Keep the fire going
View(s):Earth Hour co-creator and advertising wiz Todd Sampson talks to Shaveen Jeewandara about meeting challenges in life including climbing Mount Everest
There is something very unassuming about Todd Sampson, co-creator of the phenomenal Earth Hour initiative. It’s in the way he talks, the bright red t-shirt he’s wearing and the beaming smile on his face. Simplicity means a lot to this immensely successful National CEO of Leo Burnett Australia, ranked as one of the most influential executives in Australia by The Financial Review and News Limited.
The Earth Hour initiative struck a responsive movement here in Sri Lanka as it did in 5500 cities in 135 countries. “The Earth Hour initiative started off with the simple idea of switching off the lights, when the World Wildlife Fund requested our assistance in coming up with an initiative that would raise awareness on climate change,” says Todd, but he and his co-creators Andy Ridley, Nigel Marsh and Phil McLean never imagined that it would go viral. “It was immensely satisfying to know that a simple action spread so much of awareness, but we were always looking for that next step in channelling the awareness into greater action,” says Todd.
Action man: Todd Sampson in Colombo. Pic by Susantha Liyanawatte
Much like simplicity playing an integral role in Todd’s life, the Earth Hour initiative too was the result of a simple thought. “The idea was to make people get involved in something that was measurable and symbolic –an action that was doable by all- and switching off an unessential light for an hour fit the bill.”
Todd remembers the windy night of March 2007, when Earth Hour first kicked in. Over-riding all speculation, over 2.2 million people across Sydney including celebrities joined hands in switching off the lights. “The one thing that was running in my head was the fact that I got to hug Cate Blanchett!” laughs Todd, but he fully understood the impact of the change that he had helped promulgate. The rest is history and each year over a billion people worldwide are now involved in Earth Hour.
Apart from being a CEO and an advertising-guru, Todd is also the breakout star and co-host of the smash hit Australian advertising show – The Gruen Transfer. While he is also a regular host on the Channel 10 News Show and has been featured on CNN, Sky News, Todd is also an avid adventurer who has even climbed Mount Everest. At 42, Todd is all this and most importantly a loving husband to his Burmese wife, Neomie and a caring father to his children Coco (6) and Jet (3).
Climbing Mount Everest in 2001 proved to be a daunting challenge even for someone as daring as Todd and it was an inspirational pat on the back by none other than Sir Edmund Hillary –the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest alongside Tenzing Norgay in 1953- that gave Todd the courage to persevere.
Weeks before Todd had planned the climb, he made a visit to New Zealand and a cab-driver had casually pointed at a building and asked Todd if he knew who lived there. Todd was surprised to hear that it was the home of his lifelong inspiration, Sir Edmund Hillary. Todd recalls whisking the thought away at first, but then going through the local phone directory and finding Sir. Hillary’s name he nervously made the call and eventually ended up having tea with the great man.
A few weeks later, Todd found himself at the world’s most dangerous airport –Nepal’s Lukla airport and the hazards that could occur crossed his mind. Just then, there was a friendly tap on his shoulder and he spun around to find Sir Edmund Hillary telling him “Don’t be afraid”.
Beating that creative fear | Todd Sampson spoke of using creativity and overcoming fear in the corporate world at the International Advertising Association (IAA) sponsored event titled ‘Creativity Fear’ drawing from his real-life experiences and exploring innovative ideas in decision-making to an enthusiastic gathering.
Weeks into his climb, Todd found himself with a knife edge cliff ahead as the winds howled and the storms pounded on. He would have to get through the knife-edge to get to the summit, but fear gripped him. “I was caught up in a fear paralysis,” he recalls. He only had five minutes to make the decision, as the storm roared all around him. “This is when I realised that the antidote to fear is nothing but action,” he says remembering how he took the step to drill his pick-axe through the knife-edge and make it to the other side.
Action is what matters, he stresses. There are two extreme ends of awareness; one is ignorance and the other is ‘being overwhelmed’. “Neither of this helps, but the best thing you can do is to take a simple, measurable course of action.” Action is what will keep you from paralysing in your five minutes of destiny.
Growing up with financial hardships on Canada’s windswept Cape Breton Island, his father was a factory worker for Coca-Cola and his mother a checkout girl for KFC. “I grew up in a small village in a farming area and life was not easy,” he says.
“But that gave me the ‘fire’ to achieve greater heights and I told myself that I would not continue to live that life. There even used to be days where I would walk along the road, kicking the rocks and wondering if I’ll ever get to go to the tropics like Sri Lanka,” he smiles and we’d like to believe that Todd is not simply wooing us with his advertising skills. Eventually he won a scholarship to university at 16, followed it with an MBA in South Africa and finally found it to the advertising industry.
“The fire is important,” he goes on, “It’s what moves you forward. There needs to be a desire to achieve greater things and the fire fuels it.” It is heartening to see a lot of Sri Lankans having that fire within them as well, and he urges the nation to use it to their best potential. “The one thing that struck me about Sri Lanka is seeing a whole bunch of kids, dressed in their crisp white uniforms and smiling like they are the happiest children on Earth,” says Todd. “This is amazing – Happiness is what matters in the end!”
So is he truly happy in advertising? “That’s something a lot of people ask me, and I fall into an endless ethical dilemma,” he says with a smile. “The core principle of advertising is demand generation and sometimes we make people buy things that they don’t need, but imagine if all the good people left the industry?” He strikes a compromise, with his work and the many environmental initiatives that he’s a part of – but in answering our question, he tells us that he is nothing less than happy in this field.
“One thing I’ve learnt is that you can only control the thing that you are doing at the moment. I don’t try to think too far ahead of myself and visualise where I will be in the next few years,” he tells us, “It’s about doing what you do brilliantly and eventually all the doors to success will open up.”
His wife Neomie and children Coco and Jet are the reason that he is doing and achieving so much, admits Todd. “They are the champions of my household, and they were the ones who pushed me into being environmentally conscious.”
He has spearheaded change in the hearts of millions of people over the world, by a simple ‘light-bulb moment that switched all the lights off’. Hold on to the fire and ‘swing as hard as you can’ he says.
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