In this series, we ask Imagination talent all about the experiences that have made them who they are. This month we spoke to Harry Wright, Strategy Director from our London studio.
A bit about me…
Having started out as a conceptual copywriter (never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d switch over to the Dark Side of strategy), I get my creative fix by writing outside of work and fueling that by reading in equally high volumes, if you’ll pardon the pun.
If you’re about to head off on your summer holidays and you’re looking to blot out the sun with some truly transgressive fiction, check out anything by Hubert Selby Jr., Irvine Welsh, Bret Easton Ellis, Chuck Palahniuk or Cormac McCarthy. You’ll return with some very different perspectives on life and not because of the ayahuasca.
The creative experience that influenced me the most…
I was fortunate enough to go to Zanzibar on a FAM (familiarisation) trip at one point and it changed the way I understood experience design. From the moment I got my invite to the moment we touched back down in the UK, everything had been curated to perfection. I have since written about and created a number of experiences for ultra-high net worth individuals, with many of my learnings coming from that trip. Highlights included:
- Live music performed by local musicians on a Dhow sunset cruise
- Getting up close and personal with Nemo and Dory in the Indian Ocean
- Decadent dives into local spices and cuisines
- All the octopus, lobster, shrimp and yellowfin tuna you could possibly eat…and even more after that
- A stunning restaurant situated on a rock, submerged in sapphire waters, aptly named…The Rock (definitely recommend checking this out!)
- Chilling with (baby) red colobus monkeys (only native to Zanzibar)
- Sailing a Dhow around the Zanzibarian archipelago whilst sipping on a cold bottle of Kilimanjaro
My industry hero is…
Joe Pine. I met him at the WXO where I asked him the dreaded question, “How do you measure the ROI of experiences.” I’ve mentioned his theories around the experience economy and the transformation economy an undignified number of times in my writing and pitch decks. Clever, personable and he always replies to my LinkedIn DMs. Top man all round.
Oh, and if you want to know what his answer was to my question, you’d better get in touch.
The piece of work I’m most proud of…
Sounds self-indulgent but I’ve got two, mainly because they were both weirdly serendipitous.
When I first made the move from PR into creative, I’d literally just joined an agency when the brief to launch The Walking Dead Season 7 came in. I’d always been obsessed with the concept of a zombie apocalypse and my first creative copywriting brief was to write the script for a fake, Orson Welles-esque social media broadcast for Sky, announcing that Walkers had been spotted in the UK. The zombies, not the crisps.
Another ambition was to launch a whisky brand and one of my first briefs at a different agency was to do just that but by leading with experience over product. So, we sent a load of influencers from the APAC market into the Scottish Highlands to discover true luxury at the world’s most remote speakeasy. It was pretty wild, to say the least.
I’d love to be able to tell you what my first brief at Imagination was but you’ll just have to wait and see…
The piece of work that makes me cringe…
I proactively approached a tourism board, who had recently had their BA flight from London discontinued, with a fully-fledged, data-backed campaign that could help to get it back up and running again or at the very least raise awareness of the destination in the UK to drive demand.
I presumed, arrogantly, that it was going to be well received. But the tourism board, I won’t say which one, was actually a bit miffed that I’d reached out to local data sources instead of going directly through them. All the work I’d done went out the window within the first five minutes of the meeting. It was bleak.
Big learning: if you spot an opportunity, save yourself the time and effort by stress-testing your hypothesis as a discovery piece first. It could be the best idea in the world but if you approach a prospect in the wrong way they won’t want to hear it.
The experience I wish I had created…
Punchdrunk
Advice to my 18-year-old self…
There will come a time when you believe you’ve come up with an incredible way to reopen a closed BA flight from London. When that idea comes to you, throw it in the bin and get on with the rest of your day.
What’s next?
We’re currently developing a new product that could fulfil an incredibly common business need which is exciting. But don’t worry, we’ll be sure to stress test it before we get carried away…
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October 10, 2024