Why Publicis’s Noël Bunting believes the best advertising starts with fun

“Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was to make little storefront set-ups in my garage and curate that,” she explains. “I was always a creative kid. I had an uncle who worked in advertising, but what I wanted to do was either be a writer, a novelist.”

Her dream was to go to either NYU and be a writer or the University of Southern California and be a screenwriter. Neither of those things happened, but what transpired was a blend of all her interests.

After winning a scholarship (she emphasizes how lucky she feels to have had this opportunity) to study advertising at the University of Georgia in Atlanta, she began to look for a job. “I melted vinyl records and turned them into envelopes and put my CV in there,” she says. “My whole theme was, ‘advertising is the rock and roll of the business world.’”

The young creative landed an internship as a copywriter at now-defunct agency called Fletcher Martin. “I remember I showed up for my interview in my mom’s clothes. She dressed me in a skirt, a nice button-up shirt, heels, which was not me at all. And of course, I walked into an ad agency on a Friday and everyone’s, you know, as casual as can be.”

She felt like a fish out of water, but learned more in her first four months at Fletcher Martin than she did in four years of university and had the realization that work could actually be fun. “The naivety sort of helped because you just kind of jump in and hope for the best, and that’s when you’re trusting your own instincts, because you don’t know any better. I try to maintain that today, just be a little bit naive, because if you know too much, it can really start messing with your head and not allow you to think as freely as you can.”

There were some unexpected highlights in Bunting’s first year, including the kind of whimsical assignments that stick with you, like getting to name ice-cream flavors. Another moment that stands out was her first experience being part of a pitch. She recalls showing her boss an idea, unsure of what to expect. “He just looked at it and walked away. And I was like, did he like it? Did he not like it? I don’t know what’s happening.”

Unbeknownst to her, he’d taken the idea straight to the creative director, telling them to get it mocked up immediately. In hindsight, Bunting thinks her inexperience may have worked in her favor. “I think it really helped that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” she laughs.

Early on, Bunting had a realization that creativity could thrive within a business context, which was pivotal. “I got practical about things. If I want to be creative, but also have a steady income and a steady job, advertising just makes sense, because it’s a beautiful blend of creativity and business.”

One early job interview to be a copywriter for the United States Marine Corps left a lasting impression on her, not because of the job but because of a moment of bias. “I could tell they thought I was going to be a man because of my name. This was before you could look someone up on the internet.” The surprise was obvious even if the interviewer tried to hide it. Still, she got the gig. “I was really proud of that because it meant my portfolio didn’t have a gender bias.”

It’s one of the reasons she loves copywriting. “You can have a play with all these different tones of voice,” she says. For Bunting, the best copywriters aren’t tied to a single style, they’re flexible. “Some are better at humor, some at more serious, moving styles. But the best can flex and mold themselves to the brand voice.”

Of all the work she’s done, it’s a project for Oreo, created during her time at FCB New York, that stands out as a career highlight. “We were without a CCO, kind of in between creative leadership,” she recalls. What began as a modest brief quickly turned into something far more ambitious.

“We had this teeny little brief that came in from Oreo and it was basically like, we’ve spent all our money for the year, let’s just do something on social, which is what a lot of briefs were like back then,” she says.

Rather than see the constraints as a limitation, Bunting and her team leaned into the opportunity. “So, we came up with this idea to do an ad a day for 100 days and it bought it.” The agency threw its support behind the idea and gave the small team full creative freedom. “We had this room that was ours and we had all these pictures of Oreos up on the wall. We ate Oreos the whole time. It was just fun. We didn’t know that it was going to be award-winning at that time. We were just enjoying ourselves.”

Over the years, she’s been part of major campaigns for the likes of Dove, Volvo and Canon at agencies including Neverland, Ogilvy and Adam&EveDDB, winning numerous industry awards.

It’s human insight and joy that drives Bunting, which is a philosophy that extends into how she leads her team at Publicis London. “I like to listen to my team. It’s really important to me that they feel like they have a voice within the department and the agency. It’s not my leadership style to come in and steamroll everyone with how I think it should be.”

When Bunting joined Publicis London, the agency was undergoing a major transformation, both in identity and energy, she explains. “You’ve got this startup mentality because, of course, we changed from Publicis Poke to Publicis London, so we did a complete rebrand. So you could argue that it felt like a startup and still does in some ways.”

That fresh start came with a renewed sense of purpose, bolstered by the strength of the global network behind it. “There’s so much energy and passion, but you’ve got the support of the Publicis network, which is the best of both worlds.”

Even a year and a half into the role, Bunting remains energized. “I’m extremely excited. We’re now an agency that knows exactly who we are. Our tagline is ‘Move the World.’ We treated our agency like a brand. We gave ourselves a tagline. You can explain it in one sentence: moving the world through the power of international creativity. Yeah, boom. That’s it. That’s what we’re about.”