many – awards at the Cannes Festival of Creativity. Ogilvy & Mather languished in the third division, and had done for years because, for many good reasons, award- winning creativity had not been an agency priority for some time. At one point Khai leaned towards my half of the table and said: “I hate it. I can’t work in a place that meekly accepts being slightly above average.” So we agreed to set out to become number one – “Network of the Year”. We set five years as the time frame; we created a programme throughout the agency; we treated it like a combination of a military mission and a political campaign. The cry went out: “Give me Gold”. It seemed crazy and impossible, but rather to our surprise, we achieved in it in two years. A central part of this has been the Cadre system, bringing together our best creative people once a year to talk about and improve the work. They’re only invited if their offices are admitted to the Cadre; and that is calculated on points earned from awards won. We try to meet in interesting places. I have addressed the Cadre from a baroque pulpit in Cuzco, Peru, a tent in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, and a hotel saloon in Inverlochy, Scotland. Developing advertising that challenges the creative convention is the work of artists, and a skill we’ve continually