Neil French

Known to friends and colleagues as The Godfather, Neil French, 60, has one of the longest CVs in the industry.

Advertising has become so bloody intense. We're supposed to be the conduit between the enthusiasm of the client and the apathy of the consumer. That's it, that's all. All the best ads seem effortless and charming in some way. No point in getting all muscle-bound about it.

I didn't much enjoy getting the bum's rush from Ogilvy, but that was because I'd made so many friends there. I always tell everyone I was sacked because it sounds more fun, but, in reality, they just didn't renew my contract. Then Sir Martin [Sorrell, CEO of WPP] popped up with this gig, which is a lot harder, but equally challenging and fun. I care a lot about what my friends think of me. I don't care about the rest at all.

The troops refer to me as The Godfather. They tend to like the fact that they'll always get an honest opinion about what they're doing, and although I'm frequently 'wrong' - when I love an ad that doesn't win awards, or hate one that does - I think that, overall, I can help them improve their stuff.

My weaknesses are that I'm a manic perfectionist. I suffer fools not at all. I work way too hard. I'm utterly unforgiving of betrayal. My strengths? As above, plus I'm a good listener. Up until I was about five, my childhood was idyllic. Sort of a middle-class Cider with Rosie. Then I was sent to school, got beaten up for a week by farmers' sons with hobnailed boots,
and things changed rather a lot.

My dad was a very serious chap who played rugby and cricket until he was about 60. My mum was tiny, fat, half-Jewish and totally potty. She looked like Mrs Tiggywinkle and spoke exactly like Lady Bracknell would have had she been raised by the Krays. What's best for children is unlimited, unquestioning love. And some simple but definite rules, the most important being table manners, and that, in adult company, they should speak only when spoken to. In return, they will be treated like small adults. My son, who's seven, is the best kid in the world. Aren't they all?

I was expelled from public school at 16 because the deputy headmaster kicked me. I decked him. Bye-bye Frenchy. I've always rather enjoyed a bit of violence, once I got the hang of it from the hobnailed kids. I was earlier chucked out of the Army Cadets for decking the Sergeant Major. It has always amused me that I was banned from the army for being violent.

It's not at all necessary to have a good education to make it in advertising. In some ways it can be a handicap. In Spain, I went on the road as an itinerant novillero [a sort of junior matador] and was utterly crap at it. I was OK with the capes, was big enough to kill well, but was basically terrified of the bulls. Bit of a snag in that line of work.

I made pornographic films because the dad of a girl I was living with owned video shops. I ran his shops as a kind of front man, but when I went through the books I found we were losing money on smuggled films. So I started making our own instead. Not hard to find some out-of-work directors and crew in Soho, after all.

The answer to making an ad is always in the product, if you look for it. Our task is not just to find that answer though - it's to make the answer relevant to someone who, at present, doesn't give a shit about it. So first I look at the product and deconstruct it... what Robin Wight used to call 'interrogating it until it confesses to its strengths'.

My last ad was selling a no-frills airline (strength: it's cheap) to a business-class traveller. A bugger of a task, actually, because that business-class seat is precious in more ways than mere transport. It's about status, self worth and peer approval. In the end, I settled for an argument that made it a smarter decision when seen in contrast to a first-class seat, which most business-class travellers aspire to but will never achieve. We allowed this guy to feel superior by being savvy enough to use AirAsia.

It's not necessary to believe in the product you are promoting. Not necessary at all. It's a job. Just get on with it. Reading has had the greatest influence on my work. I have rather lowbrow tastes, so apart from the usual Wodehouse/Hemingway/ Fitzgerald influences, I steal from journalists like AA Gill and Jeremy Clarkson. I used to try to be Alan Coren.

On TV, I watch cricket, rugby, Formula 1, and English and Spanish league soccer. And quizzes like Have I Got News for You and QI, that thing with Stephen Fry in it. Never the news. And now, since I live outside England, most run-of-the mill programmes just seem crass to me. Advertising is an art form, in that great care is taken with the aesthetic qualities of the product we make. But then car design is an art form, and so it should be. But a car is just a means of transport while an ad is just a piece of communication. Making something ugly to show how unpretentious you are is even more pretentious.

Money is very important to me. It buys freedom. I've been poor, and I've been, erm, comfortable. Being poor sucks because you have to spend all your time figuring out how to be less bloody poor. It's debilitating. Having a few quid in the bank means you can please yourself.

The money that is spent in advertising is self-regulating. The more value a person adds to an employer's product, the more that employer is willing to pay. Apply the same argument to soccer players: do they make an obscene amount of money? No. Not if somebody is willing to pay it. It's the simplest form of economics. I tend to go along with the argument in James Gleick's book Faster. His contention is that no apparent technological advance, including the discovery of how to make fire and the invention of the wheel, has ever made life easier for mankind.

Awards are not the purpose of the business, but they encourage us all to search for a better idea, and they're a true reflection of the amount of thought and work that an office or an individual puts into the job. The danger is when the quest for an award becomes the prime mover, rather than the drive to make work that stands out, and attracts and involves the audience.

My writing style is to write like I talk, which I hope makes a message seem as though it came from a living person, rather than a 'copywriter'. My art direction is based on terror. I have no idea how to do it, so I do it as simply as possible and hope nobody notices that I'm inept. I judge a person on integrity, hard work and gentlemanly behaviour.

I'm not qualified for anything but advertising. And I absolutely adore it, and most of the people I meet. Great ads need to talk to a single person. When you read them, you feel that this was aimed directly at you. In your heart you know that thousands like you are feeling the same, but that doesn't spoil it. In a way it enhances it.

You're a member of a select club. In a sense, every man is an island, even when he's part of a vast archipelago.

The ads I am most proud of are the UBS TV campaign, the Chivas Regal campaign, and XO Beer.

Of current ads, I love the Honda work, and I think adidas has whipped Nike sideways.

The greatest brand rebirth is probably Dove. Near genius in keeping the brand values while totally renewing the appeal.

The things that give me real happiness are: my son; my home in Spain; a miraculous corrida; cricket; good food in great surroundings; babes. I used to say wine, but I think I'm losing my appreciation. Or more likely, I'm sated.

If I could relive my life I would do the same, cock-ups and all, given the same conditions. I should be so lucky. As a Buddhist, I know that I'll be round again in another shell.

That could be, I suppose, a lobster. And very few lobsters ever make it to Cannes, except in a bouillabaisse.

If I could change the world I would... rub it out and start again. The whole thing is deeply flawed as it is.

I don't believe in God. In the end, what really matters is love.