Forty Years of 'Unsung Heroes': #4

There's lots of people on here (LinkedIn) with big reputations and big followings, but it's not just the big names that make working in my industry (advertising+) extraordinary, delightful, fun and honest.

As I get ready to hang up my agency boots. I thought I might share a few of my unsung heroes with you. And say thanks.

Mike Donoghue can hardly be described as an unknown in this industry.?

I expect he has more friends in Scottish advertising than anyone living or passed.? But my purpose in these stories is to surface the goodness in people who never really got the recognition they deserve.

Mike’s never been a spotlight man, unless you consider his acting successes in Maurice the Minotaur and Gregory’s Girl in the great Edinburgh Youth Theatre of the early 80’s, that I attended as an audience member.?

You see, Mike may seem larger than life, but his talent has never quite thrust him into agency ownership positions. And he is massively modest.

I’d describe Mike instead as “larger than love”, because there’s a lot of love that follows this great man around his daily working life, his kindnesses, his relationships with people who have fallen on hard times whether from a great height or just a wee slip and trip.??

You see, Mike Donoghue is the kindest man in Scottish advertising.?

I’ve known him most of my life.? I have thousands of followers/contacts, whatever you want to call them on this platform, but I couldn’t hold a candle to Mike because kindness is wired, at 30 amps, into Mike’s soul.

He is like a walking NABS, always with an ear out for someone who’s not having a good time of it and finding a way to help them out.? Might be a pint, might be a visit, a hug, (my wife says he's the best hugger she knows), a few words that says “people care about you”.? Maybe he should have been a councillor.

But this makes Mike sound like some worthy HR manager.?

Uh Uh.

He’s as radge as me.? He’s delightfully naughty.? He has awful taste in football.

We went to school together, and him and a guy called David Kew, were the only two blokes in the school that could see through my nerdishness (it was a pretty tough gig for a speccy geek like me). I hold candles up to both of them for that.

Then we went our separate ways to University.? He to Heriot Watt (although we both enjoyed the vernacular nickname for it), me to Stirling.? Only to meet up for a beer after graduation.? Neither of us satisfied with our achievements.? He had a degree in BO (BO for fuck sake?), me in Plant Physiology.? Mike loved the BO gag (though it’s Business Organisation for the record).

I can’t remember if he said at that meet up if he was going to Watford College or had just graduated from there, in advertising, but that pint saved my life.? “You know what, I’m going to apply for that too.” I told him, and I did.

We both post-graduated and Mike ended up at Saatchi’s in production, me at Saatchi’s Edinburgh (Hall Advertising) in account management.

Not long after, in my second job, I hired him as my Account Manager at the Leith Agency and that was where the fun really began.

We were fucking incorrigible.? Cricket in the office while everyone else was trying to work was fun.? Sharing every swear word ever invented by mankind, creating elaborate wind ups for colleagues like Kay, drinking Smithies and Clarkes Bar dry, trips to Belfast, to Newcastle, to Glasgow where we nearly broke the Clydesdale Bank (we didn’t really but the bollocking I got from our client after talking about work, discretely we thought, on the train, right next to a Clydesdale Bank Director was a life lesson).? It just never ended.

This makes Mike sound like he is just fun.?

No.?

Mike is an absolute grafter, a learner, an ideas man like few others, always looking for a new way, a better way to do things.? He’s a relationship builder, explaining why he did so well at Story as their new biz guy for so many years, a networker, but not a cynical one.? I expect a lot of comments here that back me up on that point.

Mike has been my best pal in advertising for 40 years.? But this is no nepo-post.

Mike is one of the greatest people in Scotland to ever call themselves an ad man.

I only feel privileged that I was along for the ride.

And, oh, Mike, I’m really sorry for not believing you had food poisoning after that trip to Scandinavia with Mark Riva of Waddies, where you drank the country dry and couldn’t come in on the Monday.?

That was me being a wank.

Slainte.? My beautiful friend.