To commemorate its 50th anniversary which comes upon us in December, SHOOT continues a special series of features in which noted industry executives and artists reflect on the changes they’ve seen over the decades, the essential dynamics that have endured, and their visions and aspirations for the future.
In this installment we add a pair of high-profile agency artisans to the mix: Steve Simpson, Ogilvy & Mather’s chief creative officer for North America, and Bob Jeffrey, worldwide chairman and CEO of JWT.
Steve Simpson
Last month marked the beginning of a new chapter in Steve Simpson’s career. After 20 years at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco–where he rose through the ranks to partner/creative director–Simpson came aboard Ogilvy & Mather as chief creative officer for North America.
Asked to identify his prime responsibilities at Ogilvy, Simpson related, “The job is the job it’s always been in the creative business, which is talent hunting. You have to be in relentless pursuit of the best and most interesting talent always–through recession and recovery. Goodby has been brilliant at this–they never let up seeking out talent no matter if clients were coming or going, if the economy was up or down. They always had a full court press on talent.”
However, the nature of the talent being pursued has changed. “You really have to broaden the aperture of where you look for talent,” observed Simpson. “For a long time, the good agencies had a little recycling club amongst themselves–trades between Chiat, Wieden, Fallon awhile back. You had people going back and forth. But now there’s a much more expansive field, going well beyond just people with advertising backgrounds. We are now looking at people who come from performing arts, journalism, academia. A chief creative officer has to find that talent no matter where it resides. It’s challenging but it’s also exciting. Having more sources to tap into enables you to make some great discoveries. Talent is so much better than it was before–you have people who are more diverse, more open, more flexible, more confident and experimental. They are much more open to experimentation and the risk of failure than we ever were.”
This key difference is simpatico with the times. “Everything is changing so fast that no one really knows what is going to be lasting,” said Simpson. “The best brands are going to have to spread their bets across more media than ever before and set up a certain percentage of their budgets for communications R&D. You will have to experiment and accept a certain degree of failure and then learn from that failure. There are no longer hermetically sealed successes. That’s the era we’re entering and you have to find talent that isn’t driven crazy by that. And you have a better chance of finding talent with that temperament when you delve into performing artists and some of the other varied sources that are opening up.”
Yet while Simpson embraces this change, also worth embracing are certain constants that remain despite all the changes. He hearkens back to early in his career working with the legendary creative Hal Riney at the San Francisco office of Ogilvy, which later became Hal Riney & Partners.
“My coming of age in the business was with Hal Riney,” said Simpson. “It was amazing to see the way in which he mastered one medium with classic work for such brands as Henry Weinhard’s, Bartles & Jaymes, and Saturn. Hal worked from meticulous timelines. He would take a :60 and graph out every half second, sometimes every quarter second, which was at times necessary with complicated narratives and characters doing dialogue. He had absolute control over every second. I learned about meticulous craftsmanship. But he had more than a storytelling sense. He had a great sense of telling the brand’s story. What’s striking about his campaigns is that there was an invention every time or a newness to the brand. He created a brand, Bartles & Jaymes, that lived apart from Gallo. For Henry Weinhard’s, a brewery that was known only to people in Oregon, he created from scratch a new Private Reserve brand. He cut and created from whole cloth. Saturn meeting up with Riney was a perfect match. There was less to invent since Saturn was an American business all about reinvention and brand.
“What Hal brought to the table,” continued Simpson, “was absolute dedication to craft, storytelling, and a really great intuitive and committed sense of the brand. There was never a one-off character in his work. He was always building a larger edifice ad by ad. I feel confident that being such a great thinker, Hal would have succeeded in any era no matter what tools he had to work with. People still respond to beautifully crafted stories which he did so well with his truisms and core discipline, creating work that was guided by a deeper sense of the brand. I’ve often wondered what Hal, who saw things in such a 360 way, would do with the tools and media we have today. I think it would have been memorable work.”
Along those lines, Simpson’s last job at GS&P was a Commonwealth Bank of Australia spot directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet whose filmmaking credits include Amelie and Delicatessen. “He said something to me which made me think of Hal,” related Simpson. “Referring to technical innovations in filmmaking that will come during the decades ahead, Jeunet said, ‘It kills me that in 50 years I won’t be around to use any of them.’ It occurred to me that this is what every good creative person feels. Despite the initial shock of dealing with technology you’re unfamiliar with, creative people view the challenge as a joy ride. We’ve gotten a gift every day during the last decade. This is the best time to be in this business.”
After his time with Riney, Simpson’s next major place of learning was GS&P whose principals were Riney alumni. The diversification of mainstay creative agency GS&P into interactive has been cited as a showcase example of an ad shop evolving to successfully span traditional, digital and integrated forms of marketing and communication.
For Simpson, GS&P represents “a good example of refusing to be intimidated by new technology, throwing everybody into the mix and embracing that the world is changing. Yet with all this change, Goodby didn’t change its core creative values. Art and copy are still relevant tools. The heartening thing about your [Then & Now] series is that so many you’ve interviewed convey the belief that no matter the medium, you have to tell the story well–and you can feel that these people are so enthusiastic about the time we’re in and the times ahead. It’s refreshing to hear this when there seems to be so much complaining about how tough the agency business is. I have never had a better time in it.”
Part of the successful underpinning to storytelling is a dynamic that runs through the lineage of the Riney, Goodby and Ogilvy shops. “When I first came to San Francisco and took my portfolio of print ads around,” related Simpson. “I showed the work to people at Riney and they pulled out these print ads by Howard Gossage, a creative legend in San Francisco. Gossage was all about never dumbing it down, all about respect for the intelligence of the audience. Hal Riney came down a direct line from that–Jeff [Goodby] and Rich [Silverstein] as well. The best work stirs and sometimes provokes you. It gives a lot more credit to the audience than a lot of other advertising does.
“I remember David Ogilvy’s famous quote which was along the lines of respecting the consumer because she’s your wife. He was from this school of never dumbing it down, always respecting the intelligence of the consumer. And that speaks to his understanding brands and building them over the long haul–IBM and American Express are two obvious examples. We need to stay true to the intelligence of the work and our audience, and our commitment to craft. The conversation of digital versus traditional is over. That’s five years ago. It’s all settled with everything being media. We need to partner with brands, figure out their story, what it is today and what they want it to be and then taking that story and driving it through all the touchpoints.”
Bob Jeffrey
While changes in the business have been profound, there are certain constants which Bob Jeffrey, worldwide chairman and CEO of JWT, continues to embrace–and he feels fortunate to have first been exposed to them at Doyle Dane Bernbach where he broke into the business as part of the agency’s training program.
“I was very lucky to begin my career there,” he recalled. “It was prior to Omnicom, at a point when Bill Bernbach was still very much part of the agency’s culture and the work. You could go into his office and talk to him. To be able to work alongside Bill, Phyllis Robinson, Bob Levenson, Bob Gage, Helmut Krone, all these legends, was inspiring. My success in the business is attributable to having been at Doyle Dane Bernbach and the principles I learned there. It was all about the work and the ideas. Clients look to an agency to solve a problem, to create an opportunity with brands at the center of it. Doyle Dane Bernbach did that with the highest level of creativity and craftsmanship. They created work that was successful both creatively and from a business standpoint. When you think about the great successes over the past 60 years, that agency’s work for Volkswagen, Alka Seltzer, Polaroid, the American Tourister gorilla ad are all part of the discussion. It’s work that came out of relevant insights into the brands, the products, the audience.”
The value of those insights, of great ideas and creativity hasn’t changed, noted Jeffrey. “What’s changed–and it’s one of the single biggest changes over the years–is the complexity of the media landscape, all the channels you now have to express your ideas and creativity. It used to be so straight forward–TV, film, print, maybe radio and outdoor. Now technology penetrates deeper and deeper into the population, Young people are digital natives. That doesn’t mean that traditional media have gone away but rather have become part of a diverse mix of channels and platforms.”
What has gone away, though, to some degree is craftsmanship, related Jeffrey. “I remember Helmut Krone who was a true artist, a legendary art director. He was meticulous and if he wasn’t happy with an aspect of the work, you could ask the client if the media could be delayed. The answer would be ‘yes.’ Creative people honed their crafts, had more time to develop their work, and they were respected by clients. There was true craftsmanship. But now with technology enabling us to make things happen faster, craftsmanship has often become secondary.”
Conversely, the immediacy of the business perhaps keeps creatives more on their toes, less likely to rest on any laurels. “Years ago, creative people got fame very quickly for doing some very big campaigns,” said Jeffrey. “This gave them mileage in terms of the life cycle of their careers. At Doyle Dane, very few creative people were fired. By contrast, today you’re not judged by what you did years before but what you’ve done most recently. You’re only as good as your last work.”
This has led to less of a star system than in Doyle Dane Bernbach’s heyday. “Back then, you had these giants in the industry who were treated as such and deeply respected. But there’s really no huge star system today. In fact, there aren’t a whole lot of agencies–Goodby, Silverstein would be an exception–with the people who are active and doing the work having their names on the door anymore, giants like Bill Bernbach.”
In a sense the advertising industry parallels the movie business in its evolution, observed Jeffrey. There’s no big studio system, no movie moguls like before. The big studios are falling away, independents are growing, and the influence of technology and demographics is changing the content. At the same time, those studio and media brands are being reconfigured into business empires by the likes of Redstone and Murdoch–akin to holding companies which are parents to numerous ad agencies.
“There’s no question that the phenomenon of holding companies has changed the landscape,” said Jeffrey. “We could go on and on talking about it. Has it been a plus or a minus? I think it’s been both, all of the above.”
What about the state of content? Has it changed for the better? The classic VW, Alka Seltzer, Polaroid and American Tourister work cited by Jeffrey was more than successful–it was intelligent and in a way you felt smarter for having seen it. Can the same be said today? Does there seem to be more lowest common denominator, dumbing down fare than before?
Responding to the latter query, Jeffrey assessed, “That’s a fair criticism. But the irony is that now more than ever we cannot afford to do that. Audiences are no longer passive. They can opt out now. Today there has to be a greater emphasis placed on the value of entertainment and engagement.”
Click here to read Part I of this series. Hear from…
Lee Clow, chief creative officer/global director, Media Arts, TBWA Worldwide, and chairman, TBWA/Media Arts Lab
Bob Giraldi, award-winning director, Giraldi Media
Larry Bridges, director/editor & founder, Red Car
Robert Greenberg, chairman/CEO/global chief creative officer, R/GA
Click here to read Part II of this series. Hear from…
Rich Silverstein, co-chairman/creative director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Stephen Dickstein, global president/managing partner, The Sweet Shop
Phil Geier, former Interpublic Group CEO and current chairman, The Geier Group, New York
Click here to read Part III of this series. Hear from directors…
Joe Pytka, award-winning director, PYTKA
Bryan Buckley, award-winning director, Hungry Man
Joe Sedelmaier, ground-breaking director
Click here to read Part IV of this series. Hear from:
Dan Wieden, founder and CEO, Wieden+Kennedy
Susan Credle. chief creative officer, Leo Burnett North America
Noan Murro, award-winning director Noam Murro, Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles
Click here to read Part V of this series. Hear from:
Tony Granger, global chief creative officer, Young & Rubicam
Kevin Roddy, chief creative officer, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), NY
Kristi VandenBosch, CEO, Publicis & Hal Riney
Click here to read part VI of this series. Hear from:
David Lubars, chairman/chief creative officer, BBDO North America
Jon Kamen, chairman and CEO of @radical.media
Stefan Sonnenfeld, president/managing director of Company 3
