Keith Reinhard on freedom to fail, winning back Maccas and how agencies can survive

In an exclusive interview in Cannes today, advertising icon Keith Reinhard, one of the founding fathers of what is now DDB Worldwide, talked to Mumbrella’s Robin Hicks about freedom from fear, his favourite ads of all time, winning back McDonald’s and why the most important thing in advertising is passion.

Who is the most powerful person in advertising today?

If you’re talking about power, then you have to say people like John Wren [Omnicom’s CEO], Sir Martin [Sorrell, WPP’s boss] and Maurice Lévy [head of Publicis Groupe], who is becoming more and more aggressive and acquisitive.

But I’d like to think that creative power lies in the minds and the hands of names that we do not yet know. The young people who are in a way naïve – they don’t yet know what can’t be done, so they just go ahead and do it.