Ted Sann would like you to believe that advertising is about making a pair of pants. Well, not exactly; but in his early morning keynote remarks on the first day (5/17) of Clio Festival Week, Sann, BBDO Worldwide’s co-CEO/ chief creative officer, offered a metaphor comparing an ad agency to a tailor who has the task of creating a pair of pants for "a fat man." Sann threaded the metaphor throughout his talk in the confines of New York’s Grand Hyatt, explaining that the goal of agencies was to create pants so that "when this immense tub looks in the mirror, he sees Leonardo [DiCaprio]." Sann ascended to his current position after working on BBDO campaigns such as GE’s "We Bring Good Things To Life" and Pepsi’s "The Choice of a New Generation."
Sann explained that he liked the pants metaphor because it was cheesy, unpretentious, simple and keeps a focus on what agencies should be doing, which is to make "great pants." After his intro, Sann noted that despite what agencies might claim to do or promote, the B.S. ends with the imperative, "Let’s see the work." The work is the true measure of an agency, and Sann assailed any attempts to distract clients from the work with a variety of "window dressings."
"Millions of people watching Ally McBeal don’t care if [agencies] had great meetings," Sann said, pointing out one example of a diversion. "All they see is if the pants look good or if they have a rip in the crotch. I see a lot of ripped crotches."
After the initial critique, Sann went on to describe what would go into making a good pair of pants. "Making great advertising is about building a creative department out of the best creative people," Sann contended. "If they do the best work, everything else is irrelevant." Sann’s recommendation for building a great creative department included to appeal to creatives’ innate drives to excel, to "expect and reward great work," "break up potential fights" and "die to fight for good work."
Sann showed a reel of what he considered recent best work. The spots included international and domestic work such as Miller High Life’s "Mayonnaise" and "Deviled Egg" via Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., and directed by Errol Morris of bicoastal/international @radical.media; FOX Hockey’s "Bowling" and "Golf" via Cliff Freeman And Partners, New York, and directed by Christopher Guest of bicoastal Moxie Pictures; Gap’s "Khakis Swing" directed by Matthew Rolston of bicoastal Venus Entertainment for Gap’s in-house agency, San Francisco; and The Economist’s "Henry Kissinger" via Abbott Mead Vickers/BBDO, London, and directed by Peter Levelle, of Beechurst Productions, London, which is now called The Mob Film Co.
After showing the spots, Sann wondered aloud, "Wouldn’t it be great if you saw only commercials like that?" In answer to his own question, Sann concluded, "I think that’s a place we can get to." To achieve that, Sann enjoined agencies to "make sure you have the best creatives … Then turn them loose to make great pants."
In a question and answer session following his speech, Sann noted that ad concepts often evolve when presented to a director, because the director finds that the concept as scripted is simply not cinematic. Other times, the concept evolves on the shoot itself. Sann specifically referred to "Security Camera," a Pepsi spot via BBDO New York directed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif. The commercial features in-store surveillance camera footage of a Coke driver who after making a delivery, attempts to sneak a Pepsi for himself and upsets a stack of soda cans in the process. Sann related that on the shoot day, they realized that the original planned execution of the spot-which would have featured the Coke driver off-camera for a lengthy time-simply was not funny.
On the question of evaluating the success of an ad, Sann said, "We all know what great work is-it’s something that’s not measurable." A successful campaign, Sann added, "transcends the category that it’s in."
