Everyone thinks of Sir Alex Ferguson as one of the greatest football managers of all time.

But it didn’t always look like that.

About 15 years ago Alex Ferguson was in trouble.

Manchester United had stopped winning games.

Whatever Ferguson did, it didn’t seem to work.

People began questioning if he was the right man for the job.

Ferguson was desperate.

So he was forced to take a gamble.

He brought in 5 young players from the youth team.

The unknown and untried: Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, and Nicky Butt.

Ferguson thought they were too young.

But that year, with those young players as their core, Manchester United won the double.

Champions of The Premiership and winners of The F.A. Cup.

5 young players that between them would cost about £150 million at today’s prices.

Alex Ferguson got them all free.

Courtesy of Manchester United’s youth team.

Why don’t big agency creative departments have youth teams?

Keep the Executive Creative Director in charge overall.

But also have a youth team creative director in charge of youngsters.

For the cost of two fat-cat heavyweight teams you could get up to ten teams of youngsters.

They’d all work at least twice as hard as the heavyweights.

The work would be fresher and more original.

And at least half of those teams would be worth keeping.

So you promote them to the main creative department and get in more youngsters.

It has to be a constant process of movement: up or out.

So there would be a constant turnover: and constant competition.

They could work on anything the main creative department didn’t want to.

And the pressure from below would stop the fat cats above resting on their laurels.

The youngsters would be desperate to make their mark.

The espirit de corps would be tremendous.

Just look at today’s Manchester United.

Full of bloated, overpaid, superstars who worry more about their ‘brand’, and their WAGS, and their cars, and Hello magazine, than football.

Now look at the Manchester United of those youth players.

Full of fire, and spirit, and a love to play football.

Not just for the money, but for the fun of it.

If you were a creative director, wouldn’t you like to be able to restock your department from a youth team like that?

I was on the Campaign Press awards jury with about 8 other people.

All the ads were laid out on tables.

We were told that we had to give every ad marks out of 10.

Then the 3 with the most marks would be the winners.

So I picked the 3 I liked the best and gave them each 10.

Then I gave everything else zero.

At the adding-up David Abbott asked me why I’d done that.

I said because only 3 ads could win I wanted to weight it in favour of my preferences.

David was furious and said it was against the spirit of the judging.

I didn’t agree.

But that’s what happens on awards juries.

Opinions.

Later on we had all the shortlisted press campaigns laid out on the floor.

The ones from which we’d eventually pick the winners.

I was looking at the BMW campaign.

Opposite me, Tony Brignul was also looking at it.

I said to him, “I’m not sure about this campaign Tony.”

He said, “I know what you mean.”

I said, “Of the six ads here, three are great and three are boring.”

He said, “Exactly, three you would vote for and three you wouldn’t.”

I said, “It’s a shame, three of them I wish I’d done, and three are just deadly dull.”

He said, “Absolutely. three are well thought out and intelligently expressed while three are just trivial and facile.”

After about ten minutes we both realised we’d been talking about exactly the opposite three ads.

The three I liked, Tony found glib and flashy.

The three Tony liked, I found dull and boring.

And that’s what happens on awards juries.

Opinions.

Not facts.

We’d just opened an ad agency and we were pitching for our first piece of business.

It was a beer account.

I’d been working on it for about a week and I had a good campaign.

I’d written about 6 commercials to show it had legs.

I showed it to Mike Greenlees, the account-handling partner.

I ran through the ads, and he liked them.

He said, “It’s a good example of beer advertising. I’ll have no problem selling that because it’s pretty much what the client’s expecting.

The only problem is, it doesn’t scare me.”

I said, “Pardon?”

He said, “As an account man, you know when you’ve got something really great because your first thought is: I love it but how the hell am I going to sell it?”

He said, “Can’t you write something that scares me?”

I nearly kissed him.

How many account men have ever asked you that?

Normally they say, “This is too scary, I’ll never sell this. Can’t you write something safer?”

Normally they see it as their job to hold you back.

I’d never worked with (or even heard of) an account man who saw it as their job to make the creatives braver.

The account man and planner’s default setting is they’re frightened that creatives are all wild and irresponsible.

So their job is to spot the mistakes, and rein them in.

But most creatives aren’t like that.

Most creatives are trying very hard to be professional, to do what’s wanted, and not look irresponsible by going too far.

Most creatives are frightened of getting it wrong.

So the frightened account men and frightened planners are trying to make the frightened creatives safe work even safer.

And then everyone’s surprised there’s so much dull work around.

Damien Hirst and Paul Arden both said the same thing.

The most important thing they learned from Charlie Saatchi was to think big.

However big you think you’re thinking, it’s too small.

If you’re being remotely safe, or sensible, or responsible, it’s too small.

If you’re at all comfortable, it’s too small.

If you’re not cringing with embarrassment, it’s too small.

If it won’t be greeted with shock and outrage, horror and disbelief.

If you don’t think you’ll get sued.

If the police won’t arrive on your doorstep, no questions asked in parliament.

It’s too small.

Because the truth is no one will even notice it.

Keep your money in your pocket.

The sad reality is you’re the only one who will even know you’ve done it.

You can see every pixel of your idea in startling clarity.

Because you’re looking at it under a microscope.

Everyone else is looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope.

Your entire idea is the size of a single pixel in their world.

You see no one cares about your ad.

They don’t even care about the entire world of advertising, or media in general.

So what possible chance have you got of getting on their radar?

None, unless you’re completely outrageous.

Charlie Saatchi is fortunate that way.

He doesn’t live in the world of small print, like the rest of us.

He isn’t going to solve anyone else’s problems.

He’s already ignored them.

Years ago he bought a sculpture from Damien Hirst for £100,000.

That was a lot of money for a work by a living artist.

Hirst said, “Are you going to tell the press how much you paid for it?”

Saatchi said, “No, I’m going to say I paid a million.”

Hirst said, “They’ll go mad.”

Charlie said, “Hopefully.”

(That same sculpture is now worth about £50 million. Charlie created that.)

So what can the rest of us learn from him?

Well, supposing you think what you’re about to do is risky.

Multiply the risk factor by 10.

Scare yourself stupid at the enormity of what you’re about to do.

And, if you’re lucky, they might just about notice.

If you’re an art director you can work in any country.

If you’re a copywriter, you can’t.

Because at art school you take a class called ‘visual communication’.

You learn to communicate without words.

This is basic semiotics.

The words ‘stop’ and ‘go’ don’t mean anything in Mandarin.

But a little red man standing still, and a little green man walking, mean the same thing in any country.

That’s why the same road signs work in every country in Europe.

Although we can’t understand a word of each others’ languages.

But it’s even more difficult than that for a copywriter.

Not only must they work in their own language.

They must work in their own culture.

I found that in New York.

When I switched from being an art director to a copywriter.

Because I didn’t grow up in America, I had had hardly any ethnic knowledge to draw on.

I didn’t know who Howdy Doody, or Jackie Gleason, or Dick Butkus where.

So I couldn’t write about them.

They didn’t know who Desperate Dan, or Spike Milligan, or Bobby Moore were.

So I couldn’t write about them either.

If you’re still not convinced how important a common language, and a common culture, is consider this.

In 1776 America fought the War of Independence.

After the war, anti-British feeling was naturally very strong.

The 13 colonies had to choose a language for their new country.

The vote was evenly split.

6 votes for English as the national language.

6 votes for German as the national language.

George Washington had the casting vote.

Imagine the history of the world if he’d voted the other way.