Paul Banham Chief Creative Officer

Paul Banham

Paul is one of just a few genuinely strategically minded creative directors that have worked in and won awards across practically every marketing channel. He has held senior creative positions at McCann, JWT, AIS, Agency.com, and WCRS. Over the last 20 years, he has built his fully integrated credentials working in top 5 agencies across Branding, Design, Direct, ATL, Integrated, and Digital. His unique cross-channel experience allows him to deliver truly integrated solutions for every marketing challenge.

Paul writes regularly for IAB, Revolution, NMA, and Campaign and has published work in The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal. He is also a keen public speaker and has talked on various subjects for the IAB, IPA, D&AD, Lynx, and more recently as a guest of Double Click in Cannes.

His approach & beliefs are (like all the best ads): Look after your brands, and your brands will look after your agency’s health and bottom line. Equally, you’re only as good as the people you hire, so surround yourself with incredibly talented and passionate individuals. A favourite quote of his (that’ll be forever ringing in the ears of the creatives he’s overseen) is that “There’s a big difference between presenting work and selling work,” the latter he’d go on to tell you requires a head for business as well as both creative and strategic nous. A favourite quote from someone else that he firmly stands by is Lee Clow, “There’s a real difference between being creative and being creative – you can’t claim the latter without consistently proving the former.” This is why he tells his creatives (and himself daily) that you’re only as good as your last piece of work. Finally, and most importantly, he believes that passion will (and always does) trump talent – as talent without passion is nothing.

Ask him what sets him apart from other ECDs. He’d say one thing: “I believe there’s a silent ‘C’ in Creative Director that few creatives ever bother to stop and think about, let alone understand – The client’s ‘Commercial agenda/responsibility.’ But if you do stop to think about this, and if you’ve got enough smarts to learn to direct it, then the world’s your oyster (creatively speaking) as you’ll know that anyone in advertising, whatever their title, is only ever using creativity to serve the real big C in the industry. You are hijacking and packaging the idea of creativity as a tool to assist your client in making money. Forcing yourself to confront this is the only way to succeed constantly.”

Finally, if you were to ask him what he’s most proud of, he’d say: “The fact that many of the wide-eyed young creatives that I’ve hired and mentored over the years have gone on to work for some of the most creative agencies on the planet, such as Droga5, AKQA and Adam & Eve DDB.”

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