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The Interview Series // 50

Coming up with the ideas is only one part of what we do. Selling, presenting and most importantly – winning business is the other. But that’s the shit they just don’t teach you in class. So we decided it was time we learnt a thing or two about it and chatted to Andrew Foote – founding partner and creative director at AJF Partnership (http://ajfpartnership NULL.com NULL.au). He knows a thing or two about hand shakers – he started AJF from scratch with two other lads (who, weirdly enough, all have the same initials) almost 7 years ago. They are one of the largest independent agencies in Oz. Couldn’t really be further from where he started — as a little junior copywriter in (r)Adelaide.

Junior: Ok Andrew – Can we call you Footey? Tell us, how did you get into advertising?

Footey: I was studying law at university, and realised the only thing I’d learned was that I didn’t want to be a lawyer. I’d never really thought about a career in advertising, because quite frankly it hadn’t occurred to me. (Truth be known I was probably spending too much time on the golf course to think about any career at all.) But I got to talking to a couple of mates in the ad business who suggested I give it a go, firstly by doing AWARD School. One of those mates was Adam Francis, who was an art director at the Adelaide start-up Killey & Withy, which was to become KWP! Anyway, I finished my law degree, then did okay in AWARD School, and by this time Adam had moved to Clemenger Adelaide and was in need of a writer. Fortunately, Clems gave me a crack. That was over 18 years ago, and Adam and I still work together to this day.

Jr: 18 years! That’s longer than some marriages. At what point did you consider starting your own agency?

AF: Just to give you the career context, I went from being a writer at Clemenger Adelaide to a senior writer and creative director at Clemenger Harvie/CHE, then to Y&R Melbourne as a senior writer under James McGrath, then to joint creative director at Y&R Adelaide. We had an interesting 18 months or so at Y&R Adelaide. When Adam and I, together with MD David Hallett arrived, the place was struggling badly despite having an agency full of great, talented people. We worked incredibly hard, did some good work, turned things around, and then… lost Mitsubishi, our biggest client. The decision was made in Japan, and was totally out of our hands. Y&R made the decision to shut the agency, so we initially decided to start our own shop in Adelaide, which we did, although it proved to be a false start for AJF Partnership. At around the same time, CHE asked us to return as joint executive CDs, and for one reason or another this seemed like the best option at the time, particularly as it allowed us to return to Melbourne. But after ten months at CHE we realised that we really would like to have a bash at it ourselves, so we left, and we did.

Jr: It’s obviously paid off now, but what were some of the initial challenges you first faced? Obviously it didn’t take long to pick a name?

AF: Winning clients, obviously. Ever tried cold-calling anyone? It’s pretty daunting. We had to decide who we were going to call, who would actually do the calling, what they’d say, and then how we’d present if they were interested in hearing from us. What was our point of difference? What could we offer that other agencies couldn’t? Fortunately, our approach must have worked – in six years we’ve gone from three to sixty five staff in Melbourne, and have our Sydney office up and running with around a dozen staff. As for the name, crazily enough we did think about other options. Fortunately we resisted, and AJF Partnership it was. The fact that the three founding partners have exactly the same initials has been a pretty good icebreaker.

Jr: There’s a lot of factors in play when it comes to a winning new business pitch, but what advice would you give young creatives when one lands on their desk?

AF: I don’t think young creatives should treat a pitch brief differently to any other. Simply put, answer the brief in a creative, engaging way. More often than not, you need to find a big brand thought that can be easily demonstrated across a whole range of media. You might find that the CD pushes you down a certain path, and may not always go for what you consider to be your ‘coolest’ or most creative ideas. But as you say, there are a lot of factors in play in a pitch, so there are a lot of strategic decisions being made that you may not fully appreciate. Clients pitch for a lot of reasons, but there are generally very specific things they are looking for in an agency, and it’s the CD’s job to make sure the work delivers on those. One thing I’d say is that it’s important to get up to speed with the client’s business, their category and their target audiences very quickly. Any agency that demonstrates a good understanding of these things will be off to a good start.

Jr: Selling ideas – whether it be a pitch or a presentation is the second part of what we do. Can you tell us a few things we can do to get our ideas made?

AF: As a junior, I think the best thing you can do is to make sure your ideas answer the brief, and can be achieved on time and on budget. You may not be presenting the work yourself, so you’ll often have to leave the selling to others, be they account management or senior creative people. But you can make the sale somewhat easier by developing a bulletproof creative rationale, explaining why the idea is right for the brief and why it will do the job it needs to. If appropriate, include plenty of reference so that the client can really picture what you’re trying to achieve. But don’t despair if work doesn’t get sold. Chances are, you’re working on smaller briefs at this stage, and although you’d no doubt like the agency to fight tooth and nail for your idea, in the bigger scheme of the client relationship it may not make a lot of sense to push too hard for a smaller job. It’s a ‘lose the battle to win the war’ situation. In any case, if your idea’s good enough it’ll still stand out in your folio, and CDs will understand the reasons why it didn’t get made.

Jr: Speaking of folios – What do you consider when judging the strength of an idea?

AF: Does it answer the brief, and will it work its arse off. In other words, will it get the people we want to do what we want them to? That’s what all great advertising does. Of course, there are many ways to achieve this – that’s where the creative bit comes in, and that’s what we’re paid to do.

Jr: And what do you look for when hiring a potential creative?

AF: For a start, we’ve got an unwritten no-dickhead policy. You spend a lot of time with people at work, so I’d rather enjoy their company than not. We look for people with honesty, integrity and a good work ethic. We look for people who can create campaigns, not just one-off ads. We look for people with a certain level of maturity so that they can work autonomously. And we look for people who create brilliant work that is designed to sell stuff, not just make their reel and folio look good.

Jr: As a copywriter, what process do you go through when writing headlines?

AF: I sit down with a pad and a pen. I scribble words on a page. If I kind of like a thought, I’ll draw a box that’s the shape of the ad and write the headline in it. Sometimes I pull out a thesaurus, just to look for other ways into what I’m trying to say. I keep referring back to the brief. Maybe flick through an annual, visit the client’s website, stare out the window – all the usual stuff. It has to be quiet – I can’t write with music on or people talking around me. I really enjoy the process. I don’t delete or chuck out anything either, because a lot of thoughts that you don’t end up using for that particular headline can make great bits of copy, or lines for digital pieces, or become other ideas altogether.

Jr: Lastly, what’s the best piece advice that was given to you when you were a junior?

AF: Here’s a good one for writers: buy a stopwatch. Whenever you’re writing for TV or radio, read your scripts out loud, at a leisurely pace, and time yourself. This will help you to stop over-writing, and prevent much stress in the recording studio.

There are all sorts of those little things that you pick up along the way, but I can’t recall any single profound pieces of advice that I’ve lived by. I guess I’ve always just observed everything and everyone, and reached my own conclusions about what I thought were the right and wrong ways to do things. I’m still doing it today.

ADVERTISING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ADVERTISING, AJF PARTNERSHIP, ANDREW FOOTE

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The Interview Series // 49

Doom! Gloom! Boo! Like us, you probably don’t really consider what might happen in an economic downturn to us creative gen-y folk. We’re invincible, right? Well sadly no one is, kids. And when we met with Aussie expat Heath Rudduck – Chief Creative Officer of Campbell Mithun (http://www NULL.campbell-mithun NULL.com/) in Minneapolis, we found out just who survives those dark days… Among other stuff. Don’t worry, this ain’t no ’7.30 Report’. We’re sure Heath’s zeal for digital thinking will have you digital dreaming.

Jr: So Heath, start at the beginning.

Heath Rudduck: I started as an art director at Y&R. But originally my background was in architecture. I’d lived in the UK and the US before I took my gig at Y&R and I was just amazed in ‘91 or whatever it was why we really weren’t using desktop publishing, and why people weren’t using these new-fangled Macintosh systems to produce stuff. In the UK in architecture practices, we were using desktop publishing for all of our documents and promotional work – and I thought that advertising could use some of that technology. I’ve got a thing for gadgets anyway, so wanted to work out what this whole desktop publishing thing was about and this ‘internets’ thing. Back then, If you knew what an @ symbol was, you were a bloody genius. Anyway, long story short, I basically teamed up with a couple of the guys in the office to try it out, and we toyed around with making a website for Jeans Plus. It’s so funny to think that in 1994 we were even considering doing something like that. We were teaching ourselves the most basic of HTML and learning the fine art of image compression, whilst still doing traditional print and TV stuff for Mobil, Beaurepaires and Myer ads.

Jr: That’d be a pretty sweet blast from the past – seeing that website. We still get a kick out of the original Space Jam website. (http://www2 NULL.warnerbros NULL.com/spacejam/movie/jam NULL.htm)

H: We put it online, and of course no one was likely to see it, because no one was online. It took ages to upload stuff on the damned dial up modems and the office had no connection online. It’s amazing to think of that now. We really just wanted to know what we could do and how it would work. It was pretty basic. Soon after I was asked if I was interested in a gig at CHE, which was still really joined at the hip with Clems. Clemenger had a few things brewing in the online world so I jumped on board. We had a ball. Glenn Williams asked me one afternoon if I was interested in teaming up with a Danish bloke to explore more of the online stuff. I knew a little bit about this interweb business so I started working within Clemenger to start Clemenger Interactive – where we built sites for Libra, Mercedes and RACV. It was great fun and all very new. We were using a lot of Macromedia Director – that was a drag – heavy load times and all. And Flash was still called Future Splash for goodness sake. But it would change everything.

Jr: Did you notice a big difference moving from Melbourne five years ago, to Digitas in Boston?

H: Yes, firstly the scale. I had 240 creative staff over three offices when I arrived. That was just mind boggling. Wrangling a smaller creative team has enough ups and downs. But that many staff, plus $160 million bucks worth of business and three offices is a real bloody challenge. There was a lot of ‘this is how we do it, this is how we like to do it, this is how we’ve always done it’ going on, and it was the true definition of drinking from a fire hose. At that scale, there’s politics galore and you spend a lot of your time trying to create a sanctuary for your teams to do great creative. But the real challenge came with some massive reductions in spending by some clients. Especially GM. The auto industry got caned. Tens and tens of millions of dollars vanished overnight. And of course that really affected my team. We had layoffs everywhere in the US. It was a pretty dark time, and quite depressing. At one point, round two, we were putting people on the skids at Christmas. I hate that part of our business.

Jr: Who survives those dark days? Or is it just pot luck?

H: It was a no brainer that you kept hybrids. You get people that I call T shaped, people that had a core skill set and were obviously good at what they did, but they could spread and be accountable for work in a spectrum of their skillset. So for example, art directors that had a strong design bent and digital understanding were invaluable. And there were plenty of people who still saw themselves as “TV” or “Print” creatives. I hadn’t seen that in Australia for years. You need people who will step up and own work, and who aren’t afraid to share an idea around. That was another really important thing – people who weren’t precious about sharing an idea and making it a team effort, or jumping on board an idea that had already left the station, helping to make it better. I’ve been spending some time with the President of MCAD here in Minneapolis lately, and their course structure is reflecting this way of thinking.

Jr: It does seem that digital ideas, and the process, is a lot more collaborative than the traditional art director/copywriter process.

H: It really is, but I think what you will find is happening – and I’m certainly pushing this where I am now – is that it needs higher process, it needs to be open source, it needs to be collaborative, no matter what the brief. This is a challenge, because you need to own things, but also have to be able to share. It’s a balance. What’s interesting is that some of the big schools in the US are really working this open source model into their curriculum. Like I said, MCAD seem to have an awesome grip of it. Basically, what they’re doing, is engineering incredible projects. Real world projects that, e.g, a water saving device that they’re working with a community, lets say in Tibet, and working to make some sort of community based program that needs to be invented, marketed, conceptualized, produced and finally released to the world. Those projects can take five to seven years, but if you are doing a three year course and you come in half way through that project, you’re not starting fresh. You’re coming in half way. It’s just like life. If you join a business, there’s already work in progress. It’s getting people to embrace the moving train and just get on board to make it better. But still feeling they’re part of the village that makes the ultimate product. It’s interesting that a lot of us have been encouraged over the years to be selfish in the way we look at our work. Ultimately you’ve got to build a book of the things you have conceptualized and worked on over the years. But the reality is that a lot of what you are doing is really coming from a team, and you need a director, a programmer, a UX person, and all these other people to make it happen. I think it’s Kevin Roberts that said ideas are like assholes, everyone’s got one – it’s what happens with the idea and how it comes to life that really counts. There’s a business at the end of it that also needs to benefit from your ideas. I’m seeing a lot of that thinking change within agencies in the US. Everyone is trimming back, and we’re bringing hybrid type people in. I’ve got people who aren’t traditional art directors but by god can they produce a beautiful piece of work. Man, there’s an awesome guy named Manny Bernardez I discovered at Nike. I plucked him out and he really helped change the shape of our work. He can design, shoot, edit and wield After Effects like a champ. He helped produce a really nice little piece for United Way for us recently.

Jr: For people who read Junior who are coming through the ranks and doing uni courses, do you think the skill set of a creative is going to change vastly?

H: I think I’ve seen it changing already. Some schools seem to be catching up faster than others. RMIT seem to be on top of it. I’ve done a lot of work with Miami Ad School over the years, and they’ve really changed their shape too. They’re producing these hybrid students who come out and have a real firm grasp on the fact that you are in the business of creativity. That’s very different from even ten years ago.

Jr: So are you imagining that your art director would even have skills in motion, filming, etc?

H: Yep, and they don’t necessarily have to be able to produce a hard core coded flash thing or know how to shoot the perfect shot – just to have a grip on how it all goes together. Look at the classic Art Director/Writer team, I’ve got a diagram I share with my team, that shows it’s not so long ago that it was just the Copywriter. Then the Art Director was let out of the studio, then planners came in, and if you look at the cast of people that it now takes to produce a piece of work, it’s as long as your arm. If you look at the skill set of each discipline, in a spectrum, there is so much crossover. Design, art direction, user experience, where does it start and stop? Planning and user experience — a user experience person is hard-core information architect at one end, but neuroscientist at the other. Planning is neuroscience at one end, and hard-core statistics and insights on the other. It’s a bloody awesome time. Then I look at companies like Ideo, they’re inventing business ideas. I really honestly believe that agencies moving forward need to be so bound so tightly into what their clients do, that they’re delivering business concepts based on human insights as much as they are marketing pieces. I clearly wasn’t around then, but that’s kind of how it used to happen. In 1935, Ray Mithun said that “everything talks”. His belief was that every single little thing, around a product or a service, has to have a tone, a manner, and deliver a service that reflects the underlying message. His belief was to get in deep. So deep, that you’re delivering business solutions, not just ads. We should be inventing stuff to take it to our clients. Constantly. And I reckon the appetite for new thinking is growing.

We’ve got this social based idea for Mayo Clinic, that directly reflects their wonderful collaborative nature. It’s called Mayo Connect and it facilitates the connection of people with particular concerns or ailments, with qualified experts who have dealt with the same affliction. It helps people share their concerns and approach their issue with more confidence and support. To me this is awesome, that we can have an effect on someone’s life, as advertisers.

Jr: It feels like that the best work, the stuff that consumers really pay attention to, are those kind of ideas these days. That’s where the bar is these days for advertisers. You’ve worked here in Melbourne, and now you’ve been working in the US for the last five years. Do you think those business changing ideas are more common in the US than in Melbourne? Do you think we are catching up still to that thinking?

H: Depends in what category I think. I think I often see more courageous thinking outside of the US. But volume and access to technology here is enabling people to experiment. I am starting to see clients start to stick their necks out a little more.

Jr: But obviously the US has the scale.

H: Like I said, scale helps, and it has the dollars. Reduced significantly, but it has the volume. Volume means you can take a bit more risk. But they’re also more risk adverse so you need to eat the elephant a bite at a time.

Jr: We hear things move a bit more slowly over there.

H: There’s a lot of layers in businesses here. Loads of titles and politics. We tend to be a bit more ballsy in Australia. But let’s be honest, there’s a hell of a lot that’s the same. I think wanting to give things a go is in our DNA though. I’ll say things like “let’s just try it”, make something, take it to the client and see. There’s been a reluctance to do that. It’s like people have been emasculated. What we’re doing in our agency now is dedicating time to test the water. Make stuff and take it. Doing the real Aussie thing of barbed wire, string and sticky tape to make something and take it to see if they like it. If a client sees that it can be done, and you can demonstrate it to them, even if it’s fake, they’ll go for it.

Jr: Do you think that’s an important part of selling it?

H: I really think so. This entrepreneurial R&D mentality – you have to do it. Unless you can make it look like it can be done, they won’t go for it. Telling a story around things too – this is the one thing I’ve really noticed younger students from good schools are really able to do. The VCU students for example. It’s an awesome school. I’m seeing a lot of them really have a grip of how a brand lives in the middle of these fragmented media elements and how it might harness each one of these things to operate. I’m a huge believer that everything is kind of spherical. You’ve got this sphere, and depending on which place, which person, what time of day, and what device, you could be having a completely different story and conversation with them. Understanding that – this is why planning has become vital to what we do. And the big brands, like the Targets of the world – these guys are hiring neuroscientists into their teams to get deep down into human behavior. Agencies need to get almost under the next layer of skin of people.

Jr: Especially in the digital sense with all these layers, it’s a very different level of communication than just passing a billboard.

H: The thing I think is happening very quickly in the US is the separation between digital and traditional is disappearing. The reason why I was so interested in this gig I have now is that they’ve merged the two businesses. They’ve pulled the two hemispheres of the brain together. They’re forcing osmosis within the business. I saw a quote the other day that basically said, if you can’t accept where digital is at, that these digital media elements are here to stay, then you may as well retire. I’ve been banging on about this for years, I really honestly believe that it’s finally having a big influence. All the big campaigns that are cutting through the award shows have digital components. But I love the other stuff too – it’s finding the balance.

Jr: Here in Australia we have AWARD school, which has been around for years, kids at the end come out with a folio of essentially print ads. Which is great for showing a CD quickly how you think. From your end, in terms of hiring, what do you think kids these days should put in their books?

H: It’s still about the ideas. It has to be. The difference is now that ideas can be massive. Big campaigns, really genius little snippits, little snacks. I’d want to see a spread of those. It’s fine to have a bunch of print, but the reality is that the cost of developing a print ad and the lead times – a lot of clients have vastly reduced budgets. I’m in the final stages of editing a TV spot that had it’s budget cut after the ad was shot. So we are releasing the spot online now. We’ve got to work out how to be smarter and more effective in these tricky financial times. Every year – faster, cheaper, smarter. Sheeesh. I’d want to see a book that has a real spread of beautiful traditional ideas, because then I can get a grip of your art direction and writing because I still think that beautifully art directed and deliciously crafted words are a great demonstration of your visual and cerebral mindset, and being a thinker. Then I want to see that idea off the chain – a big organising idea, an umbrella thought, that’s campaigned out in different ways. The finance pressure that I’m under as a creative director means I can’t hire a one trick pony. It doesn’t mean you have to be able to code HTML, but you have to have a grip on every medium and what is possible.

Jr: Have people come around to the thinking that small is good? Especially in the online space, it seems like everyone is still of the mentality that the big campaign is what goes.

H: My writing partner Reid Holmes and I were chatting about this stuff today. We’ve had the “BIG” idea expectations for years. But a big idea can start very small now. A few years ago when the primary elections were on in the US – one of my team came to me and asked, if there was all this noise around Primary Elections, and we had Holiday Inn Express as a client and ‘It’s a smart choice’ (that’s their positioning) – wouldn’t politicians be smarter if they stayed there? We built a simple comparison site, showing how much smarter they would be if they had have stayed in Holiday Inn Express. It cost 98K, and in the first two week got 85 million free media impressions. You can’t buy that media. I think on the first broadcast on Fox News in the morning it was mentioned 17 times. That was awesome. All from a smart little thought. That stuff is super smart.

I’ve seen projects where someone has walked into the office and said, did you know that there are going to be two million 3D glasses handed out at the super bowl, and then someone else says well why don’t we do this.. and then it finds a head of steam. Bingo. It’s this collaboration that makes what we do gold. Our director of technology, Sean O’Brien, is a total legend. He’s basically a super smart hacker brain working in advertising. He’s got that experimental-entrepreneurial brain. That type of spirit really needs to be let off the chain.

The beauty now is it’s all so accessible. For years the digital teams played classic technical tricks, keeping it under the cloaks and then, tada! By keeping it collaborative, we’re growing things quicker and better than before, and doing it more often. It’s truly a great time to be doing what we do.

THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ADVERTISING, CAMPBELL MITHUN, HEATH RUDDUCK

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The Interview Series // 47

Tony. He hangs out with rock stars (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=EmF4v8AoKv0&feature=related), wins a shit load of awards, and I’m sure gets mocked for being a little bit ‘Special’. Ha! Oh, we’re so clever. A talented Art Director by trade, Tony is the ECD of one of NZ’s top ad agencies (http://www NULL.specialgroup NULL.co NULL.nz/), and is kicking goals left right and center in the creative scene — the world over. We don’t quite know where he fitted in a beer or three with us in the midst of all that, but we managed to ask him a few questions while we could.

Junior: Where did it all begin, take us back to the start?

Tony: That should only take a minute; Design school Auckland, I got bored of just design, and started doing advertising halfway through the course, much to the confusion of my tutors. I got a job here (Auckland) at a company that no longer exists called DMB&B. I did an ad, which got a bunch of attention. Went to London, had fun for seven and a half years, spent mainly in bars. Then went to Amsterdam for two and a half years working on Volvo across Europe. Then I came back to New Zealand as the Creative Director for Generator for about two years, resigned when it was sold, started Special. Three years later, we are here.

Jr: What is your best tip for juniors starting their creative career?

T: Well besides the obvious things that you can’t control… (an older man interrupts our conversation. He looks similar to a actor off a 70′s cop show)

Older man that looks like a 70′s cop: (slightly slurred and angry tone) I thought leaving my drink and my glasses would be enough to reserve my seat while I was gone.

T: So are you saying that you want your seat back?

Jr: We can move if you want?

Older man that looks like a 70′s cop: I’ll move inside.

T: Besides things you can’t control like being really, really good or being really lucky. I’d say be positive and really enthusiastic and basically keep coming up with ideas. Don’t stop or go home early, don’t think that this idea is good enough or that will do. You’ve got to keep going. The other thing is you have to make yourself indispensable. Be hungry for everything. Everything is an opportunity — even if it is just a brief for a banner, you can still try to do something really good for it.

Jr: What is the trick to winning 8 Gold Axis awards, The Best in Show Axis, a Grand Prix at Cannes, which ranked Special as the 8th best Independent Agency in the world — then come back to New Zealand to win National Business Review Agency of the Year, Fairfax Independent Agency of the Year, as well as taking home USD $10,000 for the Grand Prix at Adstars — all in 2010?

T: Don’t sleep? Ha. I think a lot of that stuff was achieved through being ambitious. Not thinking you can or can’t do things. So I think it is really about thinking ‘why couldn’t we do this?’, or ‘why couldn’t you try and do that?’. With the Iggy thing I think there was a bit of luck in pulling that campaign off, timing and everything else worked really well, but the main thing about it was ambition – believing ‘sure we can sell this’, ‘sure we can get Iggy’, ‘sure it will work.’ The other thing about it is we started Special to do things our own way, and to do things better, and as soon as you say that — you put yourself out there. You put your neck on the chopping block. There is no hiding; people know it’s your agency and your work — you can’t blame anyone else. So you have to try really hard to avoid screwing up in public in a big way. Which means working every weekend and working every night, very late.

Jr: Was it fun hanging out with Iggy Pop?

T: Yep, he is very cool. He was pretty focused. We met him by the roof top pool at our hotel in Miami, and besides taking his shirt of in the first two minutes, he was very focused on the orchestration of it. He really looked at the different people and had already worked out in his own mind the structure of the song. He was really pleased with how the ad was received, and how much acclaim it got worldwide. We had dinner with his manager, who is a really nice Scottish guy, when Iggy was playing at the Big Day Out this year. He told us over dinner that Iggy kept talking about this Grand Prix and how much he really liked it etc, so we ended up giving it to him backstage at the Big Day Out. We thought we’d had enough use out of it so he may as well have it. He was chuffed.

Jr: How do you live a balanced life?

T: 3 of the 4 partners at Special have young kids, so we normally finish up at 5:30pm or 6pm and go home to bath time and all the rest of it. I know it doesn’t sound that rock and roll. Then we turn the laptops on again about 9:30pm. You have to work very quickly and be very focused. You can’t muck around. Then the big trick is to put down the iPhone the rest of the time you’re at home. Otherwise it is too much of a distraction.

Jr: What floats your boat when you are looking through a junior’s book?

T: I would say, actually, not ads that look like classic award winning press ads, or ads that look like they are created for Luerzers Archive. I guess I want to see ideas that are a little broader or a little bit different, as opposed to just big visual and little logo. I want to see ideas that are more engaging and involving, just interesting, different stuff really. Because what you are really looking for is how someone thinks.

Jr: How much digital should we have in our book?

T: Digital is so important. Almost everything thing you do now has a digital component to it. Good uses, or misuses of digital are great to have in your book. Often the trick is to make technology really simple. Don’t be put off if you haven’t actually made anything digital – it’s the simple, engaging ideas people will be looking for. But yeah – pack your book full of digital thinking.

Jr: What’s your best/worst junior story?

T: Nah, they’re all pretty boring really. Look, starting out is tough. Everyone knows that, you’ve got to work your socks off and hopefully you can get a chance to create some good stuff. You’ve also got to look for opportunities, not wait for them to be handed to you.

Jr: If you could do your creative career again what would you do differently?

T: Shit, I don’t know. Work at better agencies, work under better Creative Directors. I really think it is all about working with better people. It is one of the key things. It makes it more enjoyable. You respect their opinion more. If you work in agencies that want to do good work rather than agencies that want to do things for other reasons you will have a better time.

Jr: Do you think you need to be at a great agency to do great work?

T: No, but it definitely helps. By a huge amount, but no, that is not essential, but it helps a heck of a lot.

Jr: What keeps you inspired?

T: I guess all creatives like the excitement of ideas. They like seeing things come to life and getting out there in the world and seeing how the public react to it. I also think creatives are highly competitive so that always keeps you motivated. I think also personal pride and fear of embarrassment keep you motivated. You don’t want to do stuff that people don’t like. Even though there is nothing wrong with doing work that polarizes, there is nothing wrong with doing work that a bunch of people don’t like as long — as the right people react the right way to it, in other words, as long as it creates the right results. Was that an answer?

Jr: Yeah, that was good. What is your best/worst moment in advertising?

T: Well one of the best moments was winning our first bit of business for Special. I think that was good, basically because it says you’re up, you’re away.

The worst moment in advertising? Shit, that is a tough one, there have been lots of tough moments. I guess the worst moment is when you see an idea that you believed was going to be great, turn out not as good as it could be, for whatever reason. You kinda die a little bit inside, so yeah that is kinda the worst bit for me.

Jr: Do you have time to do other creative stuff apart from advertising – have you got a side project?

T: I used to have a few. But now I have young children, and Special. Both are really consuming.

Jr: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

T: That’s a good question. I’d be a bit old by then. That’s a tough one, I don’t really have a smart enough answer for that one, sorry!

Jr: How does the NZ/Australian junior creative scene stack up to the rest of the world?

T: I think New Zealand has had a really good history in Young Guns and young teams doing really well in award shows. I think NZ punches above it’s weight creatively, as we said at Axis last year, per capita NZ had more Cannes Lions than anywhere else in the world. Also, New Zealand junior creatives seem to be quite broad and flexible thinkers, which I think really helps.

Jr: How do you get ideas?

T: I think it is about distilling the business problem down and down, until you can get it into a malleable size in terms of focusing on what we really are trying to do here. Once you strip away all the layers of the brief, you get to what you are really trying to achieve. Then once you’ve got that in your mind, then you can generally work out interesting ways of bringing that to life. But I think it is about keeping things simple, that doesn’t mean you can’t be spectacular. But it is getting right down to that thing you want to say, and then doing something extraordinary with it. And throw in a rockstar, it always helps.

Interview by: Jono Kemps

ADVERTISING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ADVERTISING, AUCKLAND, SPECIAL, TONY BRADBOURNE

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 30

Scott Thomas, also known as Simple Scott (http://simplescott NULL.com/), was the Design Director who helped to get Barack Obama elected as American president in 2008. Scott is not your typical designer, that much is true, although the typical designer should certainly be more like Scott. He’s an incredibly articulate and clear thinker heavily influenced by architecture, modernism and the human experience. All of which make his work completely utilitarian in the best way possible; people seem to interact with the websites he creates and the communications he’s published in an astonishingly involved way. But aside from all that intellectual hoo-hah, Scott is a totally gracious bro from Chicago who knows his shit more than most. How to live life better, how to find meaning in your work, what to do when things aren’t working, how to have friends and still have a fulfilling career… At least all the stuff we were dying to know, cause, you know, if it’s good enough for Barry Obammy, it’s good enough for you.

Junior: Scott, something’s been bugging me about this ‘successful career’ thing for a little while now… How do you have friends and still find time to indulge in the deep-thinking and hard-work a ‘successful career’ requires? Especially when you’re young.

Scott Thomas: I think it’s important to understand time. Everyone is in a rush. Many people don’t spend time enjoying things and living in the present moment. With work, when there are those times that you can’t take it any longer, you have to step away from it. Go do something fun, go hang out with your friends.

However, I also feel in those same instances where it’s important to walk away from your work, it’s important to walk away from everything else for a while and just work. That’s where true concentration comes from. Concentration is hard nowadays; it’s becoming more and more difficult. iPhones are constantly buzzing, emails always coming through, YouTube clips to check out, Facebook messages popping up all over the place–you don’t really want all that distraction. In order to be truly successful and do something well you have to shut off the outside world for a while.

Jr: But how do you do that if your friends are persuasive people?

S: They’re persuasive, but you don’t let them persuade you.

Jr: So can I tell them to fuck off?

S: No, you shut them off. You close everything. You turn off your phone. You go out on the weekend and tell them, “Guys, I’m not going to see you for a week because I have to get stuff done. I’m not going to be accessible by phone and email and I won’t really respond much so… c’est la vie.”

Ideally, go someplace that doesn’t have internet. Then you can spend more time concentrating and working. It’s an ebb and flow. I’ve never really lived in NYC but I can imagine living here would be hard–I’m only here for a week or so once every couple of months and I don’t stop when I’m here, I’m constantly moving. I can see how NYC could be a distraction. But your network can grow vastly very quickly, especially if you can do something well.

Jr: New York is a great place to come when you are young and be social. But it’s not such a great place when you want to sit down and focus and do some work, especially work that is going to get you somewhere other than work that is just going to pay the bills.

S: Right. I think that’s the balancing act. For me I’ve always seen creatives struggle with it–”I’m going to go to New York to become famous!” No, you’re not, you’re going to go there and struggle paying for an apartment and struggle with your career. If you’re doing things well and you come here, and you already have some things established, then I think it’s the place to be. It’s just like everything else.

Personally I have a season where I don’t do anything. I hibernate in the winter. I keep in very mild contact with my friends, but it’s good for me. I need to be secluded when I work.

Jr: Have you always been like that?

S: Yeah, I studied architecture in college. Luckily the architecture studio is a quiet place. Typically I wouldn’t work there during the day, but I’d go there at night from about 7pm-3am. I’d spend hours working at night, and that was so helpful because I had no distraction, and no outside influence. If I have people around me I want to hear what they have to say.

Jr: Ah yes! I suppose that’s the difference between an office job and working freelance for yourself. At an office you have to deal with all the people around you and the politics that go with it. But when you’re freelancing, you get up in the morning, sit at your desk, and it’s just you. You have the decision whether you do work or not. There are no excuses.

S: I think that’s one thing that it definitely does–it allows you to form your own mind. I think the disease of a corporate environment is that you get stuck doing whatever they demand you to do. You’re a task man. You’re a yes man. You’re stuck in a world of checking things off the list your superiors are telling you to do, rather than following your passion, your desire, and asking the questions you wanted to ask.

Jr: Then again, you need mentors, and motivation, and a firm kick in the ass if you don’t have a sense of urgency in what you do.

S: I think the trick is to have close friends that you work with that will give you that kick in the ass, that will push you, inspire you, and drive you. Doing something completely alone–there is no real way to get a good product in the end. In order to grow you need constant influence at a young age. Constantly adding fuel to the fire.

Jr: So how did it happen for you? On the way here you were saying you studied architecture then dropped out?

S: I didn’t drop out so much, I kind of switched. I transferred and went to Iowa State and found that graphic design interested me. I didn’t know why, but I felt that architecture was too engineering based, too structural and not artistic enough. I wondered if I needed the freedom that graphic design was going to offer me. It was a difficult challenge for me early on, and I found that I actually needed a math problem and some structure. That’s why the web made so much sense to me. I started building websites pretty early on, in 1998.

Jr: Is that what you do now? Mostly web stuff?

S: I’m very web focused. I did the Vote for Change website. I created the architecture concept and worked with the developers to do it.

Jr: So you never did print?

S: Of course I did. The thing that got me jobs was that I could open up Photoshop and I knew branding–I’m a very multi-faceted designer.

Jr: Although it’s probably one of the most hirable skills at the moment–having web knowledge.

S: It is, but even more so if you’re also a real designer. Not only can I make your website work, but I can make it look good.

Jr: Where did you go after you finished college?

S: I was really unsatisfied just doing graphic design and I didn’t really enjoy it. I wanted to explore, so I went to London for almost a year. I didn’t really have plans when I went, I ended up working in music distribution.

Jr: Putting shit in envelopes and sending it to people?

S: No, I designed CD covers, cases and packaging. Brand stuff. It was a good chance to allow me to explore. But I wouldn’t claim any of that work to be good stuff in my eyes. I was an intern so I was getting paid, you know, crap. I also worked at a pub. It was an experience that kind of altered my perspective on things. It was the first time I was in a different culture, and I realised that there was a big world out there. After that, I went back to Iowa where my family is from.

Jr: Did you have anything to show for it?

S: Not really, I mean, I had a new haircut and wore fancy clothes. I was on a completely different planet when I got back. The people in Iowa knew that. My mind was completely on another planet. I was only there for six months or so. It was hard. It was a culture shock. I had serious anxiety from not wanting to be there, you know, I went back to fucking Iowa. The coolest thing there is cornfields and hay-bales. I tried to work on small bullshit projects freelancing to save up some money so I could get out as soon as possible. The best thing about it was after that, I was never the same person. I become instantly clear as did my understanding of everything.

Jr: What changes?

S: I think it’s the reality that you can go anywhere and do whatever you want to do. You can say, “I can do it, this is my future, I’m going to do it,” and not blink.

Jr: Yes. That stage where you realise you’re in complete control of the rest of your life.

S: This brings up an interesting subject of lucid dreaming and many people’s fascination with being able to control their dreams. Why would you want to control your dreams when you have complete control of your life?

Jr: Many people think they aren’t in control of their lives; that life is continually swirling in a vortex of other peoples shit. But they completely are in control–it’s just a matter of perspective.

S: Totally. You get stuck by the system. You’ve got all these forces telling you that you have to do this and you have to get a job and you have to work in a cubicle and this is life. “This is life son, welcome.”

Jr: Were your parents like that?

S: No, I was lucky. They supported me. I think that they realised early on that I had my mind made up. I told them I was going to move to Oregon and go to school, and they looked at me like I was crazy.

Jr: Why was it crazy?

S: Because it was so far away from them.

Jr: They didn’t have to financially support you at all?

S: I think that was the problem, I was paying for a bit of it and was realising how much it was costing me.

Jr: Most parents these days seem to be happier with whatever you do as long as they don’t have to pay for it. Which can be harder in some ways because you need that.

S: That support?

Jr: Yeah.

S: Especially when you are beginning to realise the necessity of money. Try as hard as you want to fight it, at the end of the day, you need it.

Jr: A lot of money when you’re a kid turns out to be nothing when you’re older.

S: I try not to think about money as much as possible.

Jr: London is more expensive than anywhere though. How did you cope there?

S: Again, you don’t think about money.

Jr: What about when you get into debt?

S: Think about how you are going to pay it off.

Jr: So what did you do when you moved from Iowa?

S: I moved to Chicago. I met some friends who invited me to come live with them, so I did. It was right downtown and I loved it instantly. My roommates were great, they were creative, and it was nice to be around people who were constantly doing stuff. I worked for quite a few years in user-determined design at IA Collaborative (http://www NULL.iacollaborative NULL.com/), analyzing all sorts of things. Everything was very focused on user experience, mostly products. Not online.

Jr: Solving human problems, rather than wondering where to stick the logo?

S: Yes, absolutely. It wasn’t focused on stylizing. For me it was very focused on the sort of stuff that you look at and think, “Wow, that’s so simple, why didn’t I think of that?” Analyzing those things and how they work. Trying to innovate new solutions. It made me dive deep, it was very immersive, an all encompassing job.

Jr: That’s the sort of education people need for solving problems.

S: Oh absolutely, it taught me so much–I learned a lot about how to approach user experience design. Now that I consider myself a user experience designer, a lot of people say, “What the hell does that mean? What do you design?” I want to design the entire experience and not limit myself to one chunk, one part of it. I don’t want to just design the logo, I want to design the bottle, the product, the packaging, the experience of when you open that door at the convenience store–I want to control all those senses. I think that’s my architectural mind coming out as well as branding, communication, design–everything.

Jr: Maybe that’s more design thinking than architecture?

S: Not necessarily. I think great architects want to have the ability to design everything in their space. Everything makes a huge impact. I personally believe that architects want to control the entire experience.

Jr: Is architecture the next step for you then?

S: Yes, absolutely. For me it’s a personal thing, it’s where my mind is most of the time. When I go away I draw more buildings in spaces than anything else. I take notes on places; how the height of a stair affected me. I think that way. It’s natural. That’s why the internet and what is happening technologically is another area I’m successful in and I think that my brain works well in.

In the same way that an architect connects spaces with one another, a web/interaction designer is connecting how our interactions connect with one another. As a web designer you’re not designing a poster. In fact, I’m not sure I could even design a poster anymore, I just don’t have that mind. A web designer is constantly creating a connections within a page, then from one page to the next. It’s far more of an experience and a way-finding device than anything else, so you have to be good at directing people to where they want to go.

Jr: What do you think is the biggest failing of most online user experiences that you see? What are some good ideas for kids when they get an digital brief and they want to make it better?

S: I think the biggest problem is being stuck in the creative conceptual realm. The web is not a place to explore conceptual artwork. It’s just not. Personality is not necessarily something you want to inject into a website. They’re utilitarian. They are there to supply you with the ability to find information, gather information, and then leave. There are obviously some sites where you can be more conceptual but the truly powerful sites in our web world today are utilitarian, like twitter and Facebook and YouTube.

The reason they are popular is that people can use them. They can use them very effectively as a means to an end. I’m gathering all my friends here and I can upload a video and share it with all my friends, or I can find any book in the world. That’s what the web is today.

I also think it’s important to stay away from projects that are just bad ideas. Sometimes I struggle with that when someone wants to pay you, but when you start knocking it out you see the site is never going to go anywhere because it’s a bad idea. That’s always hard. I bet the same occurs in architecture.

Jr: Probably. Maybe the same occurs in everything.

S: I’m not sure why I think architecture is the next general step for me, I think it’s also due to the fact that after the Obama campaign it’s really hard to take on a project that has that level of significance and importance. I’m really not sure if I want to take on that level of importance again or do something that big again.

Jr: What was the importance? That it changed the direction of the United States?

S: That and the design of the campaign. I don’t think that design has ever been done like that in politics. We focused more on trying to do things right, and quickly, and make things look good, and look right. Rather than just making things.

Jr: What was the difference on the Obama campaign? Why was that so different?

S: Because of the way the organisation was structured. We didn’t have a top-down organisation, we had a bottom-down organisation. Lets take choices of typography for example. If we started to use Gotham, it wasn’t like we had to go and speak to our bosses who had to then ask Barack. Obviously Barack Obama has no thoughts on typography. I go home and have wet dreams on typography so clearly they are going to trust me on that decision; they’re too busy to think about it anyway. So if I was to write a report on why I wanted to switch from Gill Sans to Gotham, it probably would never have gotten read and it also would have been a waste of time.

Jr: Is that what usually happens?

S: I feel like in most corporations you have to justify all of your reasons and ask the person above you so you don’t get fired. There’s all those systems in place. I hate the word ‘systems’, because it also means boxes, and coffins.

Jr: So basically they just trusted you to do the right thing, and it was pure luck that you were incredibly good, otherwise it might not have been such a success.

S: Ha, yes, I guess you’re right. Although I’m sure they wouldn’t call it luck. You know, I think it’s important to understand what the power of design is. The power of design is not saying a single thing but communicating a whole lot. If you’re a writer the best sentence you could write is probably the one with the fewest words possible. If it communicates everything you want to say in the smallest number of words possible that’s what you’re reaching for.

Jr: Simple is better.

S: I call myself Simple Scott, so of course I agree with that.

Jr: How simple can we get? How do you choose between using a typeface? Something as simple as that?

S: We can’t go into something that specific straight away. We need to talk about what simplicity is. The important thing to understand about simplicity is you need to dive deep into the complexity of the situation.

It takes one person to think about all the complexities in order for true simplicity to be derived. That seems crazy right? You have to dive to the edge of oblivion before you know what’s going on. I think that’s true. I think that you have to do the largest amount of analysis before you can make the most simple and elegant solution.

Jr: So you’re saying before you worked on the Obama campaign you knew everything about him and his policies and everything he was trying to achieve.

S: During. It was a constant process of learning. You’re not going to be able to know everything about everything. But you need to know a little bit about what the problem is. Like the voting process. The notion is that voting registration in the USA is a complex process. You need to think about what the problems you’re trying to solve are. Then once you know and understand that, you try to make the most elegant solution, then walk people through the process.

Simplicity is a difficult thing to wrap ones mind around. The only things that are simple are the things that are truly empty (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=PG4uRmTJUU8), that are truly void. The second you start adding a second variable it becomes complex. The design of a spoon is really complex when you boil it down. Something as simple as a spoon requires a lot of knowledge and understanding about human needs and the way we do things.

I think the beauty of simplicity, the reason I call myself Simple Scott, the reason I chose to make that my life’s work, is because I think it’s something that I can be constantly challenged by for the rest of my life. I can spend the rest of my life making things simpler and never get bored. I think everyone should find something like that. You think about some of the greatest minds in existence, like Albert Einstein, who was trying to take two theories and bring them into one basic idea, one unified theory. He never really reached it, but I don’t think he was ever really bored.

Jr: That’s right. Being constantly challenged. Which is a problem for many people who get a job somewhere and end up working 9-5 for ten years and not being that happy.

S: It happens all the time. People getting bored as hell or living out somebody else’s dream.

Jr: For many young people, especially those reading this interview, thirty seems like the roof in career terms. From your experience, can you offer any advice on how you put yourself in the perfect position so you can continue to grow and challenge yourself?

S: I have two plants in my house. One is a spider plant, and the other is something I can’t remember the name of. The interesting thing about the second plant is I bought it the week that I started at the campaign. It was a real little guy with four leaves. I bought it because I wanted to watch it grow. I knew that by working on the campaign, I was going to grow too–the plant was a representation of my personal growth. A plant doesn’t grow in a set path. It grows based on where the sun is, how much rain it gets, how much water it receives, how much attention it is having. All these elements play into the plant’s growth. It applies the same to us. If you take this as an analogy for the question, you don’t know which way your leaves are going to grow until they grow that way. It’s important to respect that, appreciate that, and to not look too far ahead into things.

Often times we want to have the answer to where we’re bound to go, but the truth is, we’re just here. If you spend your entire life living in the future you’re never going to enjoy the present and you’re never going to enjoy now. Then when all of a sudden you don’t have anything in the future to look towards, you don’t know how to appreciate the present. You become a sad old man. So I would suggest that everyone lives like a plant.

Jr: Sometimes things just happen, much like when you switched from architecture to design–you just know it’s the right thing to do at the time. And now with architecture, you’re about to begin on that journey, but who knows what strange and interesting places it will take you.

S: I might go back and teach for the rest of my life.

Jr: That could be the calling. I guess you need to leave it open for that.

S: Everyone needs that understanding and appreciation. I have a hard time with the notion of committing to anything at the present moment, and I think it’s because I’m really enjoying now. In the past I spent so much time living in the future that I started to forget why I was excited about life.

Jr: Well it sounds like you’re in a pretty great spot existentially now anyway. But how do you get there? How did you get there?

S: Time. Flow. I just got back from Japan. I was in Japan for two months. One of the things that I learned and really appreciated, and I learned a lot there, was this notion of master. Sensei. The notion of apprentice vs master. The difference between doing things as young people and old people. Sometimes we lose sight of that. We don’t want to listen to our elders or someone who has been in it for a while. Obviously it’s a double-edged sword, but our masters here are jaded by the fact that no one will listen to them. In Japan though, they are respected, welcomed and embraced. They’re able to flourish with it as well. I like that dichotomy there, the notion that the master is getting something from the youth that he teaches and the people that he teaches are getting the lessons of a lifetime. It’s a very structural society. They deal in hierarchy all the time. At a meeting everyone puts their business cards on a table and they’re ordered by who is more superior. It’s very structured.

Jr: So would you say structure is a good thing?

S: I don’t think Japanese people would consider it a good thing. I just think it’s interesting. I don’t think it happens here in the States. I think there’s a constant wanting to trump and to be better than.

Jr: It’s a good reason to get out, see different cultures and do different things, because for others something else works.

S: Yeah totally. I’ve never been in a society that was that much of a utopia. You could set your laptop on the table and walk away, and it would still be there. There’s no crime. There’s such a regard for the other person that that just doesn’t happen. Even in a place that is so dense. We’re talking about half of the people in the USA condensed into the size of California. But because Japan is so mountainous they only use 20% of their country. The rest is basically uninhabitable. Isn’t that crazy?

Jr: It certainly is. And you went there on sabbatical, which is another interesting topic. Your mentors told to go or your head might explode.

S: Yeah, people were telling me my head might pop off. Obviously after you do something really large like the Obama campaign, you know, take on a really big project and you accomplish it, after you cross that thing off the list, which for me a was an item that said, ‘win this fucking thing’, once that was checked I had no idea what to do next. I knew I didn’t want to go to Washington DC. I was offered a job at the Whitehouse, but I knew I wasn’t the right guy, though I would love to help the democracy further. I don’t think that it was the right time for me to help my country in that way.

Jr: Who came up with the idea for Japan?

S: I did, it was always a place I had wanted to explore. I wanted to go someplace where I wouldn’t be able to read anything, I wouldn’t see any typography that I understood, I wouldn’t be able to read any adverts. Everything ended up looking cute and kind of silly because I couldn’t read it, and that’s what I wanted. I wanted an escape from all of that, and I found it there. I found a great peace in Japan, even in a city as busy as Tokyo, which is very peaceful in areas, and there’s a great connection to nature even within the city. And there was stuff everywhere! All these interactions make up your experience, having more experiences increases the amount of knowledge that you have and possess, and the more you can potentially experience, the more that you can potentially know. I think it’s true for anybody.

If you have any passion to know yourself better than you knew it before, go someplace that is completely and utterly foreign to you. Go with no one else, go by yourself, go with no plans, and no conceptions about what it is going to be.

If you want a more in-depth look into how Scott engineered the Obama campaign, watch this speech he gave (http://vimeo NULL.com/9145266) at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago.

DESIGN, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged DESIGN, INSPIRATION, NEW YORK, OVERSEAS, SUCCESS

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 28

Alright, alright. We know what you’re thinking, “Another ad-guy? When you kids gonna get over this ad-schmer-tising thing, huh?” Well you’re right. Evan Fry (http://evanfry NULL.com) is an ad-guy. But he ain’t just any ad-guy–he’s a true-blue award-winning ex-Creative Director of Crispin Porter & Bogusky (http://cpbgroup NULL.com/) style ad-guy, and he has some good shit to say, so chill out, bro. That sort of heritage makes him better than most ad-guys, who on the whole are a dime-a-dozen, and definitely don’t look this good with a head wrapped in ostrich feathers. He just left CP+B to start up the world’s first ad agency utilising the power of crowd-sourcing, named Victors & Spoils (http://victorsandspoils NULL.com/). That’s pretty cool-magool if you ask us. You know what else makes Evan cooler than most? He’s an old-school copywriter. Which tends to be rare these days. So if you’re one of the few who want to take up the lost art of copywriting, listen to what Evan has to say. You can actually use his advice–which is darn considerate of him, seeing as most of these so-called ‘ad-guys’ have a lot to say about nothing. In summation: Evan Fry ain’t just your average ad-guy, he’s a super-talented old-school copywriting mega-machine, and wants you to Be Fucking Awesome (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/).

Junior: We heard somewhere that you’ve got a crazy story about getting a job at Crispin Porter + Bogusky (http://cpbgroup NULL.com/). Apparently it’s a ‘doozy’. May as well tell us the whole thing!

Evan Fry: Sure. But it’s a long one. It basically began with me having been fired from the job I had and sending my book to Crispin. At that point, this was the spring of 2002, I had been a writer/ACD for 8 years already, and I wanted to work for CP+B more than anywhere else–so I sent my book. About a month after I sent it in they returned it to me with a form letter, “signed” by Alex Bogusky (http://alexbogusky NULL.posterous NULL.com/) himself. It was encouraging, but standard. Very professional of them to be that on top of their shit, I thought. And then I forgot about it. About two months later, after becoming a bit bored of not getting much play from the shops I truly wanted to work for, I had an idea: what if I acted as though that letter really was a sincere letter from Alex to me, and started sending him weird notes from the stance of ‘jilted-lover-gone-psycho-at-not-getting-any-more-letters-from-Alex’?

So I got some really precious stationery like a grandma might use, a super nice calligraphy pen, and went to it. My thought was keep them short, keep them anonymous, and keep them weird. And not think for a minute that Alex himself would ever even get them. I think the first one said, in really weird cursive, “It’s been two months since you last wrote me, Alex. Don’t you love me anymore, Alex?” Nothing else. A few days later I sent another one. And then another, after a few more days. For the fourth one, I reduced a photocopy of the original form letter he’d sent me, but used black permanent marker and inked out my name on it. I accompanied it with a psycho note on the psycho stationery that this time said, “Perhaps by now, Alex, you’re wondering who the hell I am? Well maybe I’m a lot like you, Alex.”

Four days later as I was thinking about how to take it up a notch, I got a FedEx delivery. It was from Miami. When I opened it, it was clear something was weird. There was another envelope inside. And then inside that envelope was a Ziploc bag. It had the vibe of an evidence bag like in lawyer movies. I opened the Ziploc and there was a Photostat-camera blowup of the part of the form letter I’d sent where I’d inked out my name. But by blowing it up 10 times, its size had revealed the name under the ink. ‘Evan’, just huge. Stapled to it was a copy of my letter, and in red ink someone had circled “… who the hell I am.” And that was it. It was all just one big fucking “touché, motherfucker. We got you.”

I was psyched beyond belief. Because all of a sudden I had concrete proof that not only had my letters been getting to him, but they’d been actually getting to him, you know? And he took some time and effort to play the game. So I immediately loved Alex. And the day after I got the envelope, Veronica Padilla, his assistant at the time, called for my book again. I thought I had a job in the bag, or at least a flight out. But it didn’t work like that. I didn’t hear anything for weeks.

By then I’d started a whole other self promotion idea where I was mailing a weekly photo of myself to the top 30 or 40 creative directors around the world who I wanted to work with. Each one was literally just a 4×6 photo – showing how much time I had on my hands. Like, in one I was having a tea party with stuffed animals. In another I was drinking tallboys with bums on the street. On the back of each, every week, I wrote in pen something that went with it, like, “God I need some work,” and I’d include my phone number.

So I had these going on, and was also sending them to Alex. But I still didn’t hear from him. However the photos were working, and I was getting a lot of great freelance so I didn’t care as much, although CP+B was still where I really wanted to be.

About six weeks later Alex himself finally called and said, “I’ve been meaning to call you, why don’t you fly out.” I did, and had a great interview. Thought I had it in the bag for sure, and… didn’t. He didn’t have a slot for me. So I kept the weekly photos going, kept freelancing, and then four months later I was freelancing at Mad Dogs & Englishmen (http://www NULL.maddogsandenglishmen NULL.com/door NULL.html) in San Francisco and got a message on my answering machine. “Hey Evan, it’s Alex, call Veronica back and tell her the code word is pineapple.” I called her back and she said Alex wanted to offer me a job. It was literally one of the best days of my life. P-e-r-s-e-v-e-r-a-n-c-e.

Jr: Wow. Ok. That definitely is a doozy. It’s nice to see someone with experience and good work struggle like the best of us. In fact, your website mentions that at twenty-six you “weren’t exactly setting the advertising world on fire”. How did you push through that? Did you ever want to give it up and go mountain biking for good?

E: Oh man, you got that right. Actually, a few times. I got out of school from the University of Oregon and unlike my partner in school, Glenn Cole, I didn’t take a good job out of school. My book was shit and I spent a year working on it but the only job I could land was at the ‘third biggest place in Portland’ – which basically means nowhere you’ve ever heard of. And even though I only stayed there a year, it seemed my destiny was sort of set. I couldn’t get play in the Weidens (http://www NULL.wk NULL.com/) or the Goodbys (http://www NULL.goodbysilverstein NULL.com/) of the day, so I was just floating around at the mediocre places, like 95% of us.

I moved to San Francisco in 1996 and experienced more of the same. But I moved to be in a bigger market with more chances. I kept at it, kept trying, and just didn’t give up. I guess that’s why I ended that last question by saying perseverance. That’s really the only answer when you feel like you’ve got what it takes, when you know that in your heart. If you know you’re good and you know you’re smart but can’t seem to get a break, you’ve got to prove how smart you are and make your own break. I’m 100% convinced of that.

Jr: You’ve written your entire career. But a lot of young people aren’t taught hardcore writing anymore. From our experience, advertising education tends to be more ideas-focused. What advice would you give to young writers?

E: I think this is true. I went to a School of Journalism program, and was lucky enough to be a decent writer just inherently, I dare say. And then in school at University of Oregon, I was also lucky to have two great ad professors who were classically trained. So the mix was pure writing and grammar, mixed with classic concepting classes, and barebones, fucking copywriting courses. It didn’t hurt to have Dan Weiden (http://danwiedensuperdad NULL.blogspot NULL.com/) himself teaching a couple of intensive seminars. But today, you’re right–ad programs stress concepts first, at best. Copywriters today, I swear to God, most of them shouldn’t call themselves “writers” at all. But it’s not really the game now, nor is it anyone’s fault really.

The advice I would give is to read a lot. And to pick up the book Grammar for Journalists (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Grammar-Journalists-E-L-Callihan/dp/0801968232) and study it like there’s going to be a quiz on it every day. I’d also say to use self-discipline. And read The Book of Gossage (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Book-Gossage-Howard-Luck/dp/0962141534). Teach yourself. If you’re a copywriter who can actually write, you’re set for life. Love the headline, love long copy, do it all the time, get better at it, write hundreds of options for each headline idea. Treat it like a craft. That’s what it is. I still love to write ads.

Jr: Do you get the urge/time to do any writing or other creative stuff outside of advertising?

E: Nope. I really don’t, not writing. I get the urge to do other things besides advertising though. And I do those things. It’s why I started sharklove.com (http://sharklove NULL.com/) and also befuckingawesome.com (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/). Be Fucking Awesome, especially, is just a labour of love. I kept having this idea where I would write a book that would be a sort of “guide for living.” I had this idea for a title and it was “How to Be Fucking Awesome.” This was while I was really cranking at CP+B, on the road producing all the time. So I didn’t really have the energy to do it, but I bought the URL befuckingawesome.com (http://befuckingawesome NULL.com/) and felt good enough about doing that. Then I just sat on it for a couple years.

Finally I had John Parker, my partner at the time and now a CD at W+K New York, do up a branding identity for BFA. He rocked it. And it sat there again. Then I had the idea to tweak it into a social network of sorts where you could post your Fucking Awesome deeds, let the world vote on each one, and those votes would contribute to your Awesome Quotient. So then I fucking had to do it. And that’s what I did. I found another amazing designer to help with the design, a fantastically talented developer, and sunk a lot of my own money into paying him to develop it. It’s been live now since the end of September. It isn’t really taking off the way I’d hoped, but I am learning a whole lot from it and know what to try to make it take off more. It’s really satisfying, in some ways. But mostly, it’s just a massive learning experience.

Jr: So, now that you’ve left CP+B to start your own agency, what can the world expect from Victors and Spoils (http://victorsandspoils NULL.com/)?

E: Good question. I think the world can expect to see a viable new way of coming up with ideas for the advertising industry. A way where the clients feel like they get the service and attention that traditional agencies give, but ideas and work that is devised from a much broader base of amateurs and/or the users of their products and services–then directed and shaped to be on brand and on brief. So it’ll feel like an ad agency to the client, but engage the world to help solve their business problems. What we’re trying to do is show that there is a new way of doing things. A way that works and can let more people into the process. We’re all savvy critics of ads and marketing communications nowadays – because we’re exposed to it from birth. There are a lot of people out there who could be really good at it, and we want to give them a way of working on things just like those of us who went to school to become experts. There’s a shitload more to it than that, obviously. But the world can expect some really interesting briefs to work on for some really interesting clients. At least.

Jr: The business model you guys described on launch, was anything but ‘more of the same’, but there’s going to be the inevitable detraction from folks not into the whole model. Are crowd-sourcing naysayers the new ‘30-seconds-of-TV-is-the-only-media-we-need’ dinosaurs?

E: I don’t know; that’s a good question. There are naysayers out there. Basically what the internet gives people is a voice, and they love to use it to say how dumb everything is that isn’t their own idea. I learned pretty fast after we launched that I just had to turn it off, it was exhausting trying to answer or consider everyone’s points. Which we still care a lot about, but so many people were just being so aggressively mean and negative, so full of hate, that we realized very fast that no answer would satisfy the vocal minority. It’s one of the most loaded issues out there right now and because we consciously launched with as much hoopla as we could create, we became the brightest bull’s-eye. It’s cool though; we intend to just continue doing our thing and trying to get some good clients and craft briefs that let people play with brands if they want to. If they don’t want to, that’s cool too.

Jr: How does a junior (or anyone for that matter) get a shot at working for a hot shop like CP+B or Victors & Spoils? Can you give us five awesome tips?

E: What if I give you one tip and explain the shit out of it?

Jr: Evan, you do what you feel…

E: Good.

1. Get really good at the craft of being a creative.

- Write down everything. Take notes as you learn. Take notes as you concept.

- Doodle as you think. Keep the pen moving.

- Do lots of options for everything. Only through looking at it can you know if something is better or worse than what you already have. Look at it.

- Take it seriously; don’t expect it to come easy. Focus on the brief. Do “concepting intervals” where you focus and write every idea down. Then have a break. Then get back to it.

- Sketch everything. Go analog. Don’t fucking concept on your fucking laptop. Pad of paper. Pen or pencil. You alone, or you and your partner. Find somewhere to get in sync and focus and riff. When writing headlines, that’s when I think writing on your computer is good. But try using all caps, or two spaces between each headline. Treat it like art, and have some pride for how the words look. Do a bunch. Edit them a little. Do a bunch more. Edit a little. Repeat. If you’re building your book, keep the presentation simple. But don’t ignore the presentation.

Jr: Is there life after advertising? Should advertising be a means to an end?

E: For me, I think there has to be. For anyone, for sure there can be. Depends on how much a boner it gives you, I guess.

Interview by: Pete Majarich (http://petermajarich NULL.com NULL.au/)

ADVERTISING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, COPYWRITING, CP+B, CREATIVITY, FOLIO, JOB HUNTING, SUCCESS, WRITING

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 27

Mike Sacks (http://www NULL.mikesacks NULL.com/) is a comedy writer who has done a good thing. After spending years writing words (both funny and serious) for Vanity Fair, Esquire, The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, and Vice, among others, he interviewed twenty-six comedy writing greats and packaged the result into a book–a terrific book of incredible genius, may we add. And Here’s the Kicker (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/) is full of only the best advice interviews can give. Those interviewed include Al Jaffee from Mad Magazine, Todd Hanson from The Onion, George Meyer from The Simpsons, and many others, who, if you would like, are available for you to peruse here (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/). We at Junior thought it might be interesting to see if any of this advice had rubbed off on Mike, which it clearly had, and the resulting interview quickly became a favourite in our office. We don’t even need to mention that the advice is pertinent for any creative industry. Except architecture. There’s nothing here for you*.

Jr: And Here’s the Kicker (http://www NULL.andheresthekicker NULL.com/) was such a great read! Every interview we read became a new favourite. Many of the guys you interviewed must have been your idols growing up. What was the interview process like? Fun? A party? Time consuming?

Mike: Yeah, it was fun, but it was also a lot of work. The finished product might have sounded like a casual conversation between two friends, but a tremendous amount of preparation went into each interview – up to 25 hours per conversation. There was also some pressure from my standpoint to make the interviews really work, because I knew that I often wouldn’t have a second chance with a lot of these writers.

With that said, the whole experience was great, but I’d never want to do it again. It took two years. It’s time to concentrate on something else: my next book will be a humor book. It’s a parody of a sex manual called Our Bodies, Our Junk.

Jr: Ha! Sounds hilarious already. One of our favourite quotes from your current book was from John Hodgman (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=8W51H1croBw) (Editors note: The PC!), who said that comedy writers shouldn’t worry about being funny. They should just concentrate on being the best writer they can be. And that the comedy will come from the truth. Do you have any similar bits of advice that have helped you in your career?

M: I think that’s a great piece of advice, too. When you look at the writers in the book, all of them can write in any genre, not just humor. David Sedaris (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=YBdymtyXt8Y) is a brilliant writer of anything, not just humor. You have to learn the chops of how to write before you even attempt to be funny.

As far as my own advice, I would say the following:

Network and surround yourself with as many talented people as possible. Don’t look at it as being a competition. It’s hard enough to make it alone, and it’ll only help to go through the process with others. More opportunities will open for you.

Write every day. Or try to.

I would be wary of classes. They’re usually taught by academics or by writers who haven’t been too successful themselves. I think you’re going to have to teach yourself in the end, anyway.

Read as much as possible, both the good and the bad. Sometimes it’s more important to know what not to write.

Don’t limit yourself to reading humour. Read non-fiction, on all sorts of topics.

Experience as much as possible.

If you do receive advice from someone, don’t be upset. Then again, it could be bad advice. Show your work to someone whose comedic sensibility you trust.

Jr: Gosh Mike! Such good succinct advice. You’ve almost answered all our questions in one hit! But we’ll keep going, because, well, we can. So what’s the best training in your view for a writer? Is it on the job? Trying to get your scripts up at an ad agency? Pitching to a magazine? Starting your own publication/site?

M: I think it depends on what type of writing you want to do. But no matter the medium, it’s very important to just do it. Write as much as possible, write what you want to write (and not what you think will interest those in Hollywood), and just keep on improving. You have to assume that no one’s going to really help you succeed. It’s up to you: not only to write, but to promote yourself and your work.

Jr: Creative types often seem to have a lot of talents. In our experience they sit on the generalist side of things more often than say, the guy who always knew he wanted to be an accountant. Do you ever get the urge to try your hand at anything else other than funny words on paper? Your IKEA gag in Esquire (http://www NULL.mikesacks NULL.com/wp/ikea-instructions/) for instance, isn’t so much a gag about the written word. A comic maybe? A hint at a directing career perhaps?

M: I wish I could draw and I wish I could direct, but I’m happy just trying to improve myself as a writer. But I do like to think of different type of ideas, such as the IKEA piece. In such a case, I try to work with really talented people who can pull off the visual look of a piece. I think that’s really important: work with the best people you can find. They’ll make you look really good in return.

Jr: What are your thoughts on the web as a creative medium? Web comics for instance seem to be full of some burgeoning, surrealist talent, like The Perry Bible Fellowship (http://pbfcomics NULL.com/?comic=random). Do you think the web will produce new ways of making people laugh beyond putting clips on laptops?

M: Oh, definitely. And I think it’s fantastic that anyone now can produce something creative without leaving their bedroom. In years past, one had to have access to an expensive camera or computer program or recording equipment, etc. Now, if you’re talented, you can easily find the way to create (and also distribute) your work. Which should give you less of an excuse to not work really hard. Anyone can do it now! Not just the sons and daughters of the Hollywood rich.

Jr: A common theme amongst creative types seems to be how hard-working they are. But then we also hear things like, ‘if you don’t have fun writing it, no one will have fun reading it’. How do you resolve the two in your mind?

M: Good question. I can only say that sometimes the process is rewarding, whereas not every moment is really that fun. I don’t think that a writer has to be screaming with laughter in order to produce a work that will be thought of as funny. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s similar to producing a piece of jewelery or creating a wood table in your woodworking shop. You know what you have to do and then you do it.

I think what most writers are talking about are the instances of it being tortuous. The reader will usually notice because the piece might be clunky or a little stiff. Some of the best writing usually happens very easily, but that’s not to say that it’s going to be easy every time. Everyone has a difficult time at one point or another, even those who have been in it for sixty years, such as Larry Gelbart (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=5MivXSpxkYY) or Irv Brecher (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=B1NeihzlBHo).

Jr: Larry and Irv are kings! Everyone should take advice from them. But the modern day game has changed! Things seem to be in a flux. We’re in a world where content creation is becoming more and more of a hazardous way to make money. Much of the print media like The New York Times and so many other newspapers and magazines are struggling. For folks whose livelihood depends on a vehicle, say a magazine column to flourish, what is the way forward? Do you think good writing will find new ways to thrive in the cracks or do you envision a world where cheaper and easier content like reality TV is all we have left?

M: I think there’s always going to be a need for quality work. The problem might exist more for the reader. There are just so many options now (millions of internet blogs and sites, hundred of cable channels, etc.) Where will one go? A reader might hit 30 places each day, as opposed to just one or two. I do think that the major newspapers and magazines are in trouble… Unless they drastically change their ways. I never understood why newspapers and magazines gave away content for free. It doesn’t make sense to me. If they want to retain quality writers, they’re going to have to charge for their services. And I don’t think readers will have much of a problem paying a nominal fee for a yearly on-line subscription to The NY Times or The New Yorker or any other great publication.

Jr: How much does geography matter when trying to make it as a writer?

M: I think networking is very important. If you want to write TV for Hollywood, it’s vital to know a lot of Hollywood people. If you want to write late-night TV in New York, you should be in New York. Once you’re established, I think it matters less, especially if you write books and articles and so forth. But if you’re just starting out, I would definitely recommend surrounding yourself with like-minded people. It can only help your career in the future. And it’s more healthy to go through the process and struggle together. Not to mention more fun.

Jr: So many comedy writers are from Ivy League schools (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Category:Harvard_Lampoon_members). Especially out of Harvard Lampoon fame (http://harvardlampoon NULL.com/). Why? Is it all about the connections?

M: I think a lot of Ivy Leaguers are obviously very intelligent, but I do think a lot of it has to do with connections. There almost seems to be a gateway from Harvard to Hollywood. I think it’s more difficult if you happen to come from a non-Ivy school, such as myself. I knew no one who was a writer, and actually, I didn’t know anyone who knew anyone who was a writer. The more connections you have, the easier it’s going to be. But it can be done if you work really hard and have some semblance of talent.

Jr: If you had a son or daughter who wanted to get into writing, what would you say to them?

M: Well, I have a daughter, and I’d love for her to get into writing, but not necessarily as a career. With that said, all careers are difficult in their own ways. And writing is a hell of a lot more fun than most jobs I’ve had, or could have had. I think it’s important to just know what you’re in for, though. Which is why I’m going to force my daughter to read my book, after she pays full purchase price, of course.

Jr: What’s the funniest thing in the world?

M: Anyone or anything who isn’t aware of their funniness, such as a dog, a monkey or a drunk person. The more aware you are of your cleverness or potential to amuse, the less clever and amusing you’re going to be.

Jr: What are you waiting for young comedy writers? Buy the book! (http://www NULL.amazon NULL.com/Heres-Kicker-Conversations-Writers-Industry/dp/1582975051/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225450095&sr=8-4)

Interview by: Pete Majarich (http://petermajarich NULL.com NULL.au/)

*Ha! Joke’s on you architects! It IS relevent. Read and weep.

THE INTERVIEW SERIES, WRITING | Also tagged COMEDY, COMEDY WRITING, FUNNY, HARVARD LAMPOON, HILARIOUS, HOLLYWOOD, INTERVIEWS, IVY LEAGUE, NETWORKING, NEW YORK, OVERSEAS, WRITING

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 25

Man or machine? Leo’s glowing global reputation as a ‘wunderkind’ will have you believe the latter. It was our supposition that surely he must be human — mortal and unfunny in real life — just like you or I. We ventured to New York City in order to find out, and the story goes thus: Three short years ago, Leo and his creative partner, Jan Jacobs, were anointed Saatchi & Saatchi New York’s joint Executive Creative Directors. At the time Leo was just 28. They left after one highly awarded year, joined forces again to set-up their own NYC-based agency, Johannes (http://www NULL.johannesleonardo NULL.com/) Leonardo (http://www NULL.johannesleonardo NULL.com/), and have been working harder than you in the two years since. Leo and Jan have created some of the naughties’ most awarded, hilarious, insightful, haunting, and incredibly succinct advertising you’ve likely seen or heard in London and the U.S — ads like this (http://adland NULL.tv/commercials/nspcc-ventriloquist-2003-060-uk), this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=YMkkQO5HUXM), this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=X2cs8gnb42A) and this (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=k6z3bGILwMg) — winning many lions and other assorted animal like statues. The jury is still out on Leo’s genetic make-up, for at the interview, Leo spewed mythical reams of advice from his lion-like mouth, then galloped off into the sunset laughing like a hyena. The Junior team turned to one-another, wide-eyed and mystified, mouths gaping like hungry, hungry hippos, gasping for air. Are we making this up? Yes. Without further ado — Leo, Leo, bo-bio. Banana-fanna-fo-fio. Mee-my-mio. Leeeee-o.

Junior: Hey Leo! Sorry about that ridiculous intro — our intern wrote it. He’s nuts. So first we wanna know, how did you get into the ad game? What was your journey from raw junior to respected senior?

Leo: It’s a little odd… I was coming out of an operation; my appendix had burst hours before I was due to board a plane to Germany for professional football trials. I woke up from the anesthetic with an advertising idea and my decision was made. I stuck to advertising. Which was a good thing because I wouldn’t have stood a chance at the whole football thing.

A couple of years before that I had been selected as one of the AFA trainees out of university. It probably helped to have an understanding of how the entire process worked from media, to strategy to account management. But it was most useful in making me absolutely desperate and determined to work in the creative department because I quickly realized I didn’t want to do any of those other things for a living.

Jr: We’re dying to know if have any stories from your time as a junior when life sucked? Any horror book crits or moments of creative block that made you reassess life and what you were doing?

L: Sure I did, I think everyone does. Don’t be intimidated by thinking creating great work comes completely naturally to some people. Truth is, anyone who is any good has spent hours and hours perfecting their craft and if they tell you otherwise they’re full of it.

And the same goes for ‘creative block’. I don’t want to sit here and say I never have it, of course I do. I think the trick is to try and not see it as ‘creative block’. See it as something that happens to everyone, something you just need to work through or come at from a different angle.

Jr: Wow. Yes. You have no idea how relieving that is to hear from you. You know what else is intimidating? Awards. Obviously you’ve won a lot. Everyone has their own take on what they mean and what they should mean. 99% would agree they mean nothing when compared to ‘creativity’ or ‘effectiveness’ or ‘selling lots of shit and making your client happy’. How important have they been to you and how should we as juniors approach the current award industry?

L: I remember being about 25, at Cannes for the fist time and winning 4 or so Cannes Lions. I realized pretty much right then and there that awards weren’t going to keep me excited about getting out of bed each morning.

At the end of the day the most important thing for any junior to do is understand what sort of creative person they want to be. Then to strike that balance of getting enough respect and trust to actually one day be able to create that path for yourself.

Personally, I believe award shows matter less now than they once did. Partly because there’s so many of them, and partly because everyone has a gazillion of them, including students, but more importantly because why would we care so much to see what a panel of 20 or so people think when we have the opportunity to see what millions of people think about our ideas?

The true reward for our creations now is seeing how they effect and touch the public.

Jr: Ah yes! But! If that be true, are award books worth looking at these days for inspiration or an education in ideas?

L: I think it’s important to know what’s been done before, and what hasn’t, to know the rules so you know how to break them, to know the history of work and of a category. As a junior you should soak up all the inspiration you can get.

I’d just say don’t try and replicate the stuff you see in books. We live in unique and as they say exponential times. Things are changing quicker than ever before, so what was good a year back has never become so old so quickly.

True inspiration though — that’s not in award books. It’s around us in the world we live. But if the books can help make the work better year upon year, and ultimately the stuff we force into the public’s face a little less crap, then I guess we should take them any which way we can.

Jr: Someone once told us, “Leo is a genius. He was also supported by brilliant ECDs at every agency he went to.” How important have your mentors been to how you approach your work and what should juniors look for in a brilliant mentor?

L: Absolutely crucial. Whenever I see a junior unsure of which agency to join I tell them to focus on the individuals there. Ultimately it’s the individuals there who will help guide you and who define those places during the time they spend there. I was lucky enough to work under some great ones, but even more than that I got to work alongside some as a junior writer. With Toby Talbot at Colenso BBDO and of course a few years later working with Jan at Saatchi & Saatchi London.

So I’ll always be appreciative of how much time senior creatives gave me when I was knocking on their doors with a bad portfolio. Granted I could be an absolute pain in the ass so it was probably easier to see me than not back then. There are great people out there, generous with their time and passionate about their jobs, it’s really just a matter of tracking them down and feeding off them.

Jr: Could you possibly speculate how important working internationally has been to your career? Can you imagine if you had stayed in Australia and where you might be now?

L: Probably a much better surfer than I am these days…

Advertising is a great vehicle to check out the rest of the world. But the strange thing is wherever I’ve ended up I’ve always been glad that I started out in Australia. When there isn’t a whole lot to rely in terms of budgets, production time and global media buys you’re only left with the strength of your idea so that’s what you focus on. Once you’ve learnt how to make your idea bullet proof, all those other layers, they only make your original idea better.

Jr: What’s your best advice for dealing with politics within an agency, both dealing with others and fighting for ideas, especially when you’re at the bottom rung of the hierarchy?

Work for someone you believe can spot good ideas. It’s that simple. Chances are part of the reason you got into this industry is because you realized the work rules. So take advantage of that as a junior. My advice would be don’t worry about the other stuff. More and more the true power will lie in the hands of creative people, and we all know the best ones aren’t political.

Jr: Obviously there are a lot of kids coming straight out of ad schools today with the same work for the same old clients with the same witty headlines and such… What are you looking for in a junior and what can those graduating from the ad schools do differently to stand out and impress someone like you?

L: The best way I can think to explain that is with something John Lennon said. He was once asked why he wrote music and he responded by comparing it to writing a letter. Writing the letter, he said, got him excited but what he really got off on was the response he would get to that letter. That’s it at its essence. We’re looking for people who have that thing inside them, that urge to touch people with their ideas, those who live for simplifying things down to a common language that effects people, deeply and broadly.

Of course, now you’re also trying to stand out during the biggest recession of our lifetimes. But I believe that soon this will be an advantage to the kids coming through. History has shown that when the slate is clean, when things are being re-appraised, and it’s happening on two levels in our industry right now – on a technological and an economic level, it’s the turn of the new guard to step up…

So don’t underestimate yourself, don’t set the bar at junior thinking. You’re competing with every kid out there with a digital camera and internet access. We live in a democratic era of communication, a time of accessibility and participation, where big production budgets can in some cases be more of a burden than a gift.

Jr: Generating ideas – what’s your process? Have you got any crucial tips to tackling a problem creatively?

L: I ain’t got any secrets. It happens differently every time, that’s part of the fun. I don’t really keep shortlists of my ideas. I know if it’s good enough it’ll stick around in my head – Jan calls it ‘the volt’. I would say though, don’t ignore the things that on the surface don’t seem crucial to creating great advertising. Like, spending time to identify what the real problem is – not just the advertising problem but the business problem, and embracing the limits imposed on you. It’s often there the real gem lies.

I also think it’s important to keep in mind, especially as a junior when you don’t have a ton of production experience that as big and important as coming up with the great idea, is understanding what about it will keep it great. Another reason why it’s so important which creative director you work under.

Jr: OK, enough of that cliche ad-guy question guff — how the hell do you live a balanced life? You obviously work really hard. Is that something that comes naturally or do you have to sacrifice things to make your life liveable outside of hard work?

L: Hard work has never felt like hard work because it’s something I’ve always loved. Reducing something down to is most basic form, I’m not sure how many other professions there are where you have the same tools as anyone else in the business irrelevant of your experience – a blank pad and a pen.

So for me loving what you do is the most important ingredient really. If people advise you against being a creative don’t listen to them, listen to your heart. If you’re passionate enough about what you do, you’ll work hard enough at it and the skill will eventually come. Just make sure you’ve instilled a healthy effort reward ratio. By that I mean make sure you’re always working on something you’re excited about – which usually means something you haven’t done before.

Jr: How far into the future do you look? You’re not that far past thirty and you’ve already achieved more accolades than many people achieve in their entire careers. We know you probably don’t buy into that sort of statement, but where to next? How often do you need to reassess your career and where it fits within your entire life? Do you even think about that shit?

L: I was made ECD of the Saatchi & Saatchi New York office when I was 28, and I remember when I would walk there across west 4th street, there was a faded chalk scribble that would always catch me out. It simply said ‘where are you going?’. Every time I read it, it made me think: where was I going? To another meeting? To a corner office? Over time, without me realizing it, I think these four words embedded themselves into my subconscious.

So when I look back on it now Jan and I left Saatchi and Saatchi because we kinda had this feeling inside we weren’t being pushed as much as we could be. We began directing a couple of things and really enjoyed that as a distraction. But we knew there was a bigger issue on the table. We felt the world around us was changing quicker than the big agency model could, and us if we stayed in one. So even if you don’t intend to look far ahead, I guess there’s something inside of us that does.

Best of luck juniors, I hope this helps.

ADVERTISING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ADVERTISING, CREATIVITY, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, NEW YORK, SUCCESS

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 24

woody

Most interviews we read in magazines are shit. It’s what inspires us to do what we do. That and other magazines that do brilliant interviews. Magazines like SneakerFreaker – Melbourne’s very own incredibly good and culturally important international publishing success. Founded, edited and owned by the original sneaker freaker himself, Woody has built SF into a global behemoth. He’s also seen his fair share of young upstarts float through his office, lived and worked overseas, moved from career to career, started a family, and even has SF translated into Spanish. Which means he has some fascinating shit to say and some incredibly crucial advice to give. As usual, over many a beer, we sat and talked for hours. Ergo, this fucker is long. But that’s cool, cause the ones who need to read it most have a lot of time on their hands. So grab a tea, put on your headphones and use this as a guide to figuring out what the hell you’re gonna do for the next twenty years.

Junior: Hey Woody. What’s your coming of age story? When were you at uni?

Woody: I spent five good years doing the Media course at RMIT in Melbourne. I was involved in a bunch of stuff and ended up becoming the co-editor of the student newspaper, Catalyst, which was literally a catalyst for me in terms of how my life panned out. I was introduced to a whole bunch of people who’d been the editors before and I ended up living with them for years, and for some reason they took me under their wing, which was weird because I was a wildman from the suburbs. Fitzroy was a very creative place then. We started a magazine from our house called Radar and had these awesome parties in the bank vault where we lived on Smith St. They were good times. I hate getting nostalgic when we’re only one question in…

Jr: Ha, man, you can do whatever you want one question in – it’s your interview. So tell me more about Catalyst; the student newspaper.

W: Oh yeah. So because we won an election to edit the newspaper, all of a sudden we had to learn how to make it; you know, write, design and create the whole thing. We were the first editors to get a Macintosh computer too. It was totally primitive before that point. We started the year with a bromide camera which we used to put screens on images for manual paste-up, as well as creating multiple tones for hand-made colour work which we did with scalpels. My memories involve a lot of sliced fingers and layouts lost in the wax machine. When we saw a scanner for the first time, we were really, really impressed. Actually my entire design career started when my friend Bert showed me how to move things around on the Mac screen. It’s hard to imagine how boring life was before the machines existed. No one I knew was a graphic designer. It was a trade, like being a plumber. People spent years learning how to do things in a really mechanical sort of way. When the computer came along, all of a sudden, you could have fun with a machine and make stuff. Straight away I really got into design which was totally unexpected. I never thought about a career in design at high school, where art classes were seen merely as a bludge. Random things can spin your life off in a whole new direction, it’s the kind of thing your mum tells you but you never believe her.

Jr: Damn straight. As long as you open yourself up to happy accidents you’ll be fine for sure. So we know you moved to London for a while after uni. What brought on the London thing?

W: I’d encourage everyone to head for the hills immediately after school finishes, because you’ll never get a better time to do it. But the real reason I left was because I almost got involved in some trouble with the fuzz after doing the O-book where we wrote the usual student articles about shoplifting and taking drugs and shoplifting while on drugs and not paying for tram tickets. All the cliches.

Jr: Ha! Wow. Really? That was you?

W: Oh yeah, it was par for the course in those days. It was a tradition to stir the pot so we just rewrote the same articles over and over every year. I think a year or two after my indiscretions they nailed the editors of Rabelais (another student newspaper) for the exact same type of content and it seriously fucked them for years – so going to London was a great move.

Jr: Sounds like it was. So what was the plan?

W: I thought I could parlay my limited experience into something design related, but all I really knew was that I didn’t want to work in a pub like every other aussie dingbat. I’m pleased to say I did one day as a street cleaner and that was enough motivation for me. I got so, so close to a design job at NME, which would have been awesome. I also made the final two for Penthouse as well. That would have been interesting for sure.

Jr: So were you into ‘The Face (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/groups/thefacemagazine/pool/)’ and all those types of magazines coming out of the UK at the time?

W: I was obsessed. I never felt iD so much but I loved Raygun (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/joekral/sets/72157621244439899/) and The Face. From a design point of view, Neville Brody (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Neville_Brody)’s work was great but it was the mix of content that hooked me. The Face made London seem underground and wicked cool and it had fashion and art and politics and serious stuff as well as loads of club news and even it has to be said, quite a few sneakers. It was probably the most effective marketing tool any city has ever had but you go there and you find that it’s a grey depressive shithole. But that’s only one visual side of London, the other is that it has the most vigorous youth culture – certainly it’s the top city for music in my opinion. I really regret not keeping my collection of The Face, I had years and years of them but they were too heavy to lug from house to house.

Jr: Ha, awesome. What year did you go?

W: 1993 or something.

Jr: OK, here’s a good question: For a lot of fresh faced uni kids that go overseas, the ‘big break’ rarely comes. They haven’t got any contacts, they haven’t done any work yet, so they’re not even that good.

W: Well the thing is they’re pretty much unemployable. Sorry to break it to you kids but it’s the truth, no matter how cocky you are. I think bullshitting is perfectly acceptable in order to get a break, just be sure you can do what you say you can do. I was fortunate enough to get picked up by a freelance agency. I also went to the UK at a time when no one really had the skills that I thought I had, so it was a bit easier in hindsight. My big break was to learn on the job at someone’s expense even if I taught myself.

Jr: What were the skills?

W: Well, I mean, desktop design as it used to be called. At that time it was Quark Express, a very early version of Photoshop and Illustrator – so the programs are still the same, but at that time no one knew how to use them. You couldn’t learn it anywhere. It wasn’t in the tertiary system. So I turned up to London expecting them to be high tech and super advanced but then realised I was one of maybe a few hundred people in the city at the time who knew anything at all about Macs.The advertising agency I worked for had no computers except for the receptionist’s PC. Everything in the creative department was done by hand and illustrators did all the mock ups with Yoken markers. It was seriously like the Dark Ages.

Jr: So who picked you up?

W: I started working for a few freelance agencies. I bought a suit to wear to big banks to create flow charts which I did for about three or four months.

Jr: Did you make much money?

W: I think I earned ten pounds an hour or something like that, which was pretty sharp in those days, certainly better than pulling pints. Luckily my agency really liked me and they gave me a crack at a job that was going at a small advertising agency in SoHo.

Jr: How long were you in London all up?

W: Quite a while. I developed a really bodgy English accent that got me through. I guess you could say I was slightly overstaying my welcome, officially speaking.

Jr: Ha, yeah we know the one. Did you make friends when you were there?

W: Yeah. I made all my friends, still ten or more years later, based on this time.

Jr: Really?

W: Yeah. All my closest English friends except one have emigrated here to Melbourne.

Jr: Wow! Really? Why?

W: It’s a great place to live. To come here from London and have sunshine and space and freedom and this ‘Neighbours’ lifestyle dare I say it, it gets more and more attractive as you get into your 30s. One of my oldest friends even had his mum emigrate. I think going back to London now would be pretty devastating from a lifestyle point of view. Melbourne has its weaknesses, but the lifestyle isn’t one, although with the price of houses now, we’re in danger of it becoming unaffordable for anyone creative or less than committed to the corporate grind.

Jr: A lot of people think the same way I suppose. Although London has all the culture and so on.

W: When you’re in your twenties and you’re mad for it, for sure. If you’re going out all night, every night, it’s a great place to live. It was absolutely brilliant, there was always something entertaining to do.

Jr: Did you do that? Did you go out all night, every night, while you were working?

W: I gave it a good nudge!

Jr: What happened when you came home?

W: After the usual case of mild post-travelling blues, I worked in advertising for a year at Patterson Bates (GPY&R). It wasn’t a great time for the company; I think they lost a lot of pitches. It was ok. I wasn’t excited about what I was doing. It wasn’t that creative. Maybe I should have been pushier and tried to get into writing TV ads or something. But my priorities were elsewhere, I was DJ’ing and organizing events at night and doing other stuff that was a lot more fun.

Jr: Did you like the advertising industry?

W: Yes and no. I was a little disenchanted creating junkmail which to be honest, which is what I did. In the 80s, it must have been a wild scene with so much money floating about. In London I arrived at the tail end of that and they were all misty eyed about these crazy times when, you know, ‘Steve rode his Harley down the hallway and crashed, knocking himself out on the photocopier’ or one classic I remember was when a new guy called Nobby joined the firm. The story was on his first day he managed to spill a Flaming Lamborghini on the boss and set his shirt on fire at dinner. In Australia it was much more conservative. I had green hair. It wasn’t going to end well and I wasn’t thinking about a career. I never have really.

Jr: The employment prospects haven’t always been great for school leavers have they?

W: Nope. When I left Uni, there was nothing going on. I think a lot of kids leaving university are facing a similar sort of situation. The pressure is to get a break somehow, but beyond that, if you are useful and you can justify your own existence at a company they will always find room for you. The hard thing is when you have no experience and you can’t prove that you can or can’t do something. You have to make yourself valuable.

Jr: Is that something that you had to work on? Making yourself valuable? Or were you just like that?

W: I wouldn’t say I ‘worked on it’. I just worked. The harder you work, the luckier you get. I was annoying, quite frankly. I got into radio by annoying people, and ended up working at various radio stations while at Uni. I bugged people til they let me have a go. I think that just being super keen is all you can really expect from somebody at a young age.Think about it, you can do whatever you want with your life but only if you have a crack. However, I think there are some things you can teach people and some things you can’t. An understanding of the world and how things interrelate – you can’t teach anyone that. It’s an instinctive thing. If you are going to work in fashion, you need to ‘get it’. There’s no point just trying to be in that industry because you think it’s glamorous or you’ll get to root models. You’ll be chewed up by someone who’d climb over your dead body for a job.

Jr: Have you gone through your fair share of young people who aren’t diligent at Sneaker Freaker?

W: We’ve had a pretty good track record. A few times I’ve tried to advertise and get someone out of college but never really found the right person. We’re a really small outfit and I don’t have time to teach someone from scratch. It’s frustrating for me but I learned that you can’t expect too much initially, you have to be patient and let them work it out. I’ve had some pretty funny experiences. One kid trying out for a job told me that I couldn’t teach him anything about Photoshop, and he’d probably been using it for two years. He was actually quite skilled, but I think his attitude alone rang bells for a potential employer. You want a little bit of cockiness but you don’t want someone who doesn’t listen and doesn’t think that they can’t learn. You mainly want accuracy and speed, that’s super important. That is one thing that the school environment doesn’t seem to promote in my experience. Young kids get tired and need a little nap to get back on track. It’s a grind. You’ve got to be productive 8 or 9 hours a day.

Jr: There’s a lot of talent going around, but not a lot of work ethic. I suppose there’s always going to be someone more talented than you, but it’s about how passionate you are and how hard you work.

W: True. I gotta say, the work ethic of Gen Y kids is a hot topic amongst my peers right now. I think that’s because they are now managing staff for the first time, but there’s definitely a sense that the GFC could be a good thing as it might take a few uppity kids down a peg or two. I’m not so sure this generation’s work ethic is that much different from my own Gen X clique… just a little more distracted by the overdose of technology.

Jr: What’s the most valuable skill to have aside from being keen?

W: A knack for networking. It’s a shit name for it but it is what it is. You can’t teach someone how to do it, though you might learn the secret someday through observation. It’s a vague business. Some people just have a knack at making friends with other people who can help them. That’s why starting a mag or writing a blog can become so universally useful. You meet people. Forget about the rest of it, meeting people and connecting the dots is crucial. You can base an entire career on knowing people.

Jr: Oh god, don’t get me started on social media and ‘networking’. I think we’ve got to be careful, you know. Everyone seems to get so caught up in the conversation and being part of the technology that they actually forget to do stuff. Everyone is talking about it, making comments, but not actually creating anything.

W: No shit! I picked up a biz card recently where this kid had over 12 ways of contacting them and I wondered how the hell he gets anything done? People get obsessed with Twitter, but six months ago something different was happening. I’ve seen it with trends, and in footwear, certain things have come and gone so fast I’m still scratching my head. I must admit the pace of change recently has really kicked up a gear. We’re now facing a world where TV, newspapers, magazines and even radio are no longer the foundation of our media diet. The porn industry is on its knees! Books are on the way out as well, at least in a printed sense. I’m really intrigued as to whether this new Kindle could really do for books what the iPod has done for music.

snkrfrkr

Jr: That’s an interesting point. Sneaker Freaker is kinda like a book. It’s a bit nicer than the usual magazine really. You must sell a few more older issues than any other magazine. Do you think the content goes out of date?

W: It does and it doesn’t. You can’t buy those shoes anymore, but every magazine becomes a document of its time so you can go back and still enjoy them as a snapshot of the years they were made. We sell a lot of our old issues, more than most magazines perhaps. Magazines are a good barometer of style and opinion and when you go back you do get a good insight into the times. We’ve been going about seven years or so and really the first one was pretty raw when you look at it. I have to say it was actually designed that way on purpose, but still, it was pretty loose. I wish I could have seen into the future.

Jr: Ha, I totally have that copy. How many people were working on it then?

W: The magazine didn’t have any staff for probably the first four years. Hans DC came to work with me part time helping in various ways. I wish I’d ramped it up earlier but I just didn’t have the foresight to go for it. I was also still working on my label called Wankuss (with my friend Alasdair McKinnon), as well as doing design work for films like Ned Kelly and Queen of the Damned and other stuff. I liked to keep my options open.

Jr: Really? It was just you? Wow. Back then a lot of clever people put out free magazines. I used to read Stu Magazine and Large whenever I could get my hands on them.

W: Stu was good. Vice came along. And Lucky. There were about seven free magazines floating around. Our first edition was free then I decided to charge for it. People still think it’s free.

Jr: Yeah it seemed to be the heyday of free magazines.

W: Yep. Not sure we’ll see too many new ones open up for business. But I have a killer idea for a new magazine that would be awesome which only proves how out of touch I really am.

Jr: Haha. Maybe. Maybe not. You’d probably be surprised. I’m sure that’s what people said when you came up with an idea So why sneakers?

W: I thought that I was one of the few people who were into sneakers, but then I could see it was bigger than I thought – there were a lot of guys like me who had 50 or 60 shoes in their closet but we didn’t know each other. Sneakers are one of those things that men can talk animatedly, dudes are really into their feet. It used to be about Air Max and chunky runners but it’s flipped on its head now. Pointer and Clae and Gourmet are doing very well, brands with simple things, not super jacked-up runners. Trends are definitely changing. You can’t stop progress, but it’s easy to feel like a dinosaur.

Jr: Was it difficult starting up a magazine?

W: Not really, because I only needed a few thousand dollars to get it printed. Then by issue two people wanted to buy it. Our first international customer was a very well known store in Paris.

Jr: Wow! How did they find you?

W: Through our website. We were one of the first online sneaker sites. The reason they are so renowned is because they find out about something before anyone else. They’re the top of their game. I was in there last week and it was mental how many people go in there. It’s like a tourist attraction! Once we went international I also had to learn about things like international shipping, which became crucial to the business growing. Boring things like this are so important and can be the difference between survival and death.

Jr: That’s the thing with publishing in Australia. You can print it here but then you’ve gotta ship all those heavy issues overseas. Some magazines print overseas and distribute it that way. Do you ever do that?

W: Once about five years ago we sold out of an issue in about a week and we got another order of 2000 copies. The reprint quote locally was nuts, so I found a printer in China and got them shipped straight out of there. I haven’t done it since. We’re still printed in Melbourne, five blocks from my house. It’s just too stressful to not know where your job and therefore your whole life is at. I remember all too well a launch party in Sydney where the magazines were still on a truck locked in the warehouse as a result of a snap industrial action.

Jr: Can you raise a family on a niche publication?

W: I can now. In the first few years I never had staff to pay so the overheads were low. I learned over time how to make money from a variety of sources. You can sell magazines, advertising, online banners, syndicate your content and do marketing for brands and product development. I have to say in every respect, I learned the hard way. Piece by piece. I learned a lot from watching other people and making mistakes. I also had to learn to trust people in other countries. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. I’ve been pretty lucky in that department.

Jr: And I guess you have that giant monolith Nike to buoy you up.

W: Nike has always been good to me, right from the start. But we are also supported by nearly every other brand in the footwear biz. If you wanna start a niche magazine, make sure what you do is invaluable to the marketing managers of multinational companies or you’ll forever be pushing shit uphill.

Jr: How would someone who really wants to work in big brand sneakers approach getting a job at a company like that? How do they go about it?

W: Actually we did a feature about how to get into the business a while back. There’s a few simple things. Every brand needs accountants and pen pushers but if you’re talking about shoe design, a lot of the guys at Nike and other brands are originally architects or sculptors, in other words they had an idea of three-dimensional space that could be translated to footwear. Shoe design school didn’t really exist til recently. Doing research on any company that you want to work for is a must. Knowing everything about them, but also having an understanding of how they hire is essential. If you want to work for adidas, find out how to get in contact with their HR department. Start on the phones or in their factory outlet and build your way up. There are plenty of CEOs who started in the mailroom. It’s also thinking strategically. Working for Sneaker Freaker could be a good way to get in as it’s an insight into the industry. Foot Locker wouldn’t hurt either. You need to know what you’re talking about and have a foundation of knowledge.

Jr: Loving sneakers isn’t enough at the end of the day; you have to have some sort of skill or craft.

W: Correct. Loving something can actually be a handicap, if you wanna be a hardass about it. When you love something too much, your opinion and judgment can be clouded by sentiment. But if it was me, I’d go for the passion every time. I think one of the biggest things that kids could learn is to be persistent. Some kids expect to start as a junior and take over the company in two years. Or if you start your own thing, that you’ll be rich overnight. The reality is that businesses mature over a few years and it takes you time to work out what you are actually doing, unless you are super advanced or lucky. It’s human nature that is probably exacerbated by this frantic model we’ve built up. Everyone wants everything yesterday. If only it was that easy… whatever happened to paying your dues?

Jr: I think that’s a wonderful point to make. Persistence is something we’re big on. But sometimes persistence isn’t even enough. You know, it’s really hard to do something big in such a small market place like Australia. Take publishing for example: If you want to get distribution of your magazines, you’ve got to be in a bigger market.

W: That’s true, but I don’t think that’s a reason not to do anything. It’s like procrastinators who never do anything because they’re too cool to put themselves out there or they think it’ll never work so why bother. Melbourne is full of creative people, the only problem is that most of them are, like anywhere else, mildly talented at best. The most talented ones find it a struggle to attract the same benefactors they’d find in Europe or the US. Look how many talented Australians have to leave? We are a nation of 22 million, the same size as greater New York. So to answer your question, you def need to be in a bigger market, but it’s not going to happen sitting on your date in Fitzroy drinking Chai and smoking rollies. You have to work your ass off. In my own world, I realised that if I wanted to succeed beyond Australia, I learned from others that staying home in my office wasn’t gonna make it happen. I’m on the road a lot.

Jr: Isn’t Sneaker Freaker translated into Spanish?

W: Yeah, it has been for the past two years. It’s been going really well and we have a great partner running the office over in Barcelona. I’m pretty sure we are the first Aussie magazine to be translated into a foreign language.

Jr: Do you ever think about moving it all overseas?

W: I have at different times, but this is where I’m from and this is where I’m staying. The footwear industry in Australia is in Melbourne. But I think I do regret not moving a bit. Maybe I’m just not the personality type to really take it to the max… Either way, we have been successful on our own terms which is just part of the story.

Jr: Maybe because you married and had kids. Was that the plan? To settle down?

W: I think that cycle of life is inevitable. I wish I’d had a family earlier in hindsight, but we can all look back and say that. Luckily I have a very understanding wife who encouraged me to go for it, even if she recently confided that she thought the magazine was a crazy idea and would be lucky to last six months.

Jr: Any plans to expand your team?

W: I would like to find an Editor to take over next year so I can spend some time working on different ideas. We are always looking for writers. But it’s hard to find anyone who can write these days, as well as have a command of sneakers. If anyone is interested they can email info@sneakerfreaker.com (info null@null sneakerfreaker NULL.com).

Jr: So that means that you could focus on running the business.

W: Absolutely, I could move to the Bahamas and sit under a palm tree with my blackberry.

Jr: And a cocktail! Any final advice for the kids who wanna start a magazine and make a living out of it?

W: My advice is go for it. What the hell. What’s the worst that can happen? You might go bankrupt and have to flee to Brazil… just don’t let anyone tell you something can’t be done or you’ve got a stupid idea. I had that plenty of times. How many people get rich from stupid ideas?

DESIGN, PUBLISHING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES, WRITING | Also tagged ADVERTISING, COMMITMENT, CREATIVITY, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, JOB HUNTING, LONDON, MAGAZINE, MELBOURNE, OVERSEAS, PUBLISHING, RMIT, SNEAKERFREAKER, SNEAKERS, WOODY, WORK, WRITING

Tag Archives: THE INTERVIEW SERIES

The Interview Series // 19

leeorbrown

Remember that emo-kid at school who ‘managed’ the punk band? Let’s call that kid ‘street smart kid’. ‘Street smart kid’ was the shit. He was creative, tenacious, focused, could get a hundred screaming kids along to some shitty gig in the sticks, and hacked up letterboxes with an axe after downing a bottle of Jimmy B at your fifteenth birthday. Where is ‘street smart kid’ now? Running that record label you want to work for, of course. This week we interview one such ‘street smart kid’ – Leeor Brown. His L.A based label, Friends of Friends (http://www NULL.fofmusic NULL.net/), sells limited edition tee-shirts and other tangible goods that come with a download code instead of a CD. He’s already done one with Daedelus (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/daedelusdarling), and Mos Def stole the idea with his newest release, so it must be the shiz-nit. We know there’s some ‘street smart kids’ reading this site – so why don’t you go out and start a label, y’all? Go on! It’s better than a real job. Fuck!

Junior: Why the hell did you start a record label? Aren’t all of those things going broke?

Leeor: Well, I think that’s debatable. Labels that have been around and built a business model on what was happening back in the day, treating it like a product based business, aren’t keeping up with the times. I saw an opportunity to do the things that labels used to do without nearly the same amount of overhead. There’s still money out there – people are still buying digital. Not at the same rate or the same amount of income earned as it was with CDs, but at the same time you spend a lot less money getting that release out and distributed these days. For me it’s about trying to do things differently, not spending that much money up front so the artists and label can see some money at the end of the day.

Jr: We read somewhere that vinyl sales were actually through the roof too.

L: Yeah in the last few years they went up something like a thousand percent where CD sales dropped off. The way I always look at it is that the people who are clamouring the most are the ones that made money, or established their business in that model, and that shit just doesn’t exist anymore. Not even just the major labels either, even the bigger indie labels that have been around for ten or fifteen years are struggling too because they created a whole business that now has to shift modes.

Jr: Definitely. You’re releasing your second EP soon right?

L: Yeah, we have one release out, Friends of Friends Volume 1. But I also have these remixes that came exclusively with the shirt for the first three months but I put those out on iTunes last month.
Our second release, Volume 2, is out September 15th and is this group Larytta (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/larytta). That’ll be the second shirt release. Then our first full length will be this dude Ernest Gonzales (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/theoryofeverything) in February.

Jr: Is the full length going to be just a shirt too or will it be something else?

L: No no no, it’s going to be a whole other thing. I’m pretty excited about it actually, I’ve got to say. I’ve gone big for Ernest’s record: we got 16 musicians to do covers, so there is a cover for every song on the full length, and then we got artists from around the world to do their interpretation of a song so there are 13 pieces of artwork that will be made into a book that comes with the download codes for the record, digital artwork, and covers.
The way I look at it especially with the word of mouth idea – we have sixteen remixers, fourteen artists, Ernest and his label, me and my label, and the label doing the vinyl. All of a sudden we have something like 40 people built into one release and talking about it or having a reason to get people excited for it. It’s instant promotion.

Jr: So have you made some mistakes so far? Anything you’d like to share with other first timers wanting to make their own label?

L: I mean, it’s all a learning process. I’m sure there have been a bunch but I have no idea yet. (laughs), I actually think about that all the time because I only launched in March – so I’m not even that far into it. At this point I’m still flying by the seat of my pants. Eventually I’ll be able to look back and be like, ‘God you fucked that up’, but for now there’s not too much. Again I’m not putting that much into it, financially that is, since it’s mostly just my time, it doesn’t feel like I’m making too many mistakes because I’m not really going to get screwed financially or anything.

Jr: Is it hard to convince artists or people that you’re working with to love the idea or do they love it just like we do?

L: For the most part people tend to jump right in. I tend to not work with a bunch of really established artists though, Daedelus (http://www NULL.myspace NULL.com/daedelusdarling) is probably the most well established artist I’ve worked with to date, and he is legitimately a close friend and if it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t have done the label. He kicked me in the ass more than a few times to make sure this went down. Besides that I try to work with artists that aren’t that well known and they are just hungry, they want to get their music out there. On top of that I have the ability to promote rather extensively so most artists are like ‘Oh this is dope, let’s do it.’ I’m sure I’ll run into a fair share of people who aren’t that into it, but for the most part the artists and press are loving it.

Jr: You’re a publicist at Terrorbird Media (http://terrorbird NULL.com/) right now too. How do you break into that world? Because it seems like that would help you with ideas and the progression of making them a reality.

L: Yeah it’s all been a slow build so far. I started off in college radio as a hip hop director at KZSC (http://kzsc NULL.org/) in Santa Cruz, got a job in radio promotion that I got over in a while, moved into online marketing and finally progressed into publicity. Basically all of my experience with my job was teaching me lessons about the music industry. Trying to talk with labels and artists and evaluating everyone’s situations and seeing how I might be able to fit into it. Slowly but surely I realized I have access to all these great artists and could promote because that’s what I did for a day job and that you can release things digitally for nothing! At the end of the day I realized I have this possible business in hand for a very minimal investment and it just kind of went from there. I have to say, I don’t know if somebody else could just up and do it like I did because I was lucky to already have certain things in place if I wanted to do them.

Jr: So one of the biggest assets for you was probably your network of creative people around you?

L: There’s no doubt about that. That’s kind of what the whole Friends of Friends notion came from because I knew I had this really awesome network of people but ultimately they were homies with all these people I didn’t know about, and they didn’t know me, but of course I know their music or something. So that was how the idea progressed. I didn’t want to be restricted to only the people I knew but I had to start the label that way. So the idea of Friends of Friends is that I can bring in the people I know but maybe they can bring in other and slowly and surely the word can spread between friends. “Oh hey I’m with this thing, it’s called Friends of Friends, you should check it out…”
I wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just about me, because that’s what a lot of labels tend to be and this was trying to expand on what network I already had in place.

Interview by: Pat Collins (http://www NULL.anotherpatrickcollins NULL.com/)

MUSIC, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged COMMITMENT, HUNGER, INSPIRATION, SUCCESS

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The Interview Series // 18

antkeogh

It’s a big interview. Very big interview. Can’t believe how big this interview is. Get it? We are mimicking that Cannes Lion winning ad for Carlton Draught, The Big Ad (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk). Everyone knows it. But does everyone know who made it? We do! It’s Ant! Hello Ant! (http://www NULL.antkeogh NULL.com/) He’s made many more ads (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=C03k3YScMHc) since then, possibly some (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=0QsGcOnju-I) better (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=_RqrdRqAr1Q) ones (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=1xozDXxwvcw), but we’re the kind of dudes who like to hook in our readers with a popular reference to something well-known to get you all excited. Are you excited? You better be. We’ve used up our word-count trying to hype this interview. Wanna know some trivia? Ant was in Kenny (http://en NULL.wikipedia NULL.org/wiki/Kenny_(2006_film))! That crazy movie about the dude who cleans toilets. He also thought his folio was terrible when he started out. There’s more trivia than that, but we can’t fit…

Junior: The information super highway told us that you were a talented illustrator as a child. Apparently everyone expected you to study fine art or become an illustrator. WTF? How did you end up in advertising?

Ant: Yeah. I went to University (RMIT) wanting to be an illustrator. But even back then RMIT was pretty advertising-centric. The illustration side of things was a little rigid at the time so I think I lost a bit of interest in that. So at the final year show I had some ads on the wall and a judge said your headlines are funny, you should try advertising. Then I visited (designer) Mimmo Cozzilino (http://mimmocozzolino NULL.com NULL.au/) and I think he said a similar thing and sent me onto Bruce Baldwin at the Campaign Palace. But basically my folio was pretty terrible at that point, just an even mixture of ads, design and illustration because I’d barely even laid eyes on an award book and didn’t really know what was possible. Then I worked for a year designing a magazine while at the same time doing Copyschool. That’s where I really learnt a lot about ads and met some of the people I could go and bug to give me a job.

Jr: And look at you now! Mr. Creative Director at Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne. How did you break into the industry. What was the first agency you worked at?

A: At Copyschool I teamed up with another writer. We offered to do briefs on spec for Y&R and then they produced our stuff which went onto win an award or two. After the awards they ended up offering us a job but we’d already taken a job at a smaller agency. Arhh! We stuck with the small place.

Jr: You stuck at the small place?! Eek. How’d you go getting through those first years in the industry? We all have a little trouble. What was your experience?

A: Yeah the first year actually wasn’t as scary as you would expect because Copyschool (which, back then, ran for nine months) actually got us used to working under pressure. I guess the learning curve was about actually making the ads. And that tiny agency that employed us? A year later, they retrenched us and then went out of business. So hopefully that’s encouragement for anyone having a tough time. I was retrenched from my first job.

Jr: Getting retrenched happens to the best of us! What advice do you have to kids just landing jobs and starting their creative careers so they won’t get fired like you did? (Editors note: Joke! Smiley face.)

A: Heh. The best advice I heard was, “Get in somewhere and then make yourself invaluable.” You see it a lot in a business – there are certain people – it might be a traffic manager or a receptionist – you can tell the place would fall apart without. Those people usually get taken care of.

Jr: You’ve had the opportunity to work on some amazing brands in your career – Carlton Draft (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk) springs to mind – it seems like everyone in this industry would kill for that kind of opportunity. How did you get to be in that position?

A: Well yeah it took a long time before I got to work on that, like ten years or so. I used to work on some accounts and think this just so isn’t suited to me. It’s funny because people now say, “Oh you get to work on beer. Beer is easy and fun.” Well, you know, Grant (Rutherford) and I made that opportunity. Carlton Ads weren’t like that when we started working on the account. Until a few years ago, beer ads in Australia were very serious affairs. More like Winfield ads. Get on youtube and have a look. (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=kcoebOqFsTs) Most stuff I worked on wasn’t a great account beforehand. But I was lucky because I got to create a campaign from the ground up. By writing the “Made From Beer” idea we were able to create a space where we got to play in an area very close to our own sense of humour. That’s why I’ve stuck with it for so long. We also enjoyed doing Barry Dawson The Cougar (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=K7zZbTC6UCA).

Jr: How do you stay inspired?

A: Look at other people’s genius stuff. Not ads so much. Good ads are few and far between but occasionally I get really excited by something, like the Skittles ads (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=3yPaLq1EpQw) for example. When you first see them they kind of give you a giddy thrill.

Jr: Ah yes, this is a good segway. So you’ve built your career in advertising as a copywriter – yet you’re also a talented and recognised artist. At what stage did you decide to switch to the other side and become a writer?

A: Oh after a few years I started working on my own doing both writing and art. At that time I became interested in screenwriting. Also there weren’t many writers around and I felt it was a good way to be more in control of the idea. So next time I teamed up, it was with a Creative Director who was an Art Director (Darren Spiller at Mojo) so I became, by default, the writer. And from then on I was a “writer”. I went to Y&R then George Patts now to Clems. Except now I’m on my own again, back to doing both.

Jr: You’ve had a successful career in advertising, won many awards, and worked with talents. How does this compare to the success you’ve had as an artist?

A: Well I haven’t really had a great success in the art world yet although I would love to. But I certainly enjoy it. It’s pure and I tend to keep it away from my advertising. The trap in some respects is I had early success in advertising. And that tends to encourage you in that direction.

Jr: Every creative has a side-project. What are yours? We know you’ve got ‘em. We stalked you on Google.

A: Well I have my painting as I said (antkeogh.com (http://www NULL.antkeogh NULL.com/)) but I also have some feature screenplays on the go. I was in that film Kenny (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=I0vE4ygyv6g). I’ve made some short films. For a long time I was in bands and had a little bit of stuff on the radio.

Jr: Yes! So many fingers and pies. That’s what Google told us. Do you find the creative processes similar?

A: Well, in a sense I probably get to use many of those other skills making ads. Any film medium is especially like that – words pictures, sound. For example I’ve used my musical skills to make Carlton Draught’s “Big Ad (http://www NULL.youtube NULL.com/watch?v=Mv5U0W8FDDk)”. The more knowledge you have the easier it will be. Computer skills are handy. I taught myself Flash and Dreamweaver although I’m a hack. To answer the question though, in advertising the creative process is highly conceptual and very tight. All about the “idea”. And people have to “get It”. In that respect, it’s great for teaching you how to think. What people call an idea in other disciplines often just wouldn’t cut it in an ad agency. I’ve heard a designer call something “a concept” which was actually just a typeface. With my own stuff I don’t try to be so conceptual and can be far more obscure.

Jr: How important is it do you think to have something else outside advertising?

A: It certainly is for me. If advertising is wearing me down, which it easily can because that particular creative process is often about rejection and is getting more and more bogged down with “process” such as research. It can take a long time to get something up. When that happens I can get creative fulfillment from other projects.

Jr: Thanks Ant. We owe you beers.

A: Cheers and good luck juniors.

ADVERTISING, THE INTERVIEW SERIES | Also tagged ANT KEOGH, BIG AD, CARLTON DRAUGHT, FILM, JOB HUNTING, WRITING

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