Ep23: How to get diverse talent into your teams with Trevor Robinson OBE

Trevor Robinson OBE is the co-founder of Quiet Storm, which he runs with his wife Rania (also a NABS Podcast guest) and Create not Hate, which works with young talent from underrepresented groups.

Trevor is the brains and creativity behind the legendary Tango advert in the 90s, having adopted a fearless attitude cultivated as a young creative, on the dole, trying to get into the adland industry.

He’s passionate about creativity and diversity and is refreshingly down-to-earth, especially when speaking about working with Rania and looking after his mental wellness.

Key takeaways:

• The drive for diversity needs to come from the top
• If you work with your spouse or partner, you have to get things out in the open
• Don’t be afraid of things going wrong in your career

Resources mentioned in this episode

NABS’ grief support 

Quiet Storm

Create Not Hate

Creative Circle

Transcript

Louise (00:01.877)

This week, our guest is Trevor Robinson OBE. Trevor is CEO and partner at Quiet Storm Advertising. He’s one of the most high profile and highly regarded people in the industry, despite being told by his school careers advisor that he’d have more chance of being a bus driver. Trevor is responsible for some of the UK’s most famous ad campaigns, including the 90s You’ve Been Tango’s. In 1995, Trevor set up Quiet Storm, the first agency to write, direct, and produce its own work.

 

Trevor runs Quiet Storm together with his wife Rania, who has also been a guest on the NABS podcast. Together with Rania, Trevor also runs Create Not Hate, an initiative that helps underrepresented young people into creative careers. Trevor is recognized in many influencer lists, and in 2009, he was awarded an OBE for his services to charity and advertising. Welcome, Trevor. It’s really good to have you on the NABS podcast. How are you doing?

 

Trevor Robinson (01:00.742)

I’m very well actually. I’m just pleased that there’s still sunshine at this late August period. I’m not looking forward to the winter, so as long as the sun’s shining through the window, I’m happy.

 

Louise (01:14.889)

Well, I’m going to ask you what mental wellness looks like to you. And does it look like having sunny weather to help you along? Or have you got other resources you can draw when it does get gloomy and wintery?

 

Trevor Robinson (01:17.395)

Yep.

 

Trevor Robinson (01:25.886)

I think, especially within our business, it can be quite stressful because it’s like, if you’re in a small business, you’re forever pleasing the clients that are on a table, but also trying to bring new clients in and trying to keep the old ones. So it’s a never ended sort of like merry-go-round of, of stress at times. But the thing that makes me and which I’ve always been fortunate as an occupation is I love being involved with a creative process, whether it’s coming up with ideas or nurturing ideas or instilling, you know, seeing people who don’t think they’re creative, become creative and see the rewards that comes with that take, take fruition. So that’s really, you know, one of the things that keeps me buzzing.

 

And the other thing is just, you know, being around youngsters from my own kids to the people that I work with, feeling their ideas and feeling their kind of joys and excitement about the future, which is always, you can easily get kind of pessimistic and wallow in the past, and you know even in the good, past and in terms of how you’re viewing the future.

 

Louise (02:36.501)

So if you were having an off day where you felt like your mental wellness wasn’t tip top, what would you do? Would you reach out to someone younger in your team or one of your kids maybe for a chat to uplift you?

 

Trevor Robinson (02:46.818)

Not really. Probably the key things for me is to go for a walk, jump on my bike, go down the gym or watch an old movie or a movie that interests me or things. I’m a great one for being inspired by stuff that I see. So going to an exhibition or anything creative that I find really helps me. I’m not terribly good at chats and stuff, unless it’s with my family or my friends, that I kind of, I feel like I’m able to get some reward from that. I’m not very good at finding it elsewhere.

 

Louise (03:29.841)

You’re responsible for one of the most memorable ads of all time. You know, you’ve been tangoed, people still say that catchphrase. And that was back in ‘92 and it was on TV. It’s been named in a Channel Four and Sunday Times poll as the third best ad ever. What I’m interested is the link here between mental wellness and values, because your work is famously values-led, and where mental wellness and values enable you to produce really fresh work like that, the sense of originality. So do you remember where you were with your mental wellness when you made that ad and where you were values wise as well?

 

Trevor Robinson (04:05.586)

 

Yeah, it’s quite interesting because, well maybe me, it may not be interesting, but me and Al, my creative partner, Al Young, we were on the dole for quite a few years trying to get into advertising, feeling that this is an uphill struggle and we’ll never break in. And when we did break in, we got fired again after a year, let go, as they say. And then, and it was quite desperate.

 

So when we got our next job, we still felt that the door was going to come off the hinges and people just thought, right, you’re on your bike. You know, you’re not, you’re not wanted here. So we knew we had to do something that the outside world would recognise and like and see and talk about. And we, cause we knew it wasn’t enough for just the industry to know us. We wanted to try and create talkability out there.

 

So when we got the client, when we had the opportunity to work on BritVic and the client walked in the door and said to not just me and Al, but to the creative department, I want to be famous. I want to do famous work. I want Coca-Cola to be scared of us and notice this little British company is doing something new. And that was music to our ears because that meant that me and Al could just say, right, gloves are off. Let’s do something that’s going to get talked about. And it was a reactionary idea as well. It was, it was kind of really, you don’t notice it, but it’s taken the mickey out of cause and effect, advertising where you, you have a pleasant drink or eat a product or something and lovely things happen to you. And we, we laughed about what have horrible things happen to you when you have this drink, but shrouded with comedic funny characters.

 

Louise (05:44.865)

How did you feel about the reaction to the ad?

 

Trevor Robinson (05:47.694)

The reaction to the ad was exactly what we wanted in terms of people was talking about it. And like you say, people still remember it now. It was a bit disturbing that people were running up and down and smacking each other and stuff like that. That was not the intention at all. It didn’t even cross my mind that people would do that because it was just one of the executions we did with the orange man slap.

 

And it was also meant to be in this little mystical, odd world. Um, so it didn’t, I didn’t see how that was going to affect people talking, um, people physically doing it. And it was actually, um, a couple of doctors who got perforated eardrums by smacking other student doctors in the ear. Um, that was the one that, um, got it banned. So I thought it was quite ironic. It was these young doctors, um, causing it to be banned in the first place.

 

Louise (06:40.105)

Yes, they’re sometimes the most experimental people, aren’t they, when it comes to testing the limits of the human body?

 

Trevor Robinson (06:46.097)

Yes, I know a few doctors and stuff. I can definitely agree with that.

 

Louise (06:50.785)

Possibly not congruent with mental wellness. So we wouldn’t recommend it. Now you run Quiet Storm together with your wife, Rania. She’s also been on the podcast. So this makes you a well-known adland power couple. I asked her the same questions that I’m going to ask you now. So this is like playing Mr. and Mrs. basically. What’s it like, no pressure. What’s it like for you working and living together? How do you support your mental wellness and hers?

 

Trevor Robinson (06:54.655)

No.

 

Louise (07:18.837)

So that you can protect any boundaries you want in place, as well as your relationship.

 

Trevor Robinson (07:24.03)

I think we’re lucky because I really do need somebody that gets what I do and I can trust that I work with. They’ve got my back as it were. But you know…

 

What comes with it is obviously a lot of pressure because when you win something is great. When you’re doing good work and people are patting you on the back is great because you’re sharing it together. But when things are going bad, it’s like you look at each other for the problems and you look at yourself and there’s no escaping it.

 

If you work with someone, you go home, that person’s there. And that person, even when they’re not doing anything, is a reminder of what failure is and what hardship is. When you go through recessions and lockdowns. And I found, especially when, because of COVID, really allowed me to kind of really gauge how we worked together, because we were definitely locked in. And at one stage, we were using the same computer, which was madness.

 

And before I used to sort of like say, right, as soon as we get past our garden fence door, we don’t talk about work and Rania, will passionately talk about work and follow me around the house from the bathroom to the kitchen. And I was like, and I need to escape. Hence I go for walks and I, you know, and I do like to go out at night with my mates just to get out of what we do for a living at times. But I think we’ve got it really locked down, that we kind of know when we’re both needing a bit of space, when we both need a bit of a shoulder to lean on. So I think we’ve been working together for almost 16 years. So it’s something that we kind of learn how to really coexist and help each other.

 

Louise (09:13.761)

Do you have a rule when you go out? Let’s not talk about work.

 

Trevor Robinson (09:17.402)

Yeah, I definitely have a role. I think we automatically do it a bit more, but sometimes Rania would say, or I’d say, right, tonight I want us to discuss this before we meet up with everybody else.

 

And that really clears the air, you know, especially when there’s things that, um, I’m not, I can feel some tension, but I don’t know what it is. And then as soon as you can get these things out in the open, you just have to be, I think, just wary and clever of each other in terms of what’s worrying you and, and hearing things out. And sometimes I have to, um, have input on those things in a working sense. And it could, you’re trying to divide away from personal and from actually, you know, the strengths and weaknesses of people that you’re working around. And sometimes it can get blurred because if you don’t like a person, it does not necessarily mean they’re not great at their job.

 

Louise (10:10.561)

It’s a double whammy of communication needs, isn’t it? Because you’ve got to communicate clearly with the work relationship, and you have to communicate clearly within your personal relationship for both of those to function.

 

Trevor Robinson (10:12.864)

Yeah, I totally agree. It’s sometimes because it can seep into that you just cause sometimes I find myself like, well, we’re getting heated. Like it’s an argument about, you know, home life or financials or something, all of those things I dislike arguing about anyway. I’d rather have a discussion, but obviously sometimes it becomes a heated discussion and sometimes it gets personal and you kind of think, especially when it’s work, I really don’t think there’s any room for it to get personal.

 

Louise (10:51.893)

Hmm

 

Louise (10:56.881)

What you and Rania are also having in common is that you’re both known for driving forward diversity in our industry, especially with Create Not Hate, which you co-founded, and that aims to bring young, underrepresented people into adland. Now from your own experience as a young Black man trying to make it in the industry, what were the challenges that you faced? Do you think those challenges are still around today or can you see anything else facing rising Black talent?

 

Trevor Robinson (11:21.863)

I do see a big difference, a marked difference, like everybody from Jeremy Green who runs Creative Circle and him, a real campaigner to get diversity into the industry and fuel into the industry. I see a lot more female and Black people in the industry, which is, I think is a big change from, which I didn’t realise it was so toxic at the time, lots of men around, being all geezerish and wrestling in reception areas at the creative department. I used to find that, okay, you just thought, well, this is what it is, but now I can feel the difference and it just feels a lot less crazy and a lot more of a natural order of the things.

 

It always seems a bit weird when it was just like all white, all middle-class, or some working class, but they definitely weren’t like the working class that I had met. It felt a lot more privileged and a lot less like the outside world who we was meant to be trying to communicate to, which I must admit, I always thought I had, you know, an ace card up my sleeve because I was thinking, I’m selling to the people that I grew up with and I kind of feel like I’m closer to knowing how to communicate, how to entertain and how to let these people buy into the personality of these brands. And I do think that line has definitely started to diminish a bit, but it’s still there and it’s still, I’m still really aware of, through Create not Hate, there’s a lot of people out there, talented people out there that won’t know, won’t even think about getting into the advertising industries.

 

Definitely not as glamorous as it used to be when I was growing up. I used to always feel that. I used to see ads when I was a kid and go, oh, I wish I could do something like that, that people at like, at my school was excitedly talked about. Sometimes the ideas were stronger than the TV programmes you were watching. And I just want to plant that seed into those guys out there. And also love the industry, not just for lip service, but for them to really understand there’s a lot of talent out there that can help your business and help your clients do more extraordinary and breathtaking work that will get people talking about your brand. So I feel that’s the dual coin of what I’d like to be involved with.

 

Louise (13:59.813)

What do you think is the major challenge here? There’s one thing that we identified in our research, diversity and focus, which we did a few years ago. And the lack of role models within the industry was highlighted as something that people find really difficult. So they may be from a Black or an Asian background, for example, they’ll be the only person in an all-white company. And because they can’t see someone like themselves who’s progressed up the ladder. They don’t feel welcome necessarily, or they don’t feel like it’s a place they can progress and really grow their career.

 

Trevor Robinson (14:32.418)

It’s interesting because obviously I come from years ago before most people listening to this. I come from an era where you’re just happy to go in and do a job and you’re happy to get a job that you could have a certain lifestyle and your work can be seen on a poster or on TV. So for me it was just like I was just happy to be sat at the table.

 

I think now there’s a lot more, I was, you know, I’m a lot more aware that people want to feel, feel that this is a lovely place to work at and this is as well as it being a great opportunity. Do you know what I mean? So I can see the younger generation like going, you know, I don’t like, these guys don’t seem to like me and I don’t like them and I’m not gonna go to their office parties or hang out for a bit. And I kind of, I’ve always been of a mind as long as I can do a job that makes me happy and I get some kind of financial and mental reward from it. That’s really it for me.

 

Louise (15:16.644)

Mmm.

 

Trevor Robinson (15:42.784)

But I can see as in, you know, even with my company, I could see like we deliberately have once a week, we have an opportunity to have a little drink with each other in the office before everybody goes home. So people can just become a little bit more human. And because I can see the necessity in that, but I never, I can’t pretend I know how to cope with a company if they don’t have many people who are like-minded, many people of colour in the company so that they can look for a role model. And I don’t know how to deal with that because I’ve not worked for anybody else for over 30 years. So I can only see I’m in a bit of a bubble when it comes to what’s it like for people in other agencies.

 

Louise (16:30.838)

What do you think would be one piece of advice you’d give to other agencies maybe who are having a problem attracting talent from diverse backgrounds?

 

Trevor Robinson (16:38.826)

Well, I would say get some people at a higher level working within your company that aren’t from Oxford and Cambridge and, and are, you know, go out your way, get out your comfort zone, go out and go to those schools and colleges and universities and seek them out. Because it’s important. If you’re going to, if you’re going to change it, you’ve got to change it at the top.

 

You can’t expect young people to just come in like, because you could see people get… are intimidated by the young and are intimidated by, you know, I was thinking of when I was doing Create Not Hate and I got some really lovely, talented, creative directors in from the industry. Vicki McGuire, Dave Dyer, they all came in and quite a few old mates came in. But I could physically see them, not those two particularly, but I could see, I know because one of them actually told me he was quite intimidated to be in a room full of young Black kids and… and just didn’t feel that first he had the equipment to be able to communicate to them. So his response, or most of the response was like, God, I can’t wait till this is over.

 

But by the end of the day, I think it was on both sides. The kids were like able to, to go, hey, this guy is actually quite nice and he’s quite intelligent or she’s quite, she’s got, she’s got some sense, she cares. And vice versa, the guys were like looking at these kids and going, wow, that was some really great ideas in just one day or even half of a day after we ended rambling at them.

 

So it was kind of like, you know, I can only say people need to hire and see the importance of getting people of colour at senior level. But also everybody within the company needs to take a front foot in getting outside their comfort zone and talking to people, talking and wanting to wanting to communicate with people and sit down with them and kind of gauge who they are, because that makes a stronger team all around. But people don’t feel it’s a part of their remit, I just do my bit and I go home.

 

And so it’s kind of like, it’s important if you want to get the best out of people, you’ve got to make them feel comfortable. You’ve got to try your best to make them feel like wanted. And I’m just not sure. You know, again, I have to put a big sort of like line and sort of like say, I don’t know what it’s like to work for somebody else because I haven’t done it for a long time. But I would that would be my advice to answer to your question.

 

Louise (19:11.945)

How does the adland community lift you up?

 

Trevor Robinson (19:15.498)

Um, the adland community, I think, you know, I’m not, again, I’m not a massive one for hanging out with ad people. Do you know what I mean? I’ll see you at awards and we’re lucky enough to go to Cannes once a year. And when I’m not working, it’s lovely to just catch up with people. And you do. I think that’s really nice when you, you know, you can just generally just ask people, if they’re honest, it’s actually quite refreshing other than people come to you. We’re doing really well in life. You know, if you can get past that, that adland.

 

Louise (19:45.973)

Hehehehe

 

Trevor Robinson (19:51.438)

Crapology, you can, there’s a lot you can get from each other. You can, you get other war stories, you get, you know, even, um, ideas of how to deal with clients, how to deal with getting more business. So that is really good. But in terms of lifting up, I’d say I would go back to people like Jeremy Green, where he’s so, they’re just seem so genuinely, just trying to help and just trying to do good stuff and just and see the merit and they have a general visual excitement when you know they’re with these youngsters and so I guess that is really that is quite rewarding and uplifting.

 

Louise (20:31.237)

Loving the idea of adland’s crapology. Now, trying to get that phrase around my head.

 

Trevor Robinson (20:36.202)

I think that’s my usual waking up of words. Because I don’t know, I can’t think of the words at the right time. It sounds interesting.

 

Louise (20:46.296)

Listen, it painted a picture of what it is. So I think we can all adopt that phrase. Amazingly, we’ve got to the end of the chat. It’s just one more question, which is, what’s a lesson you’ve learned about how to support yourself?

 

Trevor Robinson (20:48.947)

Yeah.

 

Trevor Robinson (21:00.142)

I think the lesson to learn, really again, goes back to me and Al on the dole and doors being slammed in the face and feeling like you just get in nowhere. And I remember we were really down, both me and Al at times, and you get your dole check and it’d be gone in like two minutes. And then you’re scrabbling and so on and so forth. But actually it was some of the best times of my life when it was me and Al. And we had some of the most, you know, can’t stop laughing kind of, and it bonded us. And I realised when I got a job in advertising that one of the best times I ever had was out of advertising trying to get in.

 

And it was because it was quite, you know, unified, it was, you know, it was odd, but it was like every victory, it was for both of us. And I think probably why I enjoy working with my wife is because it just, when things are going right and you’re both going through things, it’s incredibly empowering and uplifting and rewarded. And you know, you both can beam at each other and you both know what each other is happy about. And, you know, you grow and you fail together, but yeah, I’d say, I’d just say kind of don’t be afraid of things going wrong.

 

Louise (22:12.449)

That is a very pragmatic yet positive note on which to end. Trevor Robinson, you’ve been an absolute delight. Thank you so much.