For anybody in the business of creating advertising who missed the last couple of paradigm shifts, here’s your chance to get in on the next one.
I’m sure you’ve heard: David Lubars has moved to BBDO. This is big news, but not just because the creative director of one high-profile agency has moved to another high-profile agency. There’s a story here that isn’t being reported because—no offense to reporters—most people can’t see the future.
I can.
Let me explain. I began my career as a copywriter at Scali, McCabe, Sloves. This was back when there was a Scali, McCabe, Sloves—when Ed McCabe actually screamed at people.
Scali was an agency based on the proposition that advertising was meant to sell. In fact, Ed McCabe was famous for saying that "a good ad makes you feel like a schmuck for not buying the product." I don’t know whether he actually said that—I never heard him utter the words—but if he didn’t, he may as well have. Every ad we did was measured against that yardstick.
While I was at Scali, a newfangled approach started to appear from an agency in Los Angeles called Chiat/ Day. They did advertising that wasn’t about selling. It was about branding.
I know, this sounds pretty basic. But you have to remember that back in the ’80s, the work that Chiat was doing for Apple and Nike was revolutionary. A lot of us at Scali had a hard time getting our heads around how this stuff could be called advertising. All we knew was that it violated Ed’s maxim and still managed to work.
I thought about it a lot, and I realized that this was the future. So I did what I could to get a job at Chiat.
At Chiat, I learned the difference between advertising to sell and advertising to brand. I learned the value of an insightful strategy, and how to measure that work against it. I also learned that contrary to my expectations, a tight strategy doesn’t destroy creativity; it fosters it.
I left Chiat to work at Stein, Robaire, Helm—which was kind of a mini-Chiat—and by the time I’d put in five years between the two, Goodby and Wieden and some other places had taken up the mantle as well, and the entire landscape of advertising had been altered.
And then BBDO came along. When we saw what they were doing with Pepsi, most of us had a hard time getting our heads around how this stuff could be called advertising. All we knew was that it didn’t come from an insightful strategy and still managed to work.
I thought about it a lot, and I realized that this was the future. So I did what I could to get a job at BBDO.
After a couple of years there, I’d learned how to create advertising as entertainment (which is different from simply creating entertaining advertising, but I don’t want to get into that digression right now) and decided that for me, the next logical step in the evolution of my career would be to direct.
You’re probably wondering what all of this has to do with David Lubars. Well, I’ll tell you. David was at Chiat the same time I was there. He had come out of Boston, where he took essentially a parallel path as mine. He learned advertising as sales and advertising as branding.
Fallon was formed in the image of Scali. It ran on Ed’s maxim, but with a gentler, Midwestern approach. When David moved there, a lot of people wondered if it might be a step backward for him.
But David has managed to move Fallon from advertising as sales through advertising as branding to advertising as entertainment. The BMW films show the potential, not just in terms of content—which is the part most people focus on—but in terms of form.
And it’s the form that’s important here. If BBDO wanted to keep creating the same kind of advertising, there would be no reason to tap David. Their work for Pepsi is just fine, but for the most part, it takes place on television, in 30-second units.
What David is in a position to do is add a dimension to their particular approach. To take the idea of advertising as entertainment and develop the kinds of messages we’ve never conceived before. And the fact is, somebody very, very high up at BBDO recognizes that.
I’ve thought about it a lot, and I realize that this is the future.
I wonder if I could get a job at BBDO.
