From being told he didn’t fit the mould to creating some of advertising’s most iconic work, including Haribo and the recently resurrected “You Know When You’ve Been Tango’d”, Trevor Robinson OBE has built a career proving that difference isn’t something to overcome, it’s the source of the most powerful creative ideas.

Should you take a job if you’ve had to make a compromise to land it? It’s a question that sparked a memorable debate at a recent event. It all started with an audience question about someone who’d only been able to get a job in marketing once she’d swapped out her ethnic name on her applications. While one panelist spoke convincingly about why you should never have to compromise your name, your personality, or the way you think. Why would you want to work somewhere where you can’t be yourself? 

But for me, it’s more complicated, because while my background has held me back at times, it has also made me who I am today. I appreciate why people might be moralistic about code-switching, but in my view, you can’t afford to hold too uncompromisingly to your principles, even now.

I came into advertising in the 90s, when the only choice was to put up with discrimination and hope you could make a difference once you got a foot in the door. My partner, Al Young, and I had two long spells of unemployment, not helped by the fact that, as a black man and a Scot in a white, Oxbridge-dominated world, we fit in absolutely nowhere. 

We eventually managed to get a placement at TBWA, and after we’d helped win business and hold onto Evian, the agency had to give us a job. But we never fit in, and we got fired after a year or so – the creative director just didn’t like us, which was the start of another year spent searching for work. 

In an attempt to look like we could belong, we tailored our portfolios to suit the style and personality of every agency we applied to, but we still struggled. This was at a time when people could openly say to your face that they didn’t think you “fit in” with their culture, and more than once, we were left wondering, what does that even mean?  

One creative director liked our personalities, but said this wasn't coming through in our portfolio. He advised us to draw on our own personality and experiences and bring that to the work, because as a creative, you need to define yourself and who you are before you can move anyone else. He was right: a month after we put our real selves into the portfolio, we had a job at HHCL, Campaign’s Agency of the Decade for the 90s. 

I had a heavy dose of imposter syndrome when I arrived. For months, I was convinced people were going to kick the door off and say, “You’re black, get out.” But it wasn’t like that at all; founder Adam Lury would get everyone together, regardless of their background, to ask what they could do better. We were at an agency that was ready to do things differently, and they wanted creatives to do things differently, too. 

At Quiet Storm, I consciously maintain a similarly maverick melting pot of ethnicity, gender, and background, so I can’t deny that those things matter. It’s just that now it’s in a more nuanced, positive way, and it’s driven by a desire for fresh, exciting work – not by the old school connections that mattered in the past. 

My advice to talent trying to enter the industry or to creatives who still experience moments of imposter syndrome: 

Know who you are 

The one thing other people can’t do is be you. If you're a creative, you need to define who you are and what you are strong at, and then get that into your work. 

Get in, and then champion change 

You’ve got more chances of making a difference once you’ve got a job than you have by clutching to your principles on the sidelines. 

The proof is in the work

When you’re faced with people who aren’t like you, the best way to open their minds is to do great work that demonstrates the advantages of coming from a different background.