Trevor Robinson OBE reflects on how going without a rulebook helped him forge his own path and build Quiet Storm. Now, as AI reshapes advertising, he argues that the industry needs more bold ideas, fresh thinking and a little magic.

It’s hard to be entirely clueless in an age where you can tap up AI for advice on how to do just about anything. But when I was starting my career, guidance was thin on the ground.

This made life much more difficult than it needed to be, especially when I started my own agency, but looking back, I think my lack of awareness about the rules of the game was a good thing.

Working at agencies like TBWA and HHCL, I did get the occasional pearl of wisdom - like when Graham Fink, creative director at Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners back then, told my creative partner and I to only create work that made us feel something, not stuff we thought the industry would like.

The only other bit of ‘counselling’ I can remember was from Tom Carty, the legendary creative behind iconic Guinness commercials like Surfer”. He was standing next to me in the less than salubrious setting of the men’s urinal at TBWA’s offices and, possibly to make the situation less awkward, he asked me why I wanted to be in advertising. I told him my ambition was to make work that would become famous. Ads that my friends and family would talk about and like. He instantly snapped back, “Well, you haven’t done that yet, have you?”. His words made me more determined to succeed than any flowery motivational speech ever could.

The upshot of being left to my own devices was that the only path I could follow was the one I carved out for myself. It made me self-reliant and more tuned in to my own instincts - a crucial skill for creatives. It also gave me the confidence and determination to do things my way.

At that time in my career, I didn’t want to have to choose between directing commercials and being a creative. I wanted to do both. So I founded my own shop, Quiet Storm, which was one of the first agencies in the UK to write, direct, and produce its own work. It’s a model many agencies use today, but at the time it was almost unheard of. I had no one telling me it wouldn’t work or advising me to do things in a more conventional way.

I naively thought clients would line up, in a Field of Dreams ‘build it and they will come’ sort of way. It won’t surprise you to learn it was a lot harder than I expected to get up and running. But, eventually, clients started embracing the idea.

Quiet Storm is still going strong 31 years on. It’s not the same agency as when I first started it. It is ever-changing, and that has been the secret to its success. We’re continually embracing new ways of working and operating. Not all of the changes have been easy, but they have all driven us forward.

I went my own way in part because of my outsider status - I didn’t fit the industry mold. This industry needs to do much more, not only to seek out people from different backgrounds, cultures, and who think differently, but to allow them to shake up this industry.

It’s so intimidating when you’re young and starting out in any industry. Everyone around you seems like they know what they’re doing. But you’ve got to stand by your ideas and be aware of what you can do that no one else can.

Agency leaders need to focus less on doling out advice and more on listening to the next generation, being open to their ideas, no matter how unconventional, and giving them the space to experiment.

It’s easier, (in the short term), to work from a tried and tested formula. But industries that stick with the old methods quickly die. What’s critical to success is having an element of magic to your idea, business model, or culture - something that inspires people enough to work with you. And you don’t get that magic by following the herd.

If our industry is going to survive AI, it needs as much of that magic as it can get. Let’s start by supporting young disruptors and innovators to go their own way.

Trevor Robinson OBE is Founder and Executive Creative Director of Quiet Storm, the agency behind iconic campaigns including “You’ve Been Tango’d”, Haribo, Google, Vimto and Channel 4’s Black in Business. He founded Quiet Storm in 1995 and later launched Create Not Hate, helping underrepresented young people access careers in advertising. An Honorary Fellow of the University of the Arts London, Trevor was awarded an OBE in 2009 for services to advertising and charity, and now a regular columnist for MAD//Amplified.