Kola Ogundipe

This is a bit about Kola Ogundipe, copywriter and music producer. To read about my doppelganger, Kola Ogundipe, the Nigerian Air Force fighter pilot, you’ll have to pop across to one of the parallel universes where I followed my childhood dream.

Having said that, actually the two lives aren’t that far apart - in my years in advertising, I’ve experienced the adrenaline rush of getting a brief, coming up with a clever, insightful strategy to answer it and building a great idea out of nothing. Not quite bandits at 12 o clock, more like drinks at 5 (or lunch at 1 in my creative director guise).

Along the way, I’ve grown up by the ocean in Lagos, been to public school in the UK, been a founder member and senior writer at one of the most innovative agencies in the world (St Luke’s), written soundtracks to ads and short films, then moved as far as possible as I could from Soho and become Creative Director at Tango Communications. While there I got parents excited about seeing their baby on a magazine cover (yes, that was really hard), helped unearth more about a scary household appliance and just recently gave New Zealand motorists a load of great excuses for being late to work  (none of which I ever used myself of course). I also enjoyed finding out what K road had been like on a Sunday night on a Monday morning.

I love interactive because it’s a great way to build a relationship between a brand and its audience - one that is a dialogue and not just a one-way street. In fact I reckon all the best ideas I had while working as an above the line senior writer were interactive ideas that were just waiting for the online world to grow up. I also love pitches as they seem to be a time when agencies and clients are most receptive to “out of the box” thinking.

Oh and the elephant in the room is Drunk Elephant Sound, my record label which will be occupying most of my time when I’m not coming up with great ideas for someone else.