At The Gate London, Lucas Peon Never Settles on the Easy Idea

Lucas Peon’s tenure as chief creative officer at The Gate London has seen the agency pick up the highest number of industry awards in its history from the likes of Cannes Lions, D&AD, Clios, and the One Show. It’s all too easy to imagine that he wants to work with the biggest brands in the industry or tackle impossible briefs and, while not untrue, it doesn’t fully capture the way he’d like to apply his skills. ‘To be honest, I love communicating with people,” he says. “Some of the brands that excite me the most are the ones that are very much about everyday lives. It can be toothpaste or a huge innovation. “Brand names are exciting, but I get more excited about what the brand is doing, and what the brand is bringing to people’s lives,” he explains.

Lucas makes a clear distinction that bringing something to people’s lives doesn’t have to be “necessarily heavy and philosophical,” instead “it can be bringing smiles, it can be entertaining.” For him, laughter is a really powerful tool that can connect and make a mark. “If we think about laughter, being able to make someone laugh is really powerful. When a brand is able to give that to people, it’s really meaningful.”

“In the end making someone laugh is a lot more powerful than we think,” says Lucas. 

‘Thinking about the past five years at The Gate, Lucas recalls that he started with a very simple plan, agreed with his CEO, Jamie Elliot. “The simple plan was work that will put us on the map. That was it. And we were after work that people noticed and talked about. That was the filter, the lens, through which we looked at every idea. When that began to gain traction, we started going, ‘OK, we need the clients that want the same thing. If we're going to grow, we definitely need to make sure that the clients that we work with actually believe in the same vision’,” he reflects. It was vital to not only have this vision internally but to communicate it to anyone considering working with The Gate London. “Whenever we met clients, we told them what our vision was and that we were looking for clients that share the same one.”

Lucas was confident that this approach would have a holistically positive effect on the agency and its clients too since client success is the best proof of concept. “Our belief is that the only thing that works is the work that people notice, work that makes people feel something, and work that people remember. Most of the time, that’s not category generic work, it’s not the expected work. It's not the work that makes people feel very comfortable to approve and support internally.” He goes further, cautioning that ‘easy’ isn’t what creative teams – or clients – should be aiming for, saying “if you're in a client presentation, and you present work that everybody feels really easily happy with, it's probably the wrong idea.”

Lucas says that these are the kinds of conversations that the agency has openly with their clients because it’s more valuable when everyone is on the same wavelength, without hidden agendas. And it’s through this that The Gate London has established long-standing relationships and created some amazing work. “We found that this allowed us to do a lot of different campaigns like Childline’s ‘Nobody is Normal’ which was a game changer for us. We won the account for [SIM-only mobile network] SMARTY on that premise and they’re incredibly happy with the work we’re doing together.”  

SMARTY’s ‘Less Malarkey, More SMARTY’ campaign became a huge platform for the brand. One that’s really working. “From there, we won [breakdown recovery brand] AA with the platform ‘It’s OK, I’m with the AA’ which he hope will continue to grow for a long time,” says Lucas. He sees these platforms share some of the same DNA as Specsavers’ now iconic ‘Should’ve Gone To Specsavers’ though it’s something the agency talks always about “very humbly”. “Humbly because no one can ever predict for how long an idea is going to resonate with people. But this next iteration that we’re working on this year will demonstrate that it has the potential to be huge for the brand.”

Simplicity and easy comprehensibility are high on Lucas’s list of what a good campaign looks like. Referring to the AA again, he says: “Just by hearing that line you understand what the campaign is about. It’s almost not so much about the campaign but understanding what the brand is promising you, which was the actual brief from the client.” AA’s brief could be distilled to just one word. “It was ‘confidence’. The client wanted to make sure that we communicated confidence because that's what delivers to their audience.” Lucas is grateful for clients like AA. “Hats off to them, because they've been incredible. They have that clarity of vision. They gave us that focus. And they have been incredibly brave and supportive.”

“Our relationship with [online retailer] Very is similar. Very needed to create some standout work in their category to make sure people actually noticed them and, most importantly, understood them. It was about creating a campaign that was all about the brand so the spirit of the brand connected with their audience in a way that the audience would realise that 'Very is the brand for them',” Lucas says. The resulting work is the whimsical ‘Let’s Make It Sparkle’ that envisions the Very customer as a glamorous pink flamingo amid a sea of grey pigeons in a spot that delights in taking viewers on a flight of fancy. The idea connected with culture too, ‘hun culture’ to be exact – a specifically British phenomenon that ‘stans’ female pop-culture figures and celebrities. “For me, it was all new,” confesses Lucas, “but our planning team helped us get deep into it, to make work that resonated – now I couldn't be closer to ‘hun culture’.” 

The Gate London has gone from strengths to strengths in recent years, growing its employee numbers and gaining plenty of expertise in the process. “We’ve grown exponentially since I’ve joined,” says Lucas. “We’ve been able to handpick the talent we brought into the agency at every step, and we've assembled an incredible team here. Rob Bovington, our Executive Creative Director, and I have collaborated for over a decade across various agencies. Jack Gallon, also an Executive Creative Director, has been a key partner since before the merge with MBA Stack, as has Allison Ball, who leads our design department. We're also fortunate to have Ian Edwards and Giles Hepworth as our Associate Creative Directors, and Sonny Botero as our Executive Producer—all exceptional talents I’ve had the pleasure of working with before, and I’m thrilled to have them on our team again. Rob Syme, Stuart Minshaw, ACDs as well —the list goes on..”

The recent merger with MBAstack further bolsters the agency's already expansive capabilities. “The reason we merged is because they are specialists in one section of the journey that we weren't. We had already begun to work together for certain clients so now we have different types of talent with different skills, different passions, focusing on a different part of the journey that, when you put us all together, is a pretty powerful gang,” he says with a laugh. With a strong point of view, plenty of capability, and the humility to know when to bring in other experts, The Gate London is succeeding without a compromise on its singular vision. How would Lucas describe the team and its ambition? With a proverbial wink, he says: “We can be quite dangerous.”