Johannesburg, December 1, 2014

Ryan McManus is a creative stripped of all fear. As Executive Director of Creativity at Native, South Africa, he is convinced that creativity is the key to unlock all doors. With that turnkey in his hands, he´s encouraged to challenge the realities and social issues of the world today. Ryan is a futuristic; his vision allows him to predict the future in a different, innovative and successful way. Besides, as an ambitious young man, his campaigns reflect an unlimited creativity.

Ryan McManus sits, beer in hand, with the relaxing manner of a person who knows exactly where he is going. As soon as he starts speaking, you get involved in his words, his optimism and his intense way of living.

Where do you look for inspiration before you start a project?

The ideas come from human beings. I think that, if you pay attention to life with the right lens in your eyes, you see people’s needs. Ideas must have a reason for living, and that reason are people at the end of the line, so I always start creating with them in mind. Human behavior is fascinating for me. I think that, particularly in Africa, there are a lot of real human issues that can be solved with the right kind of thinking, and studying human behavior. I like to create virtuous circles where everyone benefits.

For the “Rocking the daisies” campaign, you had a very small budget. Do you find this as a limitation to your creativity? What tools are useful in these cases?

I’m convinced that you can pull on things with a little small budget; you must have the motivation and the drive to make the idea happen. This is always challenging, but if you have a great idea is incredible what you can achieve. The brand is also an important fact: if the brand can cost it, is hard to ask for people’s free time. I think it depends on the brand, the quality of the idea and what you are trying to achieve. But I believe anything is possible.

In many of your campaigns, as the Absolut Vodka one, people’s involvement was quite important. Do you think that is possible to plan a successful campaign without taking this interaction into account? How do you think this relationship will be in the future?

Unidirectional campaigns are getting pointless. Nowadays it switched, I think this is not interesting anymore, even thought there are exceptions. When you plan a campaign you have the opportunity to make people a character of your story, or to make the brand the character of the story together with them. Is good to create frameworks for people to express themselves within. I found out that if you ask people to do anything they don’t respond, but if you ask them to be creative within a framework there’s a great response. We plan every campaign with interaction and we make sure that those things are going and try to optimize it along the way.

You have worked in many different places, such as Lisbon, Munich, Amsterdam, London and South Africa. Based on your experiences, which important differences do you see in relation to creativity between these cultures?

My interaction with such diverse cultures, gave me a deep inside into understanding human beings, because you watch their behavior, particularly in places where you don’t speak the language. On the other hand, I think everyone is trying to be globalized, so there are not so many local differences, what makes me sad. I’m convinced that this is a great opportunity to reinvent communication. Advertising has been based around the product, and that’s a little bit arrogant for me. Why do we have the same advice for Kenya and for San Francisco? We should base advertising in people’s needs.

In “The exchange” campaign you created a synergy between a Fashion Store and an Organ Donor Foundation, something quite difficult to do. Secondly, and I think this is the most remarkable accomplishment; you shifted the idea of fashion as meaningless consumerism. Do you think that an agency has the responsibility of improving the world’s conditions?? Where does the power of creativity lie?

Creativity is the key to unlock anything, is what drives everything forward. In terms of advertising, I think now more than ever brands realize that they need to add value to people’s life and that’s fantastic, because we can turn the power of brands into something great. Sometimes the functional product turns into a big image, so far away from it’s original purpose. That’s cool but we have to think if there’s a way we can make the product and its communication add more value to people. I’m very excited that brands can see that again. Each piece I do has a meaning of purpose for me: I don’t want that piece of work to be there just because I got a brief to do. There are no great recipes for success, is just thinking about what’s better for the brand, for society and for everyone included. That was one of the reasons I actually came back to South Africa, because there are so many things to do here that I wanted to be part of solving them.

I have seen that many of your achievements are a contribution to building a better world. “Join the pipe”, “Seeds of truth” and “Save the rhino” are just a few examples of this. In which way does your ambition help you go beyond what you imagined?

Creating something with value encourages a person. The ambition helps you keep trying, and searching and researching and never give up. Having a positive mood is really important, as being able to motivate other people to join the dream you want to accomplish and convince them that is the best thing to do. I don’t think that any problem is unsolvable, you know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and you just have to keep going.

Technology is constantly mutating. The digital era has changed our way of communicating. Being a creative some years ago was completely different from creating nowadays. I would like you to take the risk, and predict which important changes will take place in the near future.

I think democratization will switch into someone controlling the media. In the future, everyone will be able to plug themselves into completely different experiences from their device and this is going to be really interesting. I start to wonder if websites are going to exist anymore. People are not using websites so much, and they use platforms to access everything. The domains of a couple of platforms can change the way we digest content and this is a little scary to me because we go back to people controlling the media. But the biggest thing is what will happen when the rest of the world switches on and get connected. Half the world is not connected to Internet and they are going to have smart devices. This will bring some interesting localized things, little business and all source of crazy stuff that will be hard to control. Ones technology starts moving across the world and connecting other people, new users might look it from a different angle and I’m excited about it.

What advice would you give to a creative?

You have to be really curious by nature to find out new things. But one of the most important ingredients is the hunger to do stuff. If you don’t have something driving you, I don’t know how you will do it. If you want to change things, choosing a more difficult path, you really need hunger and motivation to get there.

Thank you, Ryan.

To read more about NATIVE

Portfolio cases:

Rocking the daisies: http://www.nativevml.com/work-detail/rocking-the-daisies

The Exchange: http://www.nativevml.com/work-detail/the-exchange

Absolut Vodka Campaign: http://www.nativevml.com/work-detail/absolut-za

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