The Seven Deadly Sins of Agency-land: Wrath

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the excuse: “Oh, they’re not an arsehole… they just care deeply about the work.” As if abusing people is somehow a mark of creative brilliance. Spoiler alert: it’s not. It’s a mark of being an arsehole.

They're not tortured visionaries, dying for their art. They’re insecure, overgrown children who never learned how to manage their emotions – or, frankly, themselves.

Take, for example, the infamous Creative Director I once worked with. One eye, one office, and apparently, one hell of a temper. Legend has it he once picked up his Mac monitor and hurled it across the room at his assistant. When you presented work to him, the first rule was: never sit in his blind spot. One unlucky colleague did just that and made the fatal error of speaking. The Creative spun to identify the offender, knocked over his coffee onto the work, and unleashed a fountain of spit-laced rage that could be heard across the floor. Thankfully, no hardware was harmed that day – but several psyches were.

In another life, while working with a well-known automotive client, the lead creative had a rather dysfunctional routine. He’d take the work to the senior client, get shouted at, loudly, and then come back to the agency to pass on the favour. Unable (or unwilling) to stand up to the client himself, he’d vent his bruised ego on the poor Suit who he believed was “responsible” for the bollocking. He wouldn't stop until he’d either reduced them to tears or simply run out of steam. Usually the latter.

This same creative once announced during a shoot planning meeting that he’d be driving to the location in Anglesey because, and I quote, “I might have to stop off and sort someone out.” Now, if that conjures up an image of a Guy Ritchie-style fixer delivering poetic justice in a battered Jag, let me stop you there. Given his actual stature and temperament, unless the ‘someone’ in question was a small child, there was very little chance of anyone getting “sorted out.” What we got instead was an unprofessional bellend, less Charles Bronson, more Albert Steptoe on a bad day.

And while some of these episodes now have the patina of farce with hindsight, they weren’t funny at the time. There’s nothing creative or passionate about this kind of behaviour. It’s bullying, plain and simple – born not from brilliance, but from insecurity. In this particular case, even after multiple staff went off sick, and the agency was presented with actual recorded evidence of his conduct, including misogynistic rants about female clients, nothing was done. Denial was easier (and cheaper) than accountability.

Sure, now and then an agency does get held to account. Like Wunderman Thompson in 2021, when a London Employment Tribunal ruled that male creatives had been “victimised” based on gender, citing the behaviour of creative directors as part of the evidence brought against the agency in the tribunal. 

However, it should be noted from the article in the Guardian newspaper and the Tribunal Judgement document that no case was successfully brought against the creative directors in question, only the agency. 

But those cases are rare, and success even rarer. More often, the behaviour is tolerated and excused as “passionate” or “eccentric.” Which is a bit like calling a kitchen fire “atmospheric.”

Thankfully, I’ve also worked with the kind of Creative Directors who prove you don’t need to be a raging egomaniac to care deeply about the work. Jack Neary and Mihai Coliban – both from my BBDO Worldwide days – along with my current partners Chris da Costa and John Walters, all fall into this camp. They’re brilliant, passionate, and dedicated – but they also manage to do it without shouting, threatening, or spitting on anyone.

They share two powerful traits:

They inspire people to shine.

They’re confident enough not to be threatened when someone else shines brighter.

As the late, great John Wooden put it:

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”



At Animo, that’s all we ever ask of our team: “Did you do the best that you’re capable of?” If the answer is yes – then nothing more will ever be asked of you..

Next week, we’ll turn our green-tinted glasses to the next sin on the list: Envy. Spoiler – it’s not just a problem for interns with award envy.