John Wilson

Who is John Wilson?

The short version is that John Wilson is a man in his 50s who spent many years working in ad agencies in the dreary weather of London and has decided to settle down in a warmer climate in the Mediterranean. I’m now living in a farmhouse in Gozo with my wife and several dogs experimenting with carpentry and loving this weather.

Why open an agency in Malta?

Well it’s a hard habit to shake. You don’t just throw away a skill set you’ve been honing for decades, and it’s something I’ve loved doing for years. It can be a very cold business, and very demanding on your life. I’ve opted to allow younger blood to take the reins and let me use my experience when required.

How different is the industry in Malta to that of abroad?

The differences are purely in scale. It would be easy to say that projects here are accomplished on very tiny budgets compared to national campaigns in the UK, but the culture of business is very universal. There are certain truths that carry weight everywhere. Agencies are viewed as a necessary evil and many clients see them purely as a drain on their resources when instead they should be integrating an agency more fully into their workflow so that their needs and message get communicated more effectively.

There is also the belief that if something is foreign then it must be so much better, when there is so much talent on this island.

And you disagree with this?

Completely. The very first project our agency undertook was creating our own branding. We asked ourselves: “How can we project a sense of trust and experience?” We wanted the agency to have a personality, so John Wilson was born. The truth is that John Wilson isn’t even real – he’s just a picture from a book cover and a Facebook account, but he projects certain values that clients feel connected to. The agency is entirely a Maltese-born venture. It’s a little joke, but it’s our commentary on how easy it is to make assumptions before you have the facts.

The truth is that everyone makes hundreds of daily assumptions, and one of the key aspects of our business is to try to turn those in our clients’ favour through the work we do, whether it’s a press campaign or a private event or even a social media blitz. We hold to the maxim that keeping it small lets us focus on thinking big.