Your topic on LAIF seminar was “Unleashing the monster within.” Could you throw more light on this monster and how it is unleashed in X3M Ideas that sets it apart from the cluster of ad agencies?
I think there was an alcoholic beverage advert that has this advert that says ‘there is a drop of greatness in every man. So, that is the monster. There is a drop of some positive monster in all of us that if we can be intuitive enough, pray to God enough, work hard enough, we can unleash it. This is what we have tried to do in the past three years; look at all the positive sides in terms of nurturing brands, supporting our clients and all the positive things we have been trying to do. It’s all about that; bringing out the monster in us to make a difference within the advertising landscape.
During the last LAIF award dinner, you didn’t need anybody to show you where the X3M Ideas’ staff were seated. There was something that set them apart from the clutter of advertising men that were in attendance. What is it about them that stand them out?
I think it’s just the age and the excitement of the team. The average age here is twenty-three, twenty-four. I am the oldest person here. I always tell people; advertising is for young people not for old people. So, that age, that energy, that vibrancy you feel in our team; we work very hard. And we also party very hard. And so when we have the opportunity to celebrate hard work that the team has put in we don’t put any stop. We just go all the way and celebrate it. That day was the only day one client was not running after us and we were not running after one deadline. We just came there to have fun. And every year we turn up we just have fun.
How would you describe your work environment?
It’s free. You can see me now (wearing T-Shirt and jeans on a Tuesday morning). This is how we come to work. It is a very free environment; it is a highly charged creative environment. We have young men and women; so the excitement and pace is very kinetic, very hyper. My job as the CEO, the chief creative officer is just to manage all of those things and contain where I need to contain; unleash as much as we can. We just want to be as free as we can. People can’t create magic under duress; it has to be in that free environment where people get inspired.
Did you set out to be a creative person?
I think I have always had a bit of creativity in me. I started writing poetry when I was about fifteen or sixteen. When I went to secondary school I was writing poetry. When I went to Ahmadu Bello University I was a member of Creative Club. We write our poems, stick it out the corridor; people will come and write their nonsense comments on them. But we had fun. Sometimes I actually loved the comments more than the poem I had written because all kinds of stuff were written on them. So, all of that was the background I had. Growing up I always wanted to be a broadcaster. I wanted to work on TV until I discovered that TV didn’t pay as much as I wanted. Coming from a very humble background I needed to take care of my siblings. Till I discovered there is a space for me in the creative department and I became a copy writer.
Where do you draw inspiration to create from? How does it come to you?
Somebody once asked me ‘have you ever been given a brief and you find out that you have no idea what to do with it’? I said well I would have loved the luxury of not having any idea but I have my wife and three children to feed, so I am always inspired to come up with ideas to feed my family. But jokes apart, I think just scanning the environment and that God given intuitive spirit where you have to look inward. You know the clients challenge. Now what the client is just asking you, look for a clever way, creative way to solve....
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