about that? No, that you've got to pay for too."
He looks perplexed in the way that only a high-octane, 100-miles-an-hour thinker who expresses every thought visually and verbally can.
"What are you DOING with my money?" he asks, his voice at least three tones higher. "'Building roads'. That's what every Australian says - oh, there are a lot of roads to build."
At the time of the interview it's just three days before the general election and I don't quite have the heart to point out things look set to change.
Waldron looks, sounds and acts every bit the ad man.
With a shaved head and stylishly dressed in dark jeans and black long-line shirt, he is a study in advertising chic. And the speed of his conversation suggests he is having trouble keeping up with his thoughts. Every answer takes the form of a story, an anecdote - complete with whatever gestures are necessary.
But he wasn't born thinking this was what he wanted. How it came to be - and how he rose through the ranks - is a story Gen Y employees facing their first labour market contraction might like to take as a case study.
It was 1993; he'd just graduated in the United States with a marketing degree. Problem one: he didn't want to do marketing. Problem two: he didn't think he could make a career of writing. Problem three: much of the world was in recession ("not as bad as this one, but it was pretty bad"). For a while, he shifted furniture.
But "a guy in Hong Kong", an acquaintance of his father, needed a junior copywriter. The then 22-year-old Waldron thought "why not?" and from day one, he loved it.
"They put me next to this senior copywriter and he used to sit and help me. [After a week] I felt like I knew him well enough and he was like this." Waldron raises his feet, rests them on the table in front of him and leans back in his chair, cradling the back of his head in his hands.
"He was looking out the window and it was Friday afternoon and I clapped him on the shoulder and said, 'Hey, Doug, get to work', and he was like, 'I am working'. And he was - and that was unreal, just thinking about stuff. I was like, 'That's work, and you get paid - and good money, too!'
"When I realised I'd been given an amazing opportunity - do NOT stuff it up - I just made sure I turned on all the lights in the morning and turned them off when I left. I tried to be first guy in, last guy out, that was my policy.
"I kind of got known like, you need something quick in two hours, Todd will put something aside and juggle work. I really just worked my tail off."
As a copywriter, Waldron moved through four agencies in four years. His next job, as a senior copywriter, lasted three. Then he moved to Singapore as a senior copywriter for BBH Asia Pacific and was promoted to creative director.
The different work hours are one of the differences he's noticed in his few weeks in New Zealand.
"I think there's a very good work-life balance here, which in Asia is somewhat lacking. I think part of it in Asia, especially Hong Kong, is all the creatives work till 10, midnight every night. In Hong Kong, you pretty much live with your parents until you're quite old, until you're ready to get married. If you left the office you went home ... you probably shared a bedroom with your brother, why would you go home? Your office is bigger than your apartment."
Here, people go home earlier and have interests that occupy their lives outside work, which he thinks is pretty cool. He also thinks it's pretty cool that Kiwis don't muck around - if they like something, they do it. In some countries, he says, you can be working on an ad for 18 months, which is "like being pecked to death by ducks".
"What I like about New Zealand clients, I find, is they have that 'just do it' attitude. You can present an ad on Monday, be shooting it the next Monday and seeing it on air the Monday after that - you start to go, 'Woo! Things shouldn't be this fast'."
Waldron obviously loves his chosen industry, and struggles to come up with just one highlight so far. But when he does, it goes right to the heart of creative validation.
"It was in a bar, and a woman was next to me and we start chatting. It was like, 'What do you do?' 'I'm in advertising. What do you do?' 'I run a sex shop. We need some advertising'. 'For a sex shop?' It's a fetish boutique and they have whips and stuff.
"We were, like, 'That sounds like fun, let's do that!' And we did one poster. It was about three storeys up, and we had to build a special thing for it to go on and there were staples - it was gigantic, it was like, 6m long.
"It was a guy tied to a bedpost and it said, 'If you love someone, set them free - eventually'. And someone stole it. It was there for two weeks and one day it was just gone.
"Then we got the guys who put it up to go and look. This is what was heartening: they took out the staples. Someone didn't just rip it, they said, 'I want that'. They had to do it late at night, it took a long time - they took out all the staples.
"I just did something that someone really, really loved enough to put a whole lot of time and effort in to steal. I just thought it was great."
Todd Waldron CV
Jan 2000 - Sep 2008
BBH Asia Pacific, Singapore
Creative director/senior copywriter
Accounts included: Axe (Lynx), Levi's, FHM Magazine, Carlsberg, Johnnie Walker
Jan 1997 - Jan 2000
Leo Burnett, Hong Kong
Senior copywriter
Accounts included: McDonald's, BMW, Disney Consumer Products, Regent/Four Seasons Hotels, Marlboro, Reebok
July 1995 - Jan 1997
Batey Ads, Hong Kong
Copywriter
Accounts included: Ericsson, Sheraton Hotels, Reader's Digest, Microsoft
Aug 1994 - Jul 1995
Euro RSCG, Hong Kong
Copywriter
Accounts included: Conrad Hotels, Asiana Airlines, Philips
Aug 1993 - Aug 1994
J. Walter Thompson, Hong Kong
Copywriter
Accounts included: Citibank, Nescafe
Ashley Campbell is a freelance writer.
You can contact her at: www.howgood.co.nz/profiles/95.
