“There are a lot people here who are looking to do satisfying work, and I think I can help them do that,” said Jeff Kling of his role as the newly appointed executive creative director at Euro RSCG Worldwide, New York. “I know I can do the job, and basically I’ve had the opportunity. It would be stupid to have that opportunity land in your lap and not take it.”
Kling succeeds Kevin Roddy, who departed the shop late last year to become executive creative director at Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), New York. Kling will oversee work on a roster of blue chip accounts, including Volvo North America, Charles Schwab, several products from pharmaceutical giant GlaxcoSmithKline, Dos Equis beer and Polaroid.
“The most important thing is to generate as many opportunities for people to do as much interesting work as possible,” said Kling. “There are a lot of clients I have met, and clients whose trust I have to inspire, build, and earn. We’ll be looking at new business. There’s almost nothing anywhere that can’t be made better, and [this agency] is no exception.”
“We want creative that is as good as anyone’s. Better, even,” related David Jones, the CEO of Euro RSCG. “There’s too much talk in our industry at the moment about the importance of holding companies; what smart clients still want are powerful creative ideas, executed well. In increasingly cluttered markets, great creative makes brands succeed. Jeff’s pedigree makes him the perfect person to lead our creative department and is a clear statement of our intent.”
Kling plans to take advantage of all arenas to get each clients message to consumers. “There’s no new media–there’s media,” said Kling. “It’s officially media, and if you’re not always looking to take advantage of absolutely every venue, to advance your brand’s cause in the world, then you’re not doing your job.”
PDFA
SHOOT caught up with Kling to discuss his new role at a shoot for the Partnership for a Drug Free America, a pro bono client the shop has done work for in the past. The four PDFA spots, all directed by Frank Todaro of bicoastal Moxie Pictures, represent a change in direction for the client. While previous efforts for the organization focused on prompting parents to initiate a discussion about drug use, this new work is meant to encourage kids to take the initiative. The ads–“Earring,” “Right On,” “Tie” and “College”–each challenge kids to open a dialogue with their parents about drugs. The concept for the package posits the idea that parents–who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s–just might know more about drugs and drug use than their kids think. For instance, in “College,” a father in a faded West Macon Tech college sweatshirt is sanding a table in a typical-looking basement workshop. A voiceover notes: “Did you know that a lot of people tried drugs for the first time in college? Say, didn’t your father go to college? A super is to follow that reads: “Your parents may know more about drugs than you think. Ask them.”
Kling, who served as creative director on the spots, related that the scripts for the package, which originated last summer, aim to get kids and their parents to begin a dialogue about drug use. “The conversation is not happening,” he notes. “And [the PDFA] has statistics that say if you can get parents and kids simply to talk about drugs–not even with any set agenda–if you can just get them to talk, that trial, and therefore addiction rates, plummet. So, we thought, alright, let’s turn the tables, and get the kids to initiate the conversation by putting their parents on the hook. A sort of guess what, ‘Drugs aren’t that marginal in society, a lot of parents have used, and ask them about it.'”
“Euro has been terrific to work with, and we are very excited about the campaign they are developing,” said Kristi Rowe, deputy director of consumer marketing at the PDFA. “In particular, their creative team developed concepts that ‘turn the tables’ on the topic, by suggesting that teens begin the discussion with their parents about drug use.
“The generation of parents we’re targeting is extremely tough to reach on this subject; they see less risk in drugs and demonstrate less concern about substance abuse among teens as compared to parents a few years ago,” she continued. “So, our goal for the project is to educate parents, and to provide them with the necessary tools to talk to their teens about the dangers of illicit drug use.”
Todaro and Kling have enjoyed a long friendship, dating back to the days when Kling was a writer/director at Are These My Shoes Productions, New York, which was headed by Todaro’s wife, Lee Ann Daly, now executive VP of marketing for ESPN. Todaro, who had directed some work for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., recommended Kling to the agency, and he was later hired as a copywriter. “I frankly didn’t think that he’d be able to do a pro bono project like this,” said Kling of Todaro taking on the PDFA work, “because he’s always booked, but he jumped on it.”
“I did them because Jeff Kling has some compromising photographs of me,” joked Todaro, who added, “I hadn’t done anything for this agency before, and — I thought this would be a great way to start it off, and I liked the scripts so much. They took a totally different approach, and they managed to be funny without being juvenile or pandering, and I thought they were really smart, which is the best kind of funny sometimes.”
Additional agency credits on the spots include art director Dave Arnold, copywriters Bob Cohen and Jason Kreher, executive creative director/production Mark Sitley and producer Eve Bates. Damian Clayton at Bikini Edit, New York, is cutting the spots.
NEW HORIZONS
Kling joined Euro RSCG in 2003, after a successful stint at Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), initially in Portland, Ore., and later in the shop’s Amsterdam office. While at W+K, he worked on accounts such as Nike, ESPN, Heineken and Miller High Life. It was for the latter that he is perhaps best known. Kling served as creative director on a series of award-winning and well-received ads whose concept was that drinkers of High Life–the champagne of beers–were real men, who used duct tape for any household repair, didn’t wash their hands before eating a donut, and whose plates were graced by salad–so long as it’s macaroni, potato or egg. Errol Morris directed all the spots. Morris, then of bicoastal/international @radical.media, is now with Moxie.
As an agency, the New York office of Euro RSCG has been searching for a new identity as of late, and Kling plans to implement a stronger culture. “It’s not as certain in its identity and its culture [at the moment],” noted Kling, who plans to replace the looping reel of ads in the agency’s lobby with one that features thought-provoking short films. “But the important thing is there are good people here who are capable of doing great things if just given the chance. — All the ingredients are there. I just want it to be a place people look forward to going, where they feel like they can just play. People have a tendency to be a little too reasonable there–a little too eager to take what the client says it wants at face value, or take what their planner or account person says at face value, and really it’s better if everybody determines in concert what needs to be done.
“I want people to challenge themselves,” he continued, [to ask] ‘Do I really need to do exactly what they say is called for here, or is there a better way?'”
Jones believes Kling and his team are up to the challenge and expects them to “continue to raise the bar on our creative product, and to help drive a culture of ideas through the organization. Oh, and one big and very famous campaign every year.”