Getting Ahead: Allan Fraser-Rush

Name: Allan Fraser-Rush

Company: TEQUILALondon

Job title: Client Services Director (or general dogsbody).

What made you want to get into brands/advertising/media/marketing?
I was tired of my agencies bossing me about as a client and wanted to get my own back.

How did you get into the industry?
Pure bluff and bravado (and a couple of mates on the inside).

What was good and bad about your first job?
My first ad job was brilliant, Group Account Director on Dell at Euro RSCG in Sydney, working on fully integrated, pan-Asian campaigns.

List your jobs to date
ANZ, GE-Capital, Euro RSCG, SRG, McCann, TBWAGGT then TEQUILA.

What were the best and worst, and why
GE was one of the best as it taught me how to stay awake in four-hour long process re-engineering meetings.

Who has been your biggest inspiration?
Dave Droga, for producing the most amazing creative work in the last decade.

Who in the industry do you most admire?
Jeremy Bullmore for his “big ship, little boat” communications analogies. An oldie but a goodie, and it gets the point across loud and clear every year at the NABS training courses.

What is your biggest achievement to date?
Being accepted into the UK on the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme. Nice bit of reverse colonisation, I’d say.

On what do you base your success so far?
Being able to tap dance in front of a client faster than Gene Kelly when the going gets tough.

What are your ambitions?
To be the best tap dancer in the business and, if not, run the London Office, then six weeks after Europe, and by the end of the year: the world. Lofty and deluded, but you have to have aspirations.

Change one thing about your job:
Bloody timesheets, I hate the things.

Change one thing about your industry:
For us all to stop talking about integration and start delivering it for our clients. Naturally they will need to change a bit as well.

Change one thing about the world:
Total religious and racial tolerance. Imagine what we could achieve if we stopped all the bickering.

What is your favourite brand?
Alfa Romeo. As Jeremy Clarkson said, “the heart and soul of the car industry”.

What is the next big brand in your view?
The Carbon Label. It’s not so much a brand, but a brand mark that tells us exactly how much embedded carbon is in the products we consume.

List your “media diet”:
Well, of course I read nothing else but Marketing Week, are there any other publications out there?