After working for other people for 10 years, it was only natural that David Angelo would feel the itch to, as he puts it, "do his own thing." Many people spend their lives dreaming about starting their own businesses, but Angelo did it, and now he and his partner, Skip Sullivan are, respectively, chief creative officer and COO in their own advertising agency, davidandgoliath, Los Angeles.
The agency has only been around since last November, but already it has won the Kia Motors America accountaits sole client thus faraestimated at $50 million. The agency recently broke several spots for the car maker, including "Oxygen," "Drive In," and "Cruising," all directed by Stephen Kessler of bicoastal Promiseland. In addition, as part of the promotion for the "Kia Crazy Cashback Summer Sale," director Noam Murro of Stiefel + Company, Santa Monica, helmed "Bull," "Spin" and "Dog."
Angelo explains that after working at agencies such as DDB New York, Chiat/Day (now TBWA/ Chiat/Day), New York, Team One Advertising, El Segundo, Calif., and most recently, Cliff Freeman and Partners (CFP), New York, it was time to figure out the next step in his life. "I was considering moving back to California regardless, because my father’s been ill," explains Angelo, a native of San Francisco. "I had been consulting for a year [after leaving CFP], trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and the next thing you know this Kia thing sort of fell into my lap and I’m here in L.A."
Angelo adds that he and Sullivan, whom Angelo met eight years ago at Team One, always kept in touch and "talked about what the ideal agency structure should be like, because both of us were for the most part tired of traditional agency views."
It turned out to be the perfect time to open a new ad shop because Kia was ready to switch agenciesathe account had previously been at Goldberg Moser O’Neill (now GMO/Hill, Holliday), San Francisco. According to Angelo, Kia got word that he and Sullivan were available and decided it wanted to go with an agency that could focus on the account. "Which isn’t to say they’re going to be our only account," says Angelo. "But they’re a pretty good start."
Indeed, Kia does represent a pretty good start for the nascent agency. And davidandgoliath isn’t exactly hurting for workathey have at least 15 more spots to produce for Kia this year, and Angelo is still busy hiring people for the shop. "We’re really being selective," he says. "We didn’t want to staff it up with just anyone."
Part of Angelo’s selectivity stems from his desire to staff the agency with people who share his philosophy of fostering a collaborative work environment. One person who passed muster is Ben Purcell, davidandgoliath’s associate creative director. Earlier in his career, Purcell freelanced at various agencies, including TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles. He then worked full-time at Colby Effler & Partners, Santa Monica, before joining davidandgoliath. "I actually freelanced for [David Angelo] when I was [on staff] at Colby Effler," recalls Purcell. "I spent a weekend with him and we concepted on some work, and it was just incredible working with the guy. Then, about two weeks later he offered me a job. My first day was in January, and on that day we actually shot the commercial I had concepted with him." The spot was "Drive In," which features a young man at a drive-in movie theater who is so entranced by a Kia that he gets in the car, and the female occupant, thinking he is her date, starts kissing him.
Angelo says another key element in the collaboration formula at davidandgoliath is finding a director with the right attitude. For "Drive In," "Oxygen" and "Cruising," that helmer was Kessler. "I’ve always been a big admirer of the work he did for Snapple," Angelo says, referring to the director’s work on the "Wendy" campaign out of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York. "I had considered Kessler like ten years ago for a New York lottery campaign I did, but I hadn’t seen his reel around for awhile. Then it popped up again and I thought, ‘Wow! This guy can do just about anything.’ … After our first phone conversation, he felt like somebody who was going to be really approachable, and that’s what’s really important to us here; we want to work with collaborative people. We’re not here to work with painful directors. That is our first prerequisiteait’s going to be totally collaborative."
Angelo credits Kessler with improving the final product in "Oxygen." The ad shows a woman tossing trash on her boyfriend’s Kia, after finding him in a lip lock with someone else. He says he was merely trying to give oxygen to a choking woman. Kessler had the idea to end the spot with a shot of the "other woman" actually choking. "I thought that was genius," says Angelo. "That’s what it’s all about.
Another director who "gets it," according to Angelo, is Murro, who helmed the aforementioned ads for the "Crazy Summer Cashback Sale." Those commercials happen to be Purcell’s favorites, especially "Spin." The ad starts out as a typical local car dealer promotion. An announcer offers to explain how Kia decided on the figure $1,003 for its cash-back promotion. The spot then cuts to an employees-only room, where a large worker is being spun around on a chair, accompanied by an audience of his co-workers chanting "Larry! Larry!" After the spinning stops, Larry gets up, stumbles around, and plops face-first onto a giant cushion with $1,003 on it. That is just one of several giant cushions with dollar amounts. A man blows a whistle and yells, "One thousand and three it is!"
"It just seems like I haven’t seen anything like it," Purcell says. "We approached the retail spots with something that drove home the price message, and yet presented it in a fresh way." But doesn’t Purcell worry that with 15 more Kia spots to conceptualize this year, he might run out of fresh ideas? "No," he says. "I’ve been doing this long enough to realize that I don’t think the well will go dry. There will always be some other idea out there."
