On My Radar: Barnaby Girling

Barnaby Girling is an experienced creative director and co-founder of Alpha Century, a leading advertising agency and production company in London. With an extensive background in broadcast, he started his career at BBC and Granada before co-founding the agency where he has worked with brands such as Toshiba, Virgin Atlantic and Moo.com.

Below, Girling talks about his favourite things currently on his creative Radar, including his tech tastes, internet inspirations and thoughts on improving the advertising industry.

What’s the best ad campaign you’ve seen recently?

Martin Stirling’s Everything is NOT Awesome made for Greenpeace to help put pressure on LEGO to end their association with Shell ticked all the boxes for me. Poignant, darkly witty, effective, beautiful and, most important of all – culturally 100 per cent relevant.

Dan Maslen’s Merci spot for Guinness that revels in the French love of Sir Johnny Wilkinson. It uses often overlooked documentary techniques (when did you last pitch vox pops?) to highlight how a sporting effort and dignity can transcend deep-set rivalry. The rise of this sort of non-fiction in advertising is endemic of audiences tuning substance over style. JJ Abraham’s use of ‘practical’ not ‘special’ effects in the new Star Wars affirms that we’re all a bit over CGI.

Weedol’s I’m Killing Weeds is very funny, route one, original and impossible to not watch.

What website(s) do you use most regularly and why?

Google! Somehow that doesn’t seem like a website anymore. It’s easy to forget what a massive influence Google has over the information we receive.

My staple sites are Vice for editorial, The Daily Mash or The Onion for satire and Eyeball HQ for well curated surfing content built around  the  webcams on my local North Devon beaches.

What’s the most recent piece of tech that you’ve bought and why?

A Vespa. London on a moped means seeing more, being on time, feeling awake and sharp – and often cold – but way more connected to how people are behaving and street level culture.

I think personal tech is losing its sheen, far from freeing us up through automation - it’s led to alienation and far less physical interaction – which is dangerously corrosive for a social species.

Facebook, Instagram or Twitter?

Facebook has become my scrapbook, I use it as a daily archive for links, pics and musings – I unfollow people who show me food or go on there to then bitch about  privacy. It’s a social network, protesting  on it is like getting on a ferry to moan about seasickness.

What’s your favourite app on your phone and why?

I travel to London every week from Devon (apparently I’m a T.W.A.T because I’m here for Tuesdays, Wednesdays And Thursdays) so I’m a podcast Junkie. This American Life, Angelos and Barry show, Richard Herring, various Atheism feeds, Private Eye. Apps? I generally use them as players - which is essentially what they are - channels.

What’s your favourite TV show and why?

Peaky Blinders was a perfect mix of TV craft, storyline and soundtrack, like The Sopranos before it. I like  dynastic drama with an edge, a distinct setting and a range of contemporary music – an imaginative  and current score is a must for me. Oh, and  I can’t stomach stories about missing kids since having two of my own.

What film do you think everyone should have seen?

Everyone? Easy, ET. I saw it with my 60+ year old gran when I was eight, we both cried.

I recently showed my five year old and (thanks to ET’s demonstration with the fruit) he  now understands that he lives on one of many round planets and that not everyone who looks different to us wants to kill us… and his bike might fly.

Where were you when inspiration last struck?

Almost certainly in a pitch. It’s only when you sense full agenda of a decision maker that you can be sure that a good idea - however pretty, funny or appealing it may seem - is also the best possible solution for the people commissioning it.

What’s the most significant change you’ve witnessed in the industry since you started working in it?

Obviously the internet, but specifically how that has engendered real world exposure for creative departments. Too many ideas are just upscaled from Vimeo and YouTube, ads refer to other ads, visual techniques or camera techniques are deployed for the sake of themselves  and so pop begins to eat itself.

Email has all but killed the social side of advertising. Actual interaction between client and agency is more fun, more rewarding and more interesting than a series of conference calls.

If there was one thing you could change about the advertising industry, what would it be?

I’d abolish research, half the number of award ceremonies and ban YouTube from creative departments.

What or who has most influenced your career and why?

Murray Partridge (ex-CD of TBWA) taught me to willingly jettison my own ideas, surround myself with people better than me, respect clients' ideas and  how to string a lunch out long enough to rebook the same table for dinner.

Tell us one thing about yourself that most people won’t know…

I was the last person to interview Johnny Morris, Ernie Wise and Peter O’Toole on TV before they died. I don’t do interviews anymore.