For a noted creative director who just returned to the agency world, necessitating that he and his family relocate from Los Angeles to D.C., the allure of his new roost was shaped by what he did during his hiatus from the industry.
For another, it was the chance to build something from the ground up at an already well entrenched shop.
And for yet another creative, it was the opportunity to retain his entrepreneurial spirit even when joining an established agency.
SHOOT checked in with several leading creatives to gain insights into their recent career decisions as well as their takes on the evolving role of the creative director today. The most moving human interest story was that of Kirk Souder, the co-founder of Ground Zero, L.A., and then president/exec creative director at Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. Souder left the ad industry in 2005 to study at the University of Santa Monica in pursuit of a Master’s degree in spiritual psychology. He recently rejoined the agency fray, landing at the D.C. office of GMMB, a leading strategic communications firm specializing in social issues and advocacy.
To understand what attracted Souder to GMMB, you have to delve into his time away from the ad biz. A cancer survivor, Souder has been doing peer-to-peer counseling for cancer patients for the past 20 years and counting, an endeavor that pre-dates his advertising career. He decided to become a graduate student in spiritual psychology so that he could improve his prowess as a cancer counselor. Through his studies, he came to fully realize that he wanted to use his advertising expertise to create concepts and content that would help people.
“My one-on-one counseling is helping people on a personal level,” related Souder. “But the work I do professionally can help on a mass level. Both are very much geared to healing and making a positive difference.”
One such professional endeavor saw Souder create and direct a branded content documentary for the University of Santa Monica in which its spiritual psychology program is put to good use in prisoner rehabilitation. A short version of that documentary, Freedom To Choose, is being used as a marketing tool online by the university. And plans call for the feature-length documentary to gain exposure on the festival circuit and through some kind of broadcast or theater distribution.
After wrapping that documentary shoot, Souder began thinking about his next career move. Fortuitously, he and GMMB came together.
“When I researched GMMB and saw their list of brands and clients,” said Souder, “it was like a greatest hits list of causes that I wanted to create content for–from Save Darfur to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for Health Care to Obama America.”
Souder has just begun in GMMB’s newly created position of executive creative director/partner. And reflecting on his earlier responsibilities at Ground Zero and then Publicis & Hal Riney, he noted that the role of creative director has evolved and continues to evolve.
“Historically the role of the creative director was more about the trees than the forest–making sure those TV spots were great, that the print was great,” he observed. “Now that’s totally changed. The role of the creative director now is to make sure the creative platform is huge and capable of being multi-dimensional and multi-channel. It’s less about the individual ad concept and more about the big creative platform that gets developed for the brand. Before one execution is completed, you have to make sure the platform for the brand is there to tell the story and that the platform can accommodate people and engage them. And the communication, the campaign has to be purely integrated across the board, across the different channels and platforms. That’s the biggest change for a creative director during my 15 years in the business.”
(For more on Kirk Souder, see this week’s Chat Room Q&A column.)
Chad Rea
Chad Rea recently moved from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore., to become creative director for Target at Wieden+Kennedy. He brings creative experience stateside and from agencies abroad to his new roost, having started as a copywriter at the now defunct Pyro in Dallas (a division of the ongoing The Richards Group) and then taking on creative positions at Mother, London, and then KesselsKramer, Amsterdam. Back in the U.S., he went entrepreneurial, launching Los Angeles-based brand communications firm 86 the onions in 2002. As the moniker suggests, the philosophy of that shop was to “86” the traditional marketing formulas and layers of approval in order to move into new areas of thinking and branding.
Rea accomplished just that before deciding to close 86 the onions in ’07 at the height of its success. “Our last four briefs were for Starbucks, Aquafina, Mountain Dew and Ethos Water. We had worked with ESPN X Games. The shop was doing great,” he recalled. “But I had single-handedly been running it for five-and-a-half years and I wanted to be free to do more.”
Part of that “more” became creating the website ecopop.com, a marketplace dedicated to the free exchange of eco-friendly, socially responsible ideas. That site continues to flourish and Rea remains involved in it. “Wieden encourages you to do other things, to have a life outside of advertising. Some people here have art galleries, for example. Wieden is supportive of those endeavors–like ecopop–which is a big part of why I came here….
“When I asked myself where is there a place for someone who is self-sufficient, an agency owner and entrepreneur, I came to the conclusion that Wieden is the closest you can get to owning your own shop,” continued Rea. “It feels very much like that here. It’s an agency with an independent nature. While there are many different personalities here, they really respect everyone’s individual talent and ultimately this place is about providing a platform for people to do the best work they’ve done in their careers.”
As for the role of creative director, Rea observed, “I’m a bit less involved now in the actual execution of the work and am much more of a sculptor and someone to help inspire and motivate creatives…I don’t feel like the creative director’s responsibilities have changed all that much in recent years. Ultimately creative directors should help guide and inspire creatives, encouraging them to delve into different ways of thinking. Now those different ways sometimes have to do with new media that have emerged but it’s still all centered on advancing the brand.”
Troy Kooper For Troy Kooper, there was a distinct attraction to Team One, El Segundo, Calif. (a division of Saatchi), where he recently became creative director spearheading integrated/interactive efforts on the national Lexus account.
Kooper, who came over from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, where he served as an integrated art director, explained, “Team One has done tremendous work in the traditional space. So here I am at this established agency yet able to build something from the ground up–integrated and interactive communications. It’s a wonderful opportunity to help build something for a great account.”
Kooper broke in as an art director at R/GA, New York, contributing to Nike work that garnered a Bronze Cyber Lion and a Clio. He then art directed at Mekanism, San Francisco, working on the Windows Vista “Clearfication” campaign which won a pair of Cannes Silver Cyber Lions, a Webby Award and a D&AD Yellow Pencil. Next, during his Goodby tenure, Kooper developed multiple campaigns for such clients as Comcast, Netflix, HP, the WNBA and Hyundai.
Clearly R/GA and Mekanism were founded in the integrated/interactive space. And Goodby successfully diversified into that arena. Team One, though, gives Kooper the chance for the first time in his career to create and shape an agency’s integrated philosophy and operation.
He brings definite lessons from his prior roosts to Team One. “R/GA was my introduction to Internet advertising. It was an education in technology and in blowing out big websites and trying to engage users,” Kooper related. “Mekanism was more about telling a story. If a story is strong enough, it doesn’t need that much polish on it. R/GA was more about the polish. And Goodby had made earlier attempts to try to integrate. But I was there when they stepped up their commitment, became totally serious about it and wouldn’t take no for an answer. My experiences at all three of these shops give me something to apply at Team One, the prime lessons being the importance of engaging storytelling and of making integrated and interactive an agency priority. Talking about becoming integrated doesn’t do any good. Organizations have to be reshuffled, philosophies have to redefined to bring about the necessary changes.”
In terms of the evolving creative director’s role, Kooper related, “The responsibilities are much greater now. You have to be up on all the media opportunities out there. With the Internet, you have to tell a deeper story. You just can’t do a :30 or :60 anthem spot and think your day is over. You’re dealing today with a much more mature, sophisticated, cynical target that’s willing to be engaged if you can come up with the right content in the right places. The creative director of today and the future has to be able to develop content. Just judging concepts and executions is no longer enough–those who can’t let go of that narrow minded view will become irrelevant.”
