The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

And yes, I am fine … in fact I’m fantastic … but that’s to explain and express another day.

[Which is why there are no comments allowed on this post either]

So Claire Beale has announced she’s leaving Campaign.

To people outside of advertising, this will mean nothing.

To people in the industry – especially people of a certain age – it’s like the Queen announcing her abdication.

I don’t know Claire, but I’m pretty sure most people will acknowledge she has waved the flag for the industry over her tenure.

I do.

And even though she made me very angry with the stupidly misguided decision to put Farage with his shit-eating grin on the cover of Campaign last year – an act that told people of colour, inside and outside the industry, that adland didn’t want them here [which, even though she said was absolutely not her intention, she unreservedly accepts and apologises for] – she did something for me around 1998 that I will always remember and be grateful for.

I was living in Sydney.

For the second time in 3 months, I’d received a phonecall telling me Dad had 24 hours to live.

I immediately got on a plane and flew to England in a blind panic.

Again.

Fortunately Dad was alive and was even stabilizing but what became obvious was I needed to consider moving back home.

But I wasn’t very senior.

I’d been gone for years.

I didn’t really know anyone.

So in desperation, I rang Campaign and they put me through to Claire.

Again, I need to point out she didn’t know me from Adam and I didn’t know her.

And yet, despite being busy with things that were far more important than talking to a British planner plying his trade in Sydney, Australia … she not only listened to my plight, she helped.

She told me what was going on in the market.

She told me who may have roles that would suit me.

She gave me some names of people I should call and mention her name.

I’ll never forget that.

I’ll always appreciate it.