Chris Berger recently came aboard Publicis New York in the newly created agency position of VP, integrated production director. He brings a multi-dimensional interactive pedigree to his new roost, having been experience director at JWT New York and prior to that executive producer of interactive at Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), New York.
Berger helped to shape the digital offering at the latter shop, developing and executing strategies for such clients as AXE, eSpeed, Johnnie Walker and All Detergent. Among the AXE work Berger had an executional hand in was the lauded Game Killers series.
Then in 2006 he moved over to JWT where he was part of an integrated team that developed digital capabilities and integrated advertising campaigns for Jet Blue, Cadbury Adams, Sunsilk, Smirnoff, Rolex and Johnson & Johnson, among other accounts. The Cadbury Adams endeavors included innovative interactive work for Stride Gum, the campaign premise being that the gum’s flavor is so long lasting that people don’t need to buy much of it, resulting in the company having to close its factory. The TV spot portion of the campaign presented inventive, offbeat ways of getting people to spit out their gum so that the factory could be reopened. This pursuit also served as the centerpiece of online games.
In total, Berger has logged 10-plus years at some of N.Y.’s leading interactive advertising agencies including earlier stints at Organic, Inc., and Avenue A/Razorfish. Berger’s work over the years has garnered awards ranging from One Show Pencils to Effies, Webbys and D&AD honors.
Now at Publicis, he will be working with creative teams and strategists to develop integrated campaigns.
Nadia Blake, Publicis N.Y.’s director of broadcast production, said that Berger “enhances our production team and greatly expands the breadth of service we can offer clients in this ever changing media landscape.”
SHOOT: What attracted you to Publicis in the first place?
Berger: They called me to see if I might be interested in working here and we struck up a conversation. In talking to people here like [Publicis president/chief creative officer] Rob Feakins and [director of broadcast production] Nadia Blake, the concept of “Contagious Conversation” came up, which is a major initiative here.
I very much liked the way they pitched that philosophy to me–which is designed to engage people, the conversation being one in which we not only talk but listen to consumers, taking an idea that is relevant to our audience and building on that through the growing number of touchpoints we have with consumers.
Our brands are asking for “Contagious Conversation.” The fact is that consumers have a voice now and we better listen to what they have to say about brands.
The other big factor behind my deciding to join Publicis was the incredible opportunity to get in on the ground floor of building out a truly integrated offering, becoming a member of a very diverse team that has done some significant work here and elsewhere and is coming together to further shape, define, refine and enhance “Contagious Conversation.”
SHOOT: Define your role and responsibilities at Publicis? What ranks high up on your agenda in the newly created agency position of integrated production director?
Berger: To be first and foremost an internal evangelist for opening our eyes to doing things in a less conventional linear way. And to be an evangelist for our delving deeper and even more seriously into integrated campaigns. To bring the strategic, creative and production perspectives together to seek out opportunities so that we can create and develop content to capitalize on those opportunities.
I’ve long been a student of interactive and will try to spread that love around the agency. That means having conversations with creatives, other producers and planners at the agency. The progressive thinking is here and I hope that my background and involvement in experiential campaigns will take us further along to put that thinking into action even more.
Publicis is very proactive about engaging consumers with content of value to them–providing entertainment, information and/or utility value. This is essential across all media and forms of content.
SHOOT: You’ve been successful at some notable advertising agencies prior to joining Publicis? What stands out in terms of lessons you have learned at JWT or at BBH that you now are able to bring to Publicis?
Berger: BBH was a much smaller place at the time I was there. The AXE work online was very fulfilling. There was an innate nimbleness to the way we operated there. I’m not sure exactly why. Perhaps it was due to our being a smaller shop or the nature of the hot creative we had. But it’s the kind of nimbleness you like to have in order to be responsive to client needs and to creatively adapt to changes.
When I later went to JWT, I was at this significantly larger agency. But I remembered the value of being nimble at BBH.
Upon first joining JWT I felt the double overhead wave. Yet once I got a real sense of the place, I discovered that this big city had quite a lot of interesting little villages.
There were little communities within the network and by the end of my time there I had different little villages and cliques to call on, matching up the right village with the right job….
Working this way helped us avoid having too many voices, too many thumbs in the soup, which can be bad, especially toward the end of a creative development life cycle.
There’s a thin line between insights and perspectives that are valuable and just a lot of voices creating a din, nothing more than a lot of noise. Keeping that positive balance is a lesson I learned and part of what I continue to try to do.
And you want and need the right people involved as early on as possible in any job. From the top down at Publicis there’s a prerogative for early involvement of our people in a project to do full justice to the potential seeds of a campaign.
That gets back to your first question of what made me think Publicis over other agencies.. That was definitely a big draw for me.
And this kind of involvement is vital whether you’re developing print, television, a website experience, an iPhone application, or some sort of interface between a mobile phone and a billboard or content that lives elsewhere….People who bring any component of a campaign to life have to be involved early on so that they can think about different branches and nodes that can help the brand connect with consumers–a contest, a game, a filmic interface where you interact with short films, animation you can interact with.. There’s a world full of possibilities.
SHOOT: What’s on tap for you at Publicis? Are you at liberty to discuss any upcoming projects?
Berger: I can’t discuss specifics but we have some exciting work coming up on the horizon.
One pending project is for Boost Up with the Ad Council, a pro bono campaign involving activity across a lot of different platforms to help kids who have a high risk of not graduating high school.
We are also working, for example, on projects for Citibank and Nestle. For Nestle, we have new packaged Jamba Juice products that will be sold in grocery stores and other outlets.. For this client we are ready to do what I very much hope turns out to be some real breakthrough work.
