Daniel Wood Doesn't Believe In Bolts of Inspiration

Daniel Wood is a senior creative copywriter at frog, part of Capgemini Invent. Before that, he worked at VCCP Sydney, where he switched from account management to copywriter. His career started in London, where he spent time at Karmarama, Lucky Generals, and VCCP.

He has written campaigns for a whole heap of sectors and brands, and tutored aspiring creatives for Australia’s AWARD School program. Dan’s career highlights include his dentist professing his love for one of Dan’s ads while injecting him in the face with anaesthetic, receiving emails from the public praising (and criticising) his work, and performing as a male and female hand model when a client wouldn’t pay talent fees.

Person – What kind of creative person are you?

I like stealing.

I was tempted to leave the answer at that, but I’ll elaborate. I spend a good chunk of my time consuming anything that isn’t advertising and seeing what I can lift and reinterpret into something new for my work. Influences. Good, bad, and ugly. It could be HBO, it could be Bravo; you can take something from anything to inform your creativity.

It’s a bit like the old adage: you get out what you put in. Famously misinterpreted by gamblers. I need a good diet of cultural and creative references to borrow from, whether it ends up revealing an insight, inspiring an idea, or shaping the style of a jump-cut.

Someone wise once said “originality is the art of concealing your sources”. The hope is that one day you create something that becomes a source for others to borrow from.

Often I’ll steal everyday things, like something I overheard. You never know when it’ll come in handy. There’s a story about Elton John recording at AIR Montserrat and trying to get the band going after a long day when they’d crashed out stoned. Until one guy stood up and declared, “Well, I’m still standing!”, which inspired a pretty tidy number.

That’s why the camera roll and notes app on my phone is invaluable; it’s filled with reference points I revisit and pull from. I took a peek while writing this and was reminded of something I jotted down from a commentator describing a heavyweight fighter as having “muscles on his teeth”. I’m still waiting for an appropriate occasion to use that.

Product -- How do you judge the creativity of a piece of work?

The first piece of advertising I remember seeing was because of two simple words.

“Watch this,” my dad said, when the John Smith’s ‘Ave it!’ ad (from the ‘No Nonsense’ campaign) came on TV. It was a hat-trick of being entertaining, insightful, and sticky. I was 11. And it was an ad for beer. I remember kids in the playground shouting the beer soaked “Ave it!” punchline during footy, before Nike’s more age-appropriate “Ole!”

That experience, and those two words from my dad, sum up how I personally judge a piece of creative work. If you can create something that makes the everyday person want to show it to another everyday person, to say “watch this” (or “listen/read/look at or go to this”), that’s surely the pinnacle. You’ve made them feel something worthy of sharing.

I used to have an ECD who would respond to my poorest ideas with “Who cares?” It’s a good question. Rhetorically and literally. Much like how we post or boast about series, films, fashion, restaurants, music, hotels, coffee, overpriced tins of artisanal anchovies; we only share things with others that we care about or that reflect our taste or values or identity. I guess in marketing you call it ‘word of mouth’, but I ain’t no Mark Ritson.

Process – Tell us about how you like to make creative work.

I remember I used to resent not being the kind of creative person that looks at something prosaic like the leg of a chair, dog, or ham, and is suddenly struck by a bolt of ‘inspiration’. I’m just not wired like that. I’ve since come to suspect most of us aren’t.

For me, I just have to work hard and consistently at a brief to create something from nothing. I think seeing the work ethic of those around me as I grew up rubbed off on my approach and holds me to a certain standard. Hard work beats talent, and all that. So keep showing up and keep working away. It’s not a sexy answer, but it’s what works for me. A bit of that classic British mentality of bulldozing through the problem.

It’s been suggested that our brains inherently want to be lazy, so a healthy work ethic combined with my version of ‘catholic guilt’ instils in me the ability to try hard and care hard. If I don’t do enough work on something, I can feel it and it sticks. What I want is on the other side of what I’m not doing, so I think: get your arse in gear.

Press – What external factors have shaped you?

I started my career in account management and the department head at my first agency said the job is to “make shit happen”. It’s something I’ve carried with me ever since as a creative and a human. Perhaps it’s as true in life as it is in the workplace.

As a creative, I don’t think you can afford to silo yourself away from ‘non-creative’ tasks and other departments. I try to be interested and influential in any part of the process I can and collaborate with disciplines to “make shit happen” in service of the best work.

To me that’s utilising traits that make a good creative anyway -- to be nosy, curious, inquisitive, to challenge, question, and push. Anything to get a better output, even if it doesn’t make your life or anyone’s life ‘easier’.

There will always be something in the work I think I could have done better after the fact. I just don’t want to be asking myself, “What if I had fought harder for that?”

It means you have to care the most and be scrappy and relentless and never give up. The sad truth is you hear ‘no’ a lot. Every creative does. I once saw James Cameron speak and he shared a story about showing Warners the 'Avatar' script. He was told he had a good story, but he needed to lose the “hippy, tree-hugging stuff”.

And that’s James bloody Cameron. It’s not an easy ride. So I try to stay positive and keep finding solutions to help me and the team get to ‘yes’. It requires being persistent and having a thick skin.

Or muscles on your teeth.