Work Hard and Have Fun: How Tony Cunningham's teachings inspired this Creative

A Watford School Graduate, Cameron Sutherland is a copywriter who has been with Grey London since 2022. Included in his back catalogue is Peta's latest hard-hitting film 'Pig Farm'. The musical ad highlights the atrocities of pig farming and calls for the public to go vegan and recently won a Bronze One-Show Pencil in Moving Image Craft and Production: Animation.

Sutherland has also worked on the 'Red Family' campaign for Vodafone Ireland which highlights the lengths families go to to stay connected as well as the 'Wonderfully Different' campaign for Pringles starring a rockstar hamster.

He shares his learning from the legendary late Tony Cunningham [founder of the Watford Advertising Course] and reveals how childhood rap battles helped him produce musical ads.

Cameron Sutherland: There are three things that the late Tony Cullingham said that stick with me: “Work hard”, “Have fun”, and “Your sister did better on her first day”.

Sara Sutherland is the person who got me into advertising. I love this quote from ex-vogue creative director Grace Coddington: ‘Always look up because you don’t know what you’ll miss.’ But for me, it’s ‘always look down.’ 

At five foot nothing, you might mistake Sara for a passing year seven or a child in a trench coat trying to sneak into a pub, but without the other kid on their shoulders, or an ant with a growth deficiency… listen, she’s small. But don’t be fooled – she’s always been the kind of person who makes you feel inadequate without even trying. She’s a brilliant and rare creative.

Take her and her partner Ash's recent Squad Busters campaign, for example. Sara and Ash made an insane ad featuring Chris Hemsworth, Will Arnett, Ken Jeong, and a heap of other Hollywood stars (who would undoubtedly have preferred meeting me. Yet, here we are.) it makes me very jealous and if you see it you’ll understand why.

When she would come home and tell me about her time on the Watford course, it sounded fun, stressful, weird and rewarding, and I wanted to experience those things too. I thought maybe I’d apply someday when the time was right (that ‘right time’ turned out to be the first national lockdown).

I applied and was accepted. For that year, Tony instilled the virtues of hard work. Every hour; new briefs, alongside eight fantastic students who made and then raised my game.

Tony's teachings? How to come up with an idea, how to interrogate it, how to whittle it down to its simplest form then go batshit crazy with it. Tenacity was his gospel. Without him, or the countless hours from my course mentors Joe Mallet, Paddy Fraser, Jules Middleton and David Gibbs, I’d have accomplished nothing. Not to forget my old partner, Jake Viner of course (look him up, he’s smashing it at Lucky Generals as we speak. He’s great). 

I left the course grateful, exhausted, and solo, trying to find a partner for a year. Turns out my taste isn't for everyone. I managed to get a shot at Grey from David Wigglesworth, who shares my weird humour. He gave me a chance with a placement and I ran at it, doing everything Tony taught me.

For me, Tony's best advice was to have fun. If you're having fun, there's a chance the work is entertaining. And if it doesn't sell, at least you got a laugh out of it. When you're having fun, you get lost in the world of trying things out. Creating videos, songs, whatever seems fun and exciting in the moment. That’s how I learned most of what I’ve become good at. 

For example, I was put onto the PETA Pigs brief, and everything just clicked. I wrote a musical, which came from writing songs and music in bands when I was younger and sending hundreds of raps back and forth to a friend, trying to outdo each other in those endless days of teenagerdom. Jeff Low liked it. He dropped in a melody, sang along, tweaked it, and sent it back. Repeat to fade until we had our song. 

I’ve always loved the styling and playfulness of cartoons, so I had plenty of references for how I believed things should look and sound in the video. Tony’s dedication to always refining until it’s perfect stuck with me throughout the process.

So, TLDR (too long, didn't read) rules from me: work hard, have fun, and always remember there's someone better than you. Be humbled by them, be inspired by them, and always, always try to outdo them. And also make sure you always text your dad happy birthday first, so you look like the better child.

Cameron Sutherland is a copywriter at Grey London