Bryan McPeak enjoys bagging his trophies far from the auditoriums and hotels where advertising award ceremonies are usually held. An avid outdoorsman, this senior VP/creative director at Doner, Southfield, Mich., often spends his weekends in the woodlands, on skis or tracking a moose.
Not that the 46-year-old Michigan native is opposed to landing the kind of award that sits on the shelf instead of getting mounted on a wall. Over the years he has nabbed his share of advertising trophies while at Doner and at now defunct Leonard, Monahan, Saabye, including a Cannes Silver Lion five years back for "Fire," directed by Ian Macdonald, then of now defunct Ian Macdonald Productions (Macdonald’s current roost is Foreign Affaires, Los Angeles) for former client the American Automobile Association.
Lately, McPeak’s creative team at Doner has won attention for "Cool World," an effects-driven spot for the Mazda Prot g that was named Top Spot Of The Week (SHOOT, 10/23/98, p. 12). Directed by Charlie Watson of Rhythm & Hues Studios, Los Angeles, the spot shows a Prot g driving through a gritty urban setting constructed out of a child’s building blocks. McPeak was the creative director and served as co-art director with Al Hazen; agency producer was Chris Firestone. The copywriting team was Charles McAleer and Jac Mansour.
"Cool World" came about, McPeak says, because Mazda decided to go after a young demographic and challenged the agency to "do something out of the box." The spot features an upbeat song, a rewrite/rearrangement by Paul Hoffman, creative director/arranger at Blue Music and Sound Design, Los Angeles, of The Nails’ "88 lines about 44 women."
While McPeak enjoys the attention "Cool World" is generating in the ad community, what really has him pumped is that Prot g sales are up 33% since the spot broke last fall. "The cash register is the test that matters now," he cracks.
Mazda was so pleased with "Cool World" that two more spots are now in the planning stage. What is surprising in the wake of the spot’s success is that McPeak is more than a bit wary about using special effects in his spots.
"The only problem with special effects is that people are so used to them, and there are such great special effects in movies, on TV and what-not, that if you don’t do it great, it can be counterproductive. If it’s not a great idea, you’ll fall flat because people are jaded by Jurassic Park and big action movies. I hate to do an idea that depends solely on special effects, because you’re starting out in a hole that’s pretty deep," McPeak explains.
In addition to the $200 million Mazda account, McPeak’s team also handles MTD, a Cleveland-based yard equipment manufacturer, US Cellular, Blockbuster Video, Loew’s home improvement stores and a piece of the scattered Coca-Cola business. Doner’s annual billings just crossed the landmark $1 billion threshold. "I guess you could say we’re on a roll," McPeak observes.
McPeak broke into the biz with a yearlong stint as an art director at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Boston, in the mid 1970s. From there, he headed south for a six-year stay at Leonard Monahan Saabye. "I went in there [LMS] as a junior art director and left as a senior VP," McPeak recalls. "That’s where I really blossomed and creatively came into my own, and ended up winning a lot of local awards, CAs [Communications Arts awards], One Shows, all that good stuff." And since ’87, he’s been along for the ride up the roller coaster at Doner.
McPeak believes a flat organizational structure works best for his creative staff, with no hierarchy of titles, and he feels that candor and spirited discussion create an environment in which the best work can flourish.
And while McPeak claims to be as candid in labeling bad work bad as he is in handing out praise to his team for the good stuff, this bent for honesty may have contributed to a recent night in hell for one of his creatives. "There was a guy who worked for me who was a photographer," McPeak says, "and he did a shoot and he was worried that I might not like the way it turned out. So he was up all night worrying about bringing it in to me the next day-to the point he thought he was having a heart attack. And he called 911 and there were ambulances at his house and stuff. I don’t think of myself as a scary person, but if it’s bad work, I will tell them."M
