Will Awdry on modesty, empathy and the 3 questions every creative needs to answer

Copywriter, Creative Director and Writing Coach

When one of the world’s greatest copywriters calls your work disappointing, what do you do?

Learn from it. That’s exactly what Will Awdry did.

He’s been writing award-winning copy for 40 years, though not without a few scaldings from his once-upon-a-time boss John Hegarty.

Will has put his pen to myriad global brands — Mercedes, adidas, Dove and Tyrells, to name a few. You know that Levi’s tagline “I like them best just before they fall apart”? Or that computer ad for Dell featuring Alex McQueen? Or this powerful FA film telling fans to kick homophobia out of football?

All Will Awdry, as Writer or Creative Director.

I saw him speak at a D&AD event last year, and I’ve been dying to pick his brains ever since. Here he is sharing his journey to cracking ad land and what he wishes he’d known sooner.

1. Some readers might not know this, but before advertising, you dabbled in toilet cleaning and factory work. What’s your advice for anyone who's struggling to find their calling?

It’s true, I spent six long months in a factory that made the machines that produced cigarettes. I probably learned more about what it is to be human in those months than in almost any other job. It wasn't the most enjoyable or glamorous, but I found it curiously rewarding.

If you’re not enjoying your job, ask yourself if it’s worth it. Is there a promised land, some upper sunlit place, at the end of it? Or is what you're doing actually just a layover?

If you're not happy with this stop in your journey, don't despair. There's always something else to do. Most people feel trapped by what they're doing, but instead of feeling trapped, try to think of it as another step on a rope ladder. It might be a bit wonky and laborious, but there's always somewhere better to go.

2. Tell me about your early days in ad land. Did you start as a junior copywriter?

My first ‘proper’ job was as an account trainee at Publicis. Quite quickly, I observed something that still persists today.

From the outside, in most commercial communication businesses — design, advertising, PR, you name it — everyone thinks they're aligned and playing on a level field. But within, there's a real divide between those people who create the work and those that manage it.

In my experience, the creatives looked down their noses at account managers, while the account managers looked rather longingly back at the creative department, thinking “Wouldn't it be great to be one of them?”. I began to see why. If things went well, the copywriters, art directors and strategists would take the credit. But if anything went wrong, the accounts team (me) would take the blame.

So I went to the creative director, Gerry Moira, (it helped that we played in a band together — he sang, I banged the drums) and told him I wanted to switch lanes. He came back a week later and told me he had good news and bad news.

“You’re fired. But the good news is you can work out your notice in the creative department”.

He partnered me with a writer who quickly bashed some sense into me — mostly telling me what not to do. I was then put with an art director, a student who was job hunting, called David Meldrum. My notice came to an end just before Christmas, and on 13th January, we landed jobs at Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) as a creative team.

To claim that I suddenly became “a writer” would have been a gross, misinformed piece of titling. I was somebody whose job it was to solve a problem and bring it to life for people. Ever since then, I've got away with it and no one's found me out.

3.Supposedly you got a bit of a dressing down from John Hegarty, Founder of BBH, for your work on an Audi campaign. What happened there?

I can’t remember the specific piece of work because it was very forgettable (partly why I was laid into). Although I'm not a petrol head, I’ve spent a lot of time looking after various automotive brands. I was all set to announce this new Audi model with the very imaginative name of A3 or A4, something like that.

When John saw it, he wasn’t angry. "It’s just really, really disappointing. This is something that should live and be celebrated in the minds of the audience that you're addressing." And he was absolutely right. It was chastening, humiliating.

I think an awful lot of people who write for a living have quite big egos. I don't think I do, so I'm quite easily shredded. But everything's a lesson. John is the most inspirational, positive boss I’ve had the privilege of working for. He's just a remarkable individual. To this day, we’re still very much in touch.

4. It’s interesting that you’re not a big car lover yet you’ve worked for so many motor brands. How do you feel about writing about something brand-new versus a topic you’re familiar with?

Unless you have subjective personal involvement, you won't write anything that's worth writing about. As copywriters, we're not journalists, so we're not neutral commentators. You have to get familiar with a subject. Unless you're passionately involved one way or the other, your audience won't be either.

So regardless of your knowledge, you have to make yourself either a fan or, if you're pushing against things — there are plenty of campaigns where that happens — antipathetic to the topic at hand. Whatever you do, you cannot remain neutral.

5. You describe yourself as humble, which I know to be true from our chat. In today's competitive job market, do you think that modesty is still something to be respected, or should people shout about their skills?

This is a slightly dubious statistic, but supposedly 97% of people who work in our industry are introverts. A tiny proportion of creatives are extroverts and boy, do they stand out.

I think people's bullsh*t detectors are more finely tuned now than they have ever been, and you can spot hubris and fake confidence very quickly. That ability to determine whether someone is speaking truthfully or not is one of the greatest strengths of commercial communication.

Almost everybody has a reasonable degree of ego. But I detest people who think that because they have a creative title, they have the right to dictate something on the basis of their opinion, as opposed to the basis of their ability. The two are very closely linked, but opinion and ability are two totally different qualities. In the end, true talent will win.

That said, it's difficult in 2025, because I'm not sure talent is always immediately visible. It does need a bit of salesmanship. So yes, one can go too far down the unassuming route and be too humble. You have to have a sense of self worth.

Elon Musk’s downfall over the last few months is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. He's a talented, unbelievably smart individual, but we’ve grown sick of his opinion. His dogmatic rants have damaged the perception of his capability.

6. How the mighty have fallen. Moving on, you’ve won over 50% of the pitches that you've delivered. What’s your secret?

The art of winning new business is based on the answers to three very simple questions:

1. What's your problem?

2. What can I do to help you?

3. Where will the work live?

A problem is a great thing to have, because it gives you something to address. The way you do this might be through storytelling, it might be logistical, it might be the product itself. Whatever it is, you need an almost medical-like skill to be able to diagnose exactly what the problem is. And very often, the brief presented to you isn’t actually the problem. It masks what the real issue is. So it’s key to start with a strong brief.

Next, you have to look at your own cohort. Assess the team around you and their skills, and ask yourself “Do we really have the capability to answer that specific problem?”. If you don’t, you probably shouldn't be pitching.

Lastly, you need to know that your work is truly likely to end up in a place, a forum or a media channel where it can be seen. There are plenty of agencies who spend their lives pitching, but with no prior thought to where their work is ever actually going to run.

Don’t forget to make it clear to the brand or person you’re pitching to that you're telling their story on their terms, not on your terms. Have you got the empathy to have sat on their hospital bed long enough to extract exactly what it is they're trying to do? Can you deal with their issues as if they were your own problems? If so, you're much more likely to win.

7. Of all the campaigns you’ve worked on, are there any that stand out in your mind?

I didn't start Dove's Real Beauty campaign, but I took it over shortly after it launched. It went worldwide but there were certain geographies where it just didn't work.

Korea was an interesting one. When we showed photos of women's bodies from the Real Beauty campaign, instead of celebrating the different body shapes, people would just suck their teeth and say, “Hasn't she let herself go?" It's because there's only about a 7% variance in body form in Korea, whereas in the UK it's 27%.

Similarly, one in four women in Korea has had some form of cosmetic surgery. That's just part of the culture. They have a very limited view of what a woman’s body should look like. So for that region, we had to rethink our approach. I found that fascinating.

8. In your mind, what’s the difference between a good copywriter and a great one?

Simplicity. Obama always talks about speaking at the speed of thought, and I think copywriting should travel at the speed of thought too. Start with a short, pithy hook and then articulate that with no more than perhaps three — but ideally one — supporting point. Then leave.

Copywriting is very different to writing poems or novels or screenplays. What you're really doing is talking with a pen. The job is to put thoughts and ideas out there into the world that stay with people. If you're managing to do that in a way that sounds natural and conversational, you're more likely to exist rent-free in the brains of your audience.

9. Are there any creative prompts that you fall back on if you're struggling to find the right words?

Get outside of your own head and see what the real world thinks of the subject. Find someone discussing it in an entirely different context, be it a chocolate biscuit or something as complicated as an insurance policy.

Read a lot and write down a lot. If I ever tried to pretend I was paperless, I'd be lying through my teeth. I'm surrounded by little scribbly notes.

Failing that, stop what you’re doing and get away from it for a while. I’ve pulled far too many all-nighters. And did they ever produce anything decent? No. The work that presents a more interesting solution is the stuff where you’ve wandered out for a walk, stared into space, had a long sleep.

At the end of the day, there is no magic wand. You still have to grapple with the attacking octopus: a writing challenge that’ll encircle you and practically throttle you until you wrestle it with your mind. You just have to keep going.

10. What do you wish you knew when you were 20?

This is a generational change, and it's going to make me sound incredibly old. I grew up at a time when everyone talked about jobs for life. So I got into advertising in my early twenties thinking, ”That's it, done”. These days, the idea of a multi-career arc is much more prevalent.

Life is full of exciting opportunities and possibilities, and I've been lucky enough to take advantage of some of those, but I wish I'd known that there are lots of different avenues to explore.

If I was a piano player, I'd be playing 12 notes. It's an interesting chord at any one point, and some notes are louder than others, but it shifts all the time.

It’s a very, very good thing that Will swapped toilet brushes for fountain pens all those years ago. These days, you can find him running D&AD’s masterclasses in creative copywriting. Or follow him on LinkedIn and, if you’re lucky, he might do another free event like this one!