The latest episode of The Irish Marketing Podcast has dropped and this week draws the curtain on a highly successful creative summer series to a close this week. In the hotseat is Karl Waters, chief creative officer at Folk VML who talks about a career that has taken him from the stoney grey soil of Monaghan to Galway and then on to London where he worked in music journalism before settling on advertising.
Waters talks about the advertising that first inspired him, the agencies and people that shaped his early career and some of the campaigns that have defined his work over the years.
He recalls growing up during what he regards as a “golden age” of advertising in the 1980s and 1990s, when bold, funny and often unconventional creative work regularly became part of popular culture.
Among the work that influenced him was the distinctive German expressionist-style “Judder Man” campaign for Metz Schnapps, as well as illusionist Derren Brown’s famous experiment exploring the subconscious influences behind advertising ideas.
Waters also looks back on his early years working with independent Dublin agencies including The Hive and Brando, where collaborative, multidisciplinary environments helped develop his approach to creativity and copywriting. He recalls the energy surrounding Dublin’s creative community at the time and how proximity to music, culture and entertainment helped fuel his ambitions.
He also discusses some of the proudest moments of his career to date, working with the likes of Vodafone and its rugby sponsorship platform “The Team of Us” as well as An Post’s Adress Point initiative which provides people experiencing homelessness with a free digital proxy address linked to a local post office.
The conversation also explores the less glamorous realities of life in the creative industries. Waters argues that sustained success depends as much on resilience as talent, particularly in a business where ideas can be rejected, campaigns shelved and competitive pitches lost. His advice to anyone considering a long-term creative career is to develop what footballers often call “bounce-back-ability”— the capacity to absorb setbacks, learn from them and quickly move on to the next opportunity.
The Irish Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the teams at IMJ/Adworld and Tinpot Productions. It is hosted by Daryl Moorhouse.
