Creative Minds: Daniel Foo is a practiced extrovert with a soft spot for cats, kind of

Inspired by graffiti art and skateboard graphics as a teenager, We Are Social’s ECD has come a long way since his first internship at a now-defunct independent agency, where he first learned what it meant to be a copywriter.

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Creative Minds: Daniel Foo is a practiced extrovert with a soft spot for cats, kind of

In Creative Minds, we ask APAC creatives a long list of questions, from serious to silly, and ask them to pick 11 to answer. (Why 11? Just because.) Want to be featured?

Name: Daniel Foo

Place of origin: Singapore

Places lived and worked: Singapore & London

Pronouns: He/him

CV:

Creative director to ECD, We Are Social (2024-present)

VP, creative, Lazada (2021-2024)

Associate creative director to creative director, Grey (2017-2021)

Senior copywriter, JWT (2016-2017)

Freelance senior copywriter (2015-2016)

Copywriter, McCann (2014-2015)

Copywriter, JWT (2013-2014)

Copywriter, BBH (2009-2013)

Art director, Avantworks (2009)

Art director, Ogilvy & Mather (2008-2009)

1. How did you end up being a creative?

In secondary school, I discovered graffiti artists like Futura2000 and Stash, and I became super into skateboard graphics—as well as the many, many album covers of my teenage idols—which made me think I wanted to be a graphic designer. So that’s how I started, as a graphic designer. An internship at a now-defunct independent advertising agency, where I designed annual reports, was where I first discovered what a “copywriter” was. However, it took another six years of art school, followed by a career as a graphic designer and then art director, before I finally made the switch. Even then, my first task as a copywriter was to design a campaign logo, LOL. Copy has been a more natural fit, as I’ve enjoyed writing for as long as I can remember—but I still very much enjoy looking at nice things and giving my input on art direction.

2. What's your favourite piece of work in your portfolio?

One of my favourite pieces of work in my portfolio has to be this cat film for NTUC Income.

3. What's your favourite piece of work created by someone else?

It may forever be this Garmin Super Bowl ad from 2007.

4. What or who are your key creative influences?

I’ve been fortunate to work with amazing CDs, ECDs and CCOs at every step of my career who have inspired and shaped me in different ways—everything I know, I have learned from them.

5. What career did you think you'd have when you were a kid?

I was pretty lucky to figure out I wanted to do something creative at 13–before that, I probably wanted to be a vet.

6. What really motivates you?

Haters!

7. What’s your favourite music/film/TV show/book/ other of the past year, and why?

Momma – Welcome to My Blue Sky (because it’s nostalgic and new at the same time), and Ghost Bath – Rose Thorn Necklace (because it rocks so hard).

8. What's your favourite GIF or quote, and why?

Rick Owens' famous quote, "working out is modern couture," because it’s true! No outfit makes you look or feel as good as having a fit body. And my favourite GIF would be the Predator Handshake because that’s a dap you can feel even without sound.