Sir John Hegarty once told me that the saddest word in advertising was ‘risk’. Clients who told him a campaign was ‘too risky’ simply didn’t understand the value of creativity. His point was that even when an ad fails against its objectives, it is rare for it to damage the brand. People simply don’t notice. Risk, he thought, was a good name for a seventies rock band.

Sir Frank Lowe, when he was the managing director of the legendary agency, Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners (CDP), presented two ideas to Stella Artois with the words, “One of these campaigns is very risky and one is not. If you take my advice, you’ll buy the risky idea because, in the long-term, it is the less risky of the two.”

Whitbread went for the risky idea and stayed with the ‘reassuringly expensive’ strategy for nigh on 50 years. It was launched at a time of high unemployment. It allowed them to charge an average of 36 pence a litre more than their nearest competitor and ROI was measured at 192%.

Risk, then, simply means an aversion to the new and different.

In many categories, so much advertising is ‘samey’ because brands are obsessed with each other rather than with their customers. Indeed, back in the day, whenever Maxwell House coffee advertised in the UK, Nescafé sales went up.

One of my clients wanted his car commercial shot in the desert. I showed him five or six commercials made by rival car companies, all shot in the desert. I suggested going to Minnesota in winter and filming in the snow rather than in sand.

We went to the Emirates. His decision was understandable. When you’re about to spend $500,000 on a film, you want to buy something you feel comfortable with. Something familiar. So, with all the best intentions, you waste a great deal of money on a commercial that only just scrapes the consciousness of its target audience.

Great advertising needs a great client.

That’s what The Caples Awards has long recognised. It was the first international show to come up with a Courageous Client Award. Chosen by the president of the jury, it is a recognition of the trust a marketer has invested in her agency and a mark of respect for the creative role she has played. I use the feminine pronoun here because, more often than not, the award has gone to a female marketer.

In 2021, the award was given to Sarah Mayall, Head of Brand Marketing at HSBC. In 2022, to Nayla Tueni, Editor-in-Chief of An Nahar newspaper in Lebanon. In 2024, to Rifah Qadri, Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Easypaisa, Pakistan.

Sarah Mayall was the force of nature behind a campaign that helped homeless people in the UK. Without a fixed address, homeless people can’t open bank accounts. Without a bank account, they can’t claim benefits. Without an address and a bank account, it is almost impossible to get a job.

It’s a vicious circle. Her solution was to collaborate with the charity, Shelter. A person without a fixed address can now open a bank account with HSBC using Shelter’s address if accompanied by a caseworker from the organisation.

So, what’s courageous about this?

Well, it would have required a massive amount of both conviction and persistence to get this idea through her bosses, who would have been hostile to it from the start.

Fraud had more than doubled in 2020 just before the campaign launched. Organised crime like using ‘mules’ to launder money – people who don’t care about their credit rating or who are desperate. It becomes more difficult to monitor fraud when you can’t tie individuals to a legitimate home address. But Ms Mayall risked her job and her reputation.

The results? So far, more than 3,000 no fixed address bank accounts have been opened. There are now 204 charity partners helping roll out the service. And there has been a 10% uplift in brand affinity.

Good for Ms Mayall, I say. Because being good has been good for business.

Ms Mayall may possibly have endangered her career, but Nayla Tueni puts her life on the line with almost everything she does. She is the editor-in-chief of An Nahar newspaper in Lebanon. The previous editor was assassinated. He was her father. The country is in the grip of corrupt politicians. The government is rotten. But elections in 2021 provided a glimmer of hope to citizens that some semblance of decency might be returned to public life.

Then it was announced that because of the terrible explosion in the harbour area of Beirut on August 4, 2020, the country had run out of the ink and paper necessary for ballot papers. So the election would be postponed. What Ms Tueni did was publicly donate all the paper and ink her newspaper would have used for its election special to print ballots.

On February 2, 2022, paper racks were empty apart from a message explaining why there was no news that day. QR codes directed them to the website. On May 15, elections took place.

In 2023, Ms Tueni published the ‘Newspapers Inside the Newspaper’ edition of An Nahar. Six titles that had been closed down due to mafioso pressure were printed inside, their journalists able to write without constraint. The printed edition sold out and online visitors were in record numbers.

In 2024, on the anniversary of her father’s murder, Ms Tueni published an edition in the form of a foldable survival guide for journalists. It was also an invitation to a masterclass on safety techniques held at An Nahar. What a woman.

Not just an inspiring marketer but an inspiring human being. There was no reason why she should acknowledge an advertising award, but she had the humility as well as the style to make a moving acceptance video.

Third on our list of Caples honourees is Rifah Qadri, Courageous Client of 2024. Working with Impact BBDO, she was instrumental in creating the ‘Audio Nikahnama’, a service that, through smartphone technology, helps young women understand exactly what they are committing to before they sign their marriage contracts.

In putting Ms Qadri forward for the award, one juror wrote: “If Easypaisa, the number one payment app in Pakistan, was willing to not just poke the monster of gender inequality straight in the eye but democratise the distribution of tools for any woman with a phone to do the same, that’s bold.”

In effect, she was making a stand for all women in Pakistan against an often-insensitive patriarchy. Now that really does take some bravery.

The Courageous Client Award was, in the first instance, created to give deference to those marketing directors who merely risked their budgets. In recent years, The Caples Awards has found itself honouring marketers who have risked a great deal more with the campaigns they have commissioned, bought and run.

Can you think of any copywriter, art director or filmmaker in advertising who has exposed themselves to the same degree? I can’t.

Patrick Collister is Custodian of The Caples Awards, formerly of Ogilvy London and Google NACE.
patrick@creative-matters.com