About: Cappuccino with Oatley
The coffee mug got knocked over and rolled across the table. Luckily, this time it was almost empty. Passionate hand gestures, a trade-off Elias had to live with for over 16 years working in a creative environment.
This called for a coffee break.
Alex and Elias were half way down the hall when Elias spotted a bright pink post-it note stuck to Alex’ butt with some scribbles on it. The post-it read:
“PEOPLE BLOCK ADS FOR A REASON”
Elias left the post-it much to his own amusement.
Elias was about Alex’ age back in 2003, when he’d left Denmark to study in London for his BA in Advertising at Central Saint Martins. At the time, Denmark had no Metro trains and he found himself returning to Denmark a mere 13 years later where a lot had changed since.
They reached the usual long winding queue to the one coffee machine that the entire office had been sharing since its sibling had coughed up its last drops of coffee dregs and residue. It sounded like a bad case of pneumonia, in a coffee mug. The maintenance service guy had become part of the furniture ever since. His name was Mads, nicknamed ‘Madserati’.
Elias seized the waiting time to contemplate on a question Alex had asked earlier about
how we can become more relevant?
“I think it’s important to look inwards… be honest, truthful and be compelling in the way you speak” Elias continued out of the blue and startled Alex, who for a moment, feared some intimate thoughts had leaked out about the next potential Tinder date: Sonja, Villads or Mo?
Meanwhile, the queue to the coffee machine moved slower than a snail on a turtle.
Elias couldn’t help but think back on his own first shaky steps into adland. The contract was with JWT London and read “Junior Art Director''. It was back in 2007 and still till this day one of his most gut-wrenching experiences. Landing his first job in advertising had taken him nearly two years of dedicated hard work since graduating and was marked with blood, sweat and tears. He recalled the tears of joy when he had phoned home to break the news and his mother picked up to hear the words.
“I made it.…………………….”
His previous job title, if such even existed, was; “Waiter/ Bartender” at O’Neills – an Irish Pub located on Shaftesbury Avenue in the heart of London’s buzzing West End. It was probably one of the jobs that taught Elias the most in the sortest space of time. And he worked at the bar every day of the week, from early morning till late night, barely making enough for food and rent. All his spare time and sleep he dedicated to working on his portfolio and applying for his dream job in advertising.
So, setting his foot inside JWT no. 1 Knightsbridge Green, right opposite Harrods – made him feel small in every sense of the word. Add to that a person of colour, brown skin and black hair just about completed the full circle of imposter syndrome, and made him feel that at any given time the security would call him out followed by getting tossed through the glass window like what happened to Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop. That’s right, JWT had its own security and gates.
The aroma of coffee intensified as they moved closer to the coffee machine’s grounding and seeping noise, which forced Alex to raise the voice slightly. “I believe you’re only as good as your last piece of work or cuppa!”.
And finally. Coffee.
Alex had a cappuccino with Oatley and cinnamon sprinkled on top and Elias was about to go for the usual triple espresso. But decided to try something different and go for what Alex was having, who smirkingly took a sip of the creamy cappuccino and made a frothy slurping sound… “What shall we do now?” was uttered underneath a milk-foamed moustache fluttering from each word. Elias raised one hand into the air and couldn’t help but quote a fabulous cartoon from the 90’s called Pinky & the Brain, where one of the mice always replied: “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!”
Elias took a sip from his drink and burnt his tongue misjudging the distance between the foam and the scalding hot coffee. Surely the cappuccino was a different experience but something Elias could get used to now and again and recalled the time he’d left his comfy Art Director job at McCann London in 2013 to form his own company; Company of Heroes Ltd. It recalled that ‘life-on-edge-feeling’ again but it was an essential step to continue growing and making his world bigger.
Heading back Elias tried hard to mask the pain from having burned his tongue: “Be it McCann London, Marvelous or here at Hjaltelin Stahl – I still wake up every morning, believing that creative have the potential to generate insightful ideas and tell meaningful stories that will make people disable their ad blockers!
🧳 With a degree in advertising from Central Saint Martins, Elias has gained 16 years of experience in the creative industry from England and Denmark and won multiple awards for his work.
🏴 In England, he’s created breaking news when he lit the skies with a UFO flying over the River Thames. He has also exposed replicants (bioengineered humanoids) amongst us and made a mutating cigarette go viral.
🇩🇰 In Denmark, he’s managed to provoke the extreme rightists on SoMe when he featured milk and diversity together. He’s also made men cry for breaking up with meat and his work of ‘flawed art’ and burnt toast has been featured on the front page of the newspaper “Information”
