By now, you surely must have heard about the Neil French kerfuffle. The short version: Last month, he resigned his post at WPP because of reaction to controversial comments he made about female CDs during a Toronto event, organized by ad site ihaveanidea.org.

Strategy interviewed French a day before that fateful night and felt he made some salient points about the state of the industry, as well as what it takes to be brilliant. So, despite the fact that he called said reporter "Sweetpea," we thought this was still worth a read.

What do you think of the state of the ad industry?

What in Canada? Please don't ask me, because I don't know. I could have got somebody to brief me about Canadian advertising. That would have been wrong, because it's like a politician being told what to say. I don't do that shit. I've never been to Canada before - what the hell would I know about Canada? I like the place - I love the weather. [Spoken on a 28 degree day in late September.]

How about overall?

There's this hysteria on at the moment about how television is dead and it's all going to interactive. That's such bollocks. Yes, in the Western World there are a lot of computers out there and interactive thingy-bobs. But actually 90% of the population of the earth is not sitting in front of an Apple tonight. You go to some huge shack city in Brazil, or Thailand, and that light from the shack is a television. Why is everybody panicking? I remember when radio was dead. I remember when newspapers were dead. They're fine. Now television is dead. No it's bloody not. It's just a lot of inept people who think that with the next thing, there might be some good ads. There won't be of course, because they are genetically inept.

What do you think of the fact that more money is going into interactive then?

If you put everything into mobile, it's going to piss people off much more than the television ads. Mostly mobile's used by kids. They are going to make the phone calls, they are going to text their mates, they do not want to be interrupted by some jerk who wants to sell them a soft drink. So this is more likely to burn out very quickly. They will watch the stuff they want to see, and that's when you get them. Yes, TiVo can make sure you don't watch the ads, but if it's a really good ad that appears during the moto racing or the soccer, you'll leave it on to hope the ad comes on. I've heard people say this: "I love this one. I'm not going out for a pee." It's human nature. If the media buyer's clever enough, it's going to always be in the same program. Having your ad liked by the consumer, that's the Holy Grail. No more conversation needed on that subject; move on.

So what does it take to make a good ad?

Talk to people. That's all it is. When Winston Churchill said: "We shall fight them on the beaches," he was talking to one bloke. Every single person in his little house in the middle of England saw himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Winston, with a pitchfork in his hand on the seashore. And when Hitler said: "We're going to take over the world; we've had a rough deal," every soldier at Nuremberg, said: "He's talking to me, and I must not let him down." So good or evil, the great communicators talk to one person. That's what advertising does - I'm talking to you, this is the right car for you, or beer, or insurance company, or whatever the hell it is. Only for you. Luckily, there are millions of people like you and they will all buy it, but you don't say that in the ad. There's no you plural in advertising, it's you singular.