The Work That Made Me: Simon Lee
Simon Lee is a prominent British/Australian adman and co-owner and creative architect of The Hallway - one of Australia’s leading independent creative agencies, and one of only a few to have achieved B Corp certification. He describes his purpose as being “a creative catalyst for a flourishing world” - a purpose that is also the driving force behind his agency and team.
As chief creative officer and joint owner, Simon leads a passionate cross-disciplinary team in the development of affective ideas: ideas that affect positive impact - for businesses, society and the world at large. In his 20 year advertising career, Simon has worked with some of Australia and the world’s most famous brands, winning recognition at major award shows across the globe.
He is the originator of 'Boys Do Cry', a globally acclaimed men’s mental health campaign that has saved the Australian government an estimated $62 Billion by succeeding in getting men to seek help when they’re struggling. 'Boys Do Cry' thrust Simon into the media limelight, affording him a platform to continue to help advocate for new, healthier and happier masculinities.
He’s been interviewed on a raft of radio and TV shows, podcasts and in online and offline news media. He’s featured on innumerable panels and presented at a number of industry conferences and events.
Simon has also enjoyed success as a writer and film director. His 2012 feature documentary, 'Dream Racer' - a film about the fear of life passing by unfulfilled and the pursuit of dreams as an antidote to that fear - achieved both critical and commercial success with awards at film festivals around the world and global sales. It has garnered a cult following in over 80 countries worldwide with viewers dubbing it “the inspirational movie of the decade” and “the best motorcycle movie ever made”.
LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Simon> Terry Gilliam & Julian Doyle’s music video for Kate Bush’s 'Cloudbusting'. As an 11 year old in 1985, I went to an old cinema in Southampton to see 'Back to the Future', and there it was, in all its grainy beauty on the big screen before the movie. I felt a heart-churning poetic melancholy that was hard for child-me to grasp. I had a sense that what I was watching was affecting me on a level that was beyond my conscious experience of it, and a switch somewhere within me was irrevocably flicked.
LBB> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Simon> The Ray Gardner Blackcurrant Tango ad. I graduated from university in 1996 with a joint honours degree in French and philosophy and a burning desire to live a creative life but absolutely no idea whatsoever about where or how to start.
I was back at my parents’ place, working in an American theme bar in Portsmouth and trying to work out what to do next, when Ray Gardner jumped out of the TV at me. In between extolling the virtues of Blackcurrant Tango and challenging French exchange student Sebastien to a fight on top of the white cliffs of Dover, he suggested I might like to consider a career in advertising.
After a few years teaching English, writing bad poetry and shooting super 8 film in Japan, I eventually complied.
LBB> The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting…
Simon> I’m a big fan of Paulo Sorrentino’s work, and La Grande Bellaza in particular. I’ve watched it at least half a dozen times and frequently find myself pondering its characters and their search for meaning.
LBB> My first professional project…
Simon> I wrote a headline for a Nespresso ad that appeared as a DPS in Wallpaper magazine. As far as I was concerned, I’d made it, big time.
LBB> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Simon> Anything with a big budget and no story.
LBB> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that still makes me jealous…
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
Simon> I quit my well paid first advertising creative director gig a month after the birth of my second daughter and flew to Argentina to single-handedly shoot an unfunded movie in the Atacama Desert. The result was my feature documentary 'Dream Racer' that marked a significant step change in my career.
I came back into advertising - this time as a partner in my own business: The Hallway, but the feature-film making experience gave me huge confidence in my ability to bring scarily big creative endeavours to fruition. 'Dream Racer' was also a great drawcard for clients who wanted more than the run of the mill answer to a brief.
LBB> The work that I’m proudest of…
Simon> 'Boys do Cry': an anthem to help stop male suicide. Rewriting the lyrics to The Cure’s iconic “Boys don’t Cry” and getting the nod from the great Robert Smith himself was a definite career highlight. And the response that the campaign garnered - not just in Australia but internationally far exceeded our expectations.
But I’m ultimately most proud of the impact that the work has had and continues to have: tens of thousands of men freeing themselves from the shackles of old-school masculinity and opening up about their mental health struggles.
LBB> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Simon> In the early days of my career I was very excited whenever my work popped up in an adbreak, except, that is, for the dreadful 15 second ad for Chocapic Pocket that I made in Paris in the summer of 2001. Thankfully no record of it remains. I hope.
LBB> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Simon> We’ve had a bunch of exciting projects on the slate over the last twelve months, but one that I particularly enjoyed is The Cardboard Cake. There’s a widely held view that gluten free food tastes like cardboard, so when we were tasked to promote Sydney’s leading gluten free bakery, we decided to bust the cardboard myth and make the sceptics eat their own words - literally. We created and launched a cake that looks like cardboard but tastes… like cake.
