‘It is important that creatives are trained as leaders
Matt Eastwood, JWT’s new global CCO, opens up
A13- year old Matt Eastwood had made up his mind that his future would be in advertising. From then on, it has been a globetrotting journey fuelled by passion. Since he took over at JWT as global CCO around three months ago, the travel has possibly become even more frequent, as he visits key offices of the network, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary. He was on one such trip to Mumbai, when Campaign caught up with him.
Eastwood’s mandate includes bringing all JWT offices to a level of creative output, ‘that will continue to peg the agency as one of the best in the world’. It was something the creative head arrived at with his CEO ‘partner’ Gustavo Martinez. Eastwood started in July, while Martinez came on board in February this year.
“We both agree the most important thing is to make sure that creatively JWT is among the best in the world. In India, we certainly are. But it isn’t necessarily true across all of our networks around the world. That became our challenge – of making sure that every JWT office around the world understands that the most important thing we can deliver is creativity. In terms of that coming before profit, I believe that if you focus on doing great work then profit follows. Gustavo is a complete believer that creativity has the power to transform businesses. That is the mandate to push out across JWT. We support each other in that,” explains Eastwood.
The creative head notes that JWT India has done ‘incredibly well’ at Cannes
Nokia and contributed to the global reputation of the brand. That’s what he is looking for. In terms of creative work, JWT in the Middle East is not far behind, in his view.
He adds, “London is brilliant and continues to do great, insightful work. There’s the recent Kit Kat work for the Bend Gate scandal, which was fantastic. Both India and the Middle East would easily be among our five best markets around the world. JWT Sydney is actually the first place I went to. I said to the team, ‘(My) Being an Australian there’s more pressure on you guys than the others in the network because you have to make me look good and make the network look good’.”
Talent and passion
The creative who moved from DDB recently, has an interesting perspective on ‘ talent’. To be successful and creative, one needs to be driven by passion, he underlines.
He elaborates, “In a way, talent can be a crutch for people. Some of the most talented people in the world are not necessarily the most successful. If you’ve been a person who has been able to rely on talent to succeed, when you face an obstacle you aren’t always able to overcome that obstacle. But if you’re someone who has faced obstacles many times because you’re not as talented as the person next to you, then you have to rely on your passion to push you further. That ultimately makes people better at this job.”
To drive the point home, he offers himself up as case study. When he graduated from University, he wasn’t the top student, he confesses. But he was definitely the most passionate about advertising, he adds: