Rosie Arnold

Rosie Arnold, 46, is deputy executive creative director of BBH London.She joined the agency soon after leaving art school and has been with the firm for 25 years. Her award-winning work includes campaigns for Pretty Polly, The Independent and Lynx (Axe). Arnold talks to Diana Goodman

I would describe myself as happy, optimistic and enthusiastic. When I was young my nickname was Tigger because I bounced around all the time. These days I still love ideas so much that I run up and down corridors with excitement.

My first memory is of a rather scary night when I stayed with a very strict friend of my parents (my father was dying). She pointed to the clock and told me firmly that I should not leave the room until the hands reached a certain time. It was the first time I'd been away from home. I was only three and a half but I remember everything really clearly. My father died that night. After that I couldn't stay over at friends' houses until I was about 14.

I grew up initially in Kilmacolm, south west of Glasgow, but after my father died we moved to Dorset. We still went up to relatives in the Highlands - near Fort William - every summer and I have huge affection for Scotland.

In Dorset, we lived in a tiny village outside Blandford. When I look back at my childhood now, it was mainly happy. I spent all day running around playing in the countryside. My mother invited my grandmother and my great aunt to live with us, but my brother was away at boarding school which meant I was effectively an only child, really. Although I was happy I was quite lonely in some ways. I'm not great at being alone.

Mum sent me to the local village school in Dorset for a term. It was hysterical. There were only two classrooms - the first for ages four to 12 and the second for ages 13 to 16. We all sat at little tables and there was one teacher for each room. In the end, Mum felt I was not getting the education I needed, but I still remember that little school with affection.

I was then sent to a fantastic prep school - Southlands at Broadstone - and later to a terrible private girls' school near the beach in Sandbanks. It was very genteel... a kind of cul-de-sac for teachers who couldn't get better jobs elsewhere. It was more about being a lady than getting an education. There was no thought that the girls would do anything except get married.

If I hadn't gone into advertising I might have become an actor.
I was good at drama when I was young, and I passed the audition to get into RADA. I loved the acting but was absolutely terrified about being on stage, so I decided not to go down that route.

I also wanted to be an artist, because art is my real love, but I knew I had to make a living and I wasn't good enough for that. I never wanted to be a woman who married someone rich; I always wanted to be my own person.

I met my husband, Pete, when I was 18, at Central St Martins, and we got married when I was 23. He's been an amazing support and marriage works brilliantly for me.

While I was at college, it dawned on me that design was actually quite fragmented. You did the illustration or the type design but quite often it wasn't your work that provided the essence of the idea - which I found quite frustrating. So Pete suggested going into advertising as a creative. I rather frowned on that idea at first, but I looked up women in the industry and found Judy Smith at CDP, who was incredibly helpful. I ended up freelancing at BBH and then started full time at the agency as soon as I left art school.

The first advertisement that made an impression on me was the Cresta Bear: "It's frothy man!" In the playground we all copied the way the bear spoke and flapped its elbows.

It's hard to say which is my favourite advertisement of all time… the answer changes every week. For example, if I'm working on an ad and I'm having a problem with the music, I'll glance through Levi's Drugstore or Creek and be blown away by how brilliant the music was. Then it'll be another week, another problem and it'll be something else that I admire.

I judge people on whether they are fair, open and kind. I don't like listening to bitchy comments about anyone; I prefer to make up my own mind. In my department, you tend to be judged on how good your work is. Seriously. That's what makes it interesting. Everyone is equal but defined by their ideas.

Managing creatives is no different from managing anyone else. I try to treat everyone as I would like to be treated and to give every creative team some upside when they leave my office, even if their idea wasn't right. I guess in my world the glass is always half full.

I've thought long and hard about why there are so few women in creative departments and I think it really comes down to personality. Having belief in an idea and getting it through the process without compromise is hard; there are always so many opinions and reasons to change things, but there's got to be a point where you say no and walk away. I think that generally speaking, women are more amenable and peace-loving and willing to say, oh, you've got a point. As a result, their ideas get watered down and are not as good. Men are much more self-assured.

Also, there is a laddish culture that permeates creative departments. I'm lucky because BBH has always been more balanced, plus I had an elder brother who teased me. That prepared me for the way men behave together, and trained me not to take things personally.

I love working with men but feel very proud that I have not had to become one of them to succeed; my femininity is important to me.

One of the most difficult campaigns for me was working on Levi's for the first time and having a difference of opinion with John Hegarty about the photographer. In the end the way he handled it was challenging but brilliant. John basically made me stand by my choice but made it clear that the responsibility was all on my head. It was a situation that forced me to follow my convictions and I think the work and my self-esteem benefited. Clever John!

Working on Lynx/Axe is always hard because you are dealing with such a great back catalogue - so every ad has to be better. When BBH won the Lynx business it was very hackneyed: butch, macho men in tropical locations getting the girl because they were wearing Lynx. But Dennis Lewis, Paul Silburn and Tiger Savage worked on the brand and came up with House Party, where the hero was an ordinary guy and the ad took the piss out of him. It was a great change of direction and we have been able to build on it.

I don't think we've ever been sexist, although it's a very fine line. The thing is that the ads are done with humour and charm, and women can see that they're tongue in cheek. Obviously, men are not really going to get armies of women running up to them on the beach because they're wearing Lynx, but the ads are based on the fundamental truth that if you smell nice, you're more likely to get girls.

I don't think we could have done the Ideal Woman ad the other way around because men would not have seen the irony in it. Somehow, there is a small part of a man that believes it when you tell him you could listen to him talking about football all day, and to be fair, when you are in love, that's true. However, a woman understands that no man would ever want to listen to you talking about shoes for even a nanosecond!

Mum never wanted to marry again after my father died, even though it was quite hard raising two children at a time when nuclear families were much more common. I remember that I was the only girl at school without two parents and Mum felt that very keenly. But she'd nursed my father - who had a brain tumour and was given a year to live - and she said: "I don't ever want to do that again."

Dad was in the army - in the Tanks Division - and Mum says he was very handsome, with a lovely voice. When he came out of the Tanks he worked for Sir James Goldsmith at Allied Suppliers. He left enough money to send us to private schools and for my mother not to work, but money was quite tight. I can remember desperately wanting those Caran D'Ache crayons with a picture of Mont Blanc on the tin, which were terribly expensive. The first thing I did with my very first pay packet was buy some!

As a result of that experience, I actually enjoy having to save up for things because then you really appreciate them. At the moment I'm saving up for a fabulous Richard Cook painting.

I do worry that I give my kids too much; they have so much more than I ever did. I go into their rooms and there are presents from Christmas that they've hardly got out of the box. I can't bear that, actually.

I've got two sons - Leo, 15, and Thomas, 17 - and three grown-up stepdaughters. When I met Pete, the girls were very young - four, five and six - and we used to have them over to ours every weekend, which was quite a responsibility considering that I was only 18. But their mother and I agreed that the most important concern was the girls, and we made sure that we all operated by the same rules.

When I had Tom, standard UK maternity leave meant there were 18 weeks off: six weeks at 90 per cent of your pay and then the remaining time at £45 per week. That didn't cover a lunch, let alone the mortgage. I researched a number of companies, especially those who had a high level of women in the work force - British Airways, for example - and came up with a proposal: three months on full pay, three months on half pay (providing you returned to work for a year), and a week's paternity leave for fathers. After some debate, BBH agreed. It was very far-sighted of them at the time.

We live in Kilburn, in a house that we bought because it was the biggest place we could afford near the centre of London. We've thought about moving, but I like Kilburn. In our street we've got every colour, creed, race and religion and everyone rubs along very well. We've also just bought a place in Cornwall - an old inn that was built in 1780.

My kids love my being in advertising and are hugely proud of me. Their school runs a "book week" where people far more illustrious than me are invited to speak, and yet every year my boys beg me to talk at it again.

What makes me laugh are really pathetic, childish, innocent jokes. For example: What do you call a French man wearing sandals? Phillippe Philloppe.

In my work I always try to find that little insight that tickles people, something they can really relate to. That's the challenge.

I went back to college in 2007 for three months - to the Royal College of Art. I had to put a portfolio together and have an interview, which was quite nerve-wracking as I have always revered the college. I felt all the old emotions about trying to get into university.

The whole experience was so stimulating, though. The lecturers were inspiring, the technicians were brilliant and the students were welcoming. As a result, I've reconnected with all the youthful enthusiasm and love for art that I had, and I am now drawing and painting at any given opportunity.

I've got a fabulous painting in my office - a massive 6ft by 4ft canvas that everyone thinks is a Jean-Michel Basquiat. But it's actually something I did with my sons when they were little. I bought acrylic paint and brushes and they produced this beautiful, joyful painting.

What children need most in life is love and boundaries.

I do care enormously what other people think of me - for example, I worry that I'm too conventional. But as you grow older and more senior you have stop worrying what people think.

My husband laughs at me because whenever I work on a piece of business I become a true disciple and reject other brands. I am as susceptible as everyone [to advertising].

I think awards are a good thing; they inspire, reward and motivate. They also help people who are less creative understand why creative solutions are important.

Cannes has become more and more important as the advertising world becomes truly global. It's also great fun and a good opportunity to meet people from around the world, see great work - and to wear some pretty dresses!

I do feel there is a stigma attached to working in advertising - interestingly, more so in LA where advertising is seen as a dirty, poor relation of the movie business. When I'm there, I feel I need to explain that we do have good ideas and are not just churning out work - which is the way that advertising is viewed in the US.

Morally, I haven't got a problem with advertising because I see it as an important part of business; although when I compare our salaries to those of teachers and nurses I am ashamed of the amount of money we earn.

The older I get, the more I wish my father was here, because I am growing more like him. For example, I have the most amazing sense of direction - an inbuilt homing pigeon device - while Mum has none. It's useful, but it's quite masculine, isn't it? And then at BBH we all went off on an army training day with paint guns and learning to drive a tank, and it was as though I'd come home. It was bizarre. There's a little space at the top of the tank where you look out: my teeth were covered in mud because I'd been grinning the whole time. One of the soldiers said: "You're a natural."

The thing I am most afraid of is heights. I didn't know that until I went to the Sagrada Familia [the unfinished Catholic basilica] in Barcelona. We got to the top okay, but then we had to descend via a rickety spiral staircase. There were intermittent spots on the right-hand side where you could look down 400 feet to the ground and I stumbled and put my hand right through an opening. I was completely terrified.

What makes me angry? Bad things happening to children and animals.

Politically, I would describe myself as leftish.

My perfect times are: spending time with my husband and kids, reading in bed, walking my dog along the beach, eating with friends and family, looking at/doing some art, dancing, coming up with a great idea that I know ticks all the boxes, sunshine...

I don't want to die because there is so much to live for.

I've never had therapy,
and I'm not keen to open that box, thank you.

If I could relive my life I would…
do it all again, but in the body of Elle Macpherson.

If I could change the world I would…
make everyone treat each other as they themselves would wish to be treated.

In the end, the most important thing is…
passion.