← On Strategy Showcase
On Strategy Showcase
Mischief's Kevin Mulroy, BBH's Alex Booker, Deutsch's Ryan Lehr talk effectiveness
00:52:43
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- [00:00]
A
This special series is brought to you by the Effie's for over 55 years, Effie has been the global authority on marketing effectiveness. They lead the way with the largest, most prestigious marketing effective awards across 130 markets worldwide. And the EFFIE Index ranks the most effective brands, marketers and agencies globally. But EFFIE is more than awards. They're dedicated to helping all marketers understand what makes marketing effective by equipping them with the insights, tools and inspiration they need to succeed. Learn more@effie.org that's e f f I e.org and by tracksuit if you're a regular listener to our show, you already know there's a difference between having a good strategy and knowing whether it's working. That's exactly what Tracksuit is built for. Always on Brand tracking means you get continuous visibility on where a brand sits in the category, how awareness and consideration are shifting from month to month and how that stacks up against the compet. It's not a snapshot from six months ago, it's current data updated monthly that shows whether the strategy you're executing is actually building what you think it's building for agencies. That changes the conversation. You're not just defending your recommendations with logic, you're backing it with hard evidence. You can have your tracksuit up and running within 30 days. Check them out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com so the FES do a brilliant job of providing us with the principles of effectiveness, looking at what is common across an enormous body of award winning work internationally. So when they agreed to sponsor this series, it was like the recognition that a lot can be learned from talking about the people that are doing the work on a day to day basis. So we started off talking with CMOs about how they develop client briefs. We then talked about how briefs are then sort of received and interrogated by Chief Strategy officers. Today's conversation is talking to creative leaders and trying to understand what they want out of planning, what kind of work they like and how they work so that we can sort of maybe take some tips from what they do and we can apply it in our world whether we're clients or strategists or creative leaders. So we have three of the best creative leaders here in the us. We're joining us today, we've got Ryan Lehrer who's co Chief Creative Officer and EVP at Deutsch la. We've got Alex Book who's head of Creative BBH usa. We've got Kevin Mulroy founding partner, executive creative director at Mischief, and we have a great conversation about how they work. And you probably already know this, but Ryan Lehrer is behind all of the Fansville work for Dr. Pepper. Alex Booker was behind all that phenomenal work for Neutrogena. And of course, Mischief and Kevin are behind so much of what is coming out of that agency in terms of effective work. Now, one of the things I wanted to touch on and point out is this book. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the COVID right now. It's called Hitmakers. It's come up in this conversation. Kevin brought it up as sort of a great source of inspiration. It's about how to succeed in an age of distraction. It's a book by Derek Thompson, now our head of operations here at the show has trying to push me to do a sort of an Oprah, like, book club. I've been resisting her kind of doing that, but it looks like I'm heading in that direction. I genuinely don't want to do a book club, but this is sort of my book of the month, because I actually bought it a number of years ago. I never read it, and when Kevin brought it up, it put it back on the top of my stack. So I'm going to try to get through it in the next couple of weeks, and maybe we can talk about it on a future episode. So this is our next episode in our Effie series. And Tracksuit is also supporting this series, that this is our conversation with great creative leaders. Enjoy. I want to talk about work that you haven't done that you love. Kevin, what have you been seeing recently that you love but you never worked on?
- [04:30]
B
I still love that. I mean, it's only. I think it's the second round of this campaign. The Uber eats. Football is food. Is that the line?
- [04:39]
A
Yeah. Football is for food.
- [04:41]
B
Yes. I feel that way. I feel about that campaign the way I felt about the first season of True Detective, which is. I love it so much. I can overlook Matthew McConaughey, who I kind of can't stand in anything. But the writing is so good. I mean, I've worked on NFL campaigns, and especially when they're big like that, the NFL is not easy to work with. And to find, like, a really funny, stupid insight that you can write over and over and over again is great. I think they're doing a really good job with it. I think it's so special.
- [05:13]
A
Right?
- [05:14]
C
Yeah, I think it's. It's. It's always surprising, like, how much Runway They've got. With that, like, I thought like that joke would have like ran out of steam. Like, it's amazing. Like, like every time they come up with like a new analogy, I'm like, oh man, that's perfect. That's so funny. Yeah.
- [05:31]
D
I love that they're on to something. Yeah.
- [05:34]
A
What about you, Ryan? What are you liking?
- [05:36]
C
I. I mean, I'm gonna go with another like kind of tried and true staple from the last few years that I, I still just. Again, it's, it's similar where I thought at first I was supremely jealous because it was. It's such a silly concept and it's the progressive, you know, you're turning into your parents work, which is, it's. Again, as a writer by trade, it just. The writing is so great, the casting is so great, the execution, it's just all so perfect. But again, I also thought that might like, you know, run out of meat on the bone, but it just seems like they're. They're still able to kind of find these new, relatable little moments. And again, it's just pitch perfect the way they, they've kind of built that out. And I, I'm always, I'm just charmed by each one of them.
- [06:25]
B
I feel exactly the same about that campaign because, man, you could easily see them doing like dads in like white socks and sandals on the front lawn jokes and they just, they have not done that. And I was judging DNDAD for writing, writing for advertising, and they were like, yeah, this campaign's been around for a long time. I'm like, I don't care. Like, the writing is still gold worthy writing. It's still there. So like, to be able to do it year over year is almost harder.
- [06:50]
C
I love that campaign. So do I send my bribes to you specifically? Just flash your Venmo QR code. That is not how it works in the industry.
- [07:04]
A
But you got the same challenge, Ryan, with, with Fansville. Right. You've got to be fresh every year. And that's eight years in.
- [07:10]
C
We didn't know. We just, we're. We're editing the ninth year. So as I, as I'm saying, I'm like, you gotta go 10. I mean, once you're so close to 10, right. It's inevitable. But yeah, no, that is a challenge. You know, it's also a fun challenge. I think one of the things that we talk about with Fansville that I think gives us a little bit of something maybe that's slightly different than these other ones. Well, probably more in line with Uber, with the Uber Eats work is that we kind of get to take a break. You know, it's seasonal, and it allows, you know, and I think it gives even the audiences a break sometimes with these, you know, other campaigns. You know, I think the. The challenge is that, like, oh, man, you're gonna have to see this character all year, every year. And so with. With football specific work, you know, it allows us a little, you know, a little downtime, which is funny, is that our downtime is actually during the season because our work's already done. And so I would tell my teams, you know, to keep things fresh is like, you know, we get our best inspiration from actually watching the season. And so, again, I tell everybody, like, take notes. What are you feeling when you're watching the games? You know, and again, luckily, a lot of, you know, almost everyone on the team is massive football fans. And so, you know, I tell them, like, hey, man, just if you're feeling something or something funny happens or your friend does something funny while you're watching the games, like, write that down. Because our best work is the stuff that is truly inspired by reality and getting into that fan mentality and so. And again, it doesn't always have to be. You don't have to be a football fan to understand the fan mentality. Even watching the World cup this year, I was like, hey, man, I'm, like, writing things down because it's like, you know, it's. I think, these little nuanced things, and it's similar to, like, the progressive work where it's, like, it. It's these moments that just seem like they're really, like, taken from real life and they're not the cliches, as Kevin said. It's not, you know, obviously, it's not always the obvious thing. It's like these other little, like, moments of insight or inspiration that are what truly kind of, you know, keep things fresh. So, yeah.
- [09:17]
A
Alex, what about you? What do you. What are you liking this year?
- [09:20]
D
Oh, I'd say the Columbia, the flat earth thing that they just did.
- [09:25]
A
Yes, man, totally.
- [09:28]
D
That, to me, was just so good when I first saw it. I mean, they took something. It's one of those ones you could have, you know, like, it's a crazy idea. But to fully commit to the bit and just go all in on it the way they did, I think it was just genius. And I think the way, like, they just went hard at the flat earthers, they went hard at the conspiracy theorists, and got in there and started commenting on absolutely Everything and really challenging them to kind of, you know, go off and find the edge of the earth. I thought was just the, the second I heard it, it was brilliant. And then I watched a case study and I was like, oh my God, I'm so jealous of this.
- [10:04]
A
Yeah. Is that Adam and Eve out of London? I think it was. Right. Do you guys. Does anybody know it?
- [10:11]
D
Not sure.
- [10:12]
A
We're trying to get them on the show. We just had a call this week. We're going to have that. But I agree. I think that was brilliant work. You know, one of the interesting things with you guys is you. You, the three of you come from agencies that have belief systems. Now the important thing for the listener to realize is that just because somebody has a belief system doesn't mean shit. The work has to be great and reflects that belief system. There's a lot of belief systems. Right. But I think it's good to look at the shops like you guys that are doing great work. And I'm curious, Gavin, for you, where did that come from and how does it inform the work? Because there's some pretty powerful shit in the sort of things that you guys believe in at Mischief. And it's on the website if anybody wants to see it.
- [11:00]
B
Yeah, it's on the website. It just says things we believe to be true. It's 10 thoughts that we put on a page that, you know, it's easy to kind of have an ethos and a thought system when you're six people and you first start and you're all in the same, you know, startup mentality and you all are, you know, heading towards the same goal and. But as you start to grow and you hire people and you have maybe a little bit less day to day interaction with all the people at your agency, you want to put those somewhere front and center. So they're on our site and it's things like we're here to make a stir. Riskiest thing you can do is be ignorable. What we say yes to shapes us. What we say no to defines us. You never go wrong by doing the right thing. It's just these sort of like short little pithy things we believe in. So they're on the site. But then when new people start, it's one of the first things they see. It's like, this is what we believe in and this is what we sort of expect. Or expect isn't the right word. It's sort of allow you to be, you know, we hired you because of you and we want that. We want that to come out of you instead of us sort of hammering you into the way we normally do things. So.
- [12:09]
A
But it also signals. And what I think is even more powerful about it is it also signals to the marketplace the way you want to work and how you work, which is not a common thing among agencies. It's like you guys have a set of beliefs if you come. And the implication being if you come to this shop, you better believe in these too.
- [12:31]
B
I think so. I mean, I think it starts with the name of the agency. It's like you kind of know what you're. What you're getting into, but it is just a. Yeah. It's a way to reinforce it with potential clients. And then, like I said, our own people. You kind of want to reinforce that every day, all the time, make sure people remember, like, this is what got us here and this is what will get us to the next stage.
- [12:52]
A
Yeah, because it's the same with you guys, Alex. I mean, BBH for so long has had another zig zag. So it's this idea of a belief in difference. Right. Is that how you think about is
- [13:05]
D
it's like, how do we look at what's happening within the market or within the category and find a differentiator and a different way to do things? But I think it's also about just giving permission to creatives to make sure that they approach things differently, with a new mindset, fresh set of eyes, all of those kind of things. It's been around since 1982, I think, is the length of that one. And it actually comes from a Levi's ad that was written back in the day. I forget the copywriter's name, unfortunately. But the story goes that we asked permission from Levi's once that campaign started running or stopped running. Sorry. That we could use it as the BBH tagline. And that was since the 80s. But yeah, it's all about just finding different ways to get it unexpected, which is kind of what we all do. Right. How do we kind of find new ways of saying things, find new points of views on things and give people permission to chase something different.
- [14:10]
A
So, I mean, for you, Ryan, you guys tell us about what, what, what is meant by fans versus attention. Does that, does that inform what you do?
- [14:18]
C
Yeah, definitely. I was just laughing a little bit. Like the imagining the copywriter who wrote that line, like expecting Alex to give him his proper due at that moment.
- [14:32]
A
Maybe we'll fix it and edit or something. We'll drop the data
- [14:36]
C
a little bit. Biography at the end.
- [14:37]
A
Yeah.
- [14:38]
C
I mean, again, at Deutsch, you know, we really believe that we're building fans, not brands. You know, and so, so many of our brands now, you know, whether it's Dr. Pepper or taco Bell, you know, they're just, you know, so, you know, sort of built by the passionate fans that, you know, love them and those, if you can sort of activate them, they become true sort of megaphones for whatever our message is. And so, again, we just believe that, that, you know, sort of, that's where true brands are built these days. And especially as everything is becoming more and more social led, we just feel that, you know, to sort of, sort of sprinkle and fertilize that feel to, you know, create these moments similar to, like, what we did, you know, when the Dr. Pepper jingle came about earlier this year with ROMEO the. The TikTok creator, you know, that was a moment of inspiration from that creator. But we feel by being Dr. Pepper's, you know, digital and social agency for the last six years, that we helped kind of create that environment to allow that to happen because Dr. Pepper had such passionate fans and we engage with them as fans.
- [15:58]
A
The reason I've had the three of you guys on is because you are. You three are typically associated with, with what is effective work in the marketplace. I think that since you guys are more consistently good at it, what. What can you share about what makes an idea effective?
- [16:16]
C
Who wants to take this one? I'm going to take notes now, Kevin, please give me the secret.
- [16:23]
B
I'll tell you things that we do that are geared toward the intent of effectiveness. I think, you know, it's going to be an obvious answer that it starts with the strategy. But I think the way we approach strategy is a little bit different than any place I've been before, which is to say that we treat the strategic process like a creative review. So Greg, Bianca and I, or some combination of the three of us are always in the room in the beginning with our CSO and the president and the, you know, whoever's leading the brand or the project. And we sit in a room and listen to like eight or 10 ways in. And then we just go through them like it's a review and. And we kill some. And we say, like, that's maybe a fact, not an insight, but who cares? That still works. This one feels a little like an ad construct. Let's lose that. Then we'll take that maybe four or five to our clients, and then we'll do that again with them. And when they're involved in the process, in that way, they, they're sort of more committed to the. The truth, the insights that we're landing on. And then what we do a little bit differently, I think, is we allow them to pick. We don't say you have to pick one. You say, we can pick up to two. No more than two. Otherwise, it's kind of chaotic. But the reason for that is because we don't think that there's just one way to get to the right answer. You know, there's.
- [17:48]
A
There's a.
- [17:49]
B
Can be a couple ways at it. And we tell them we're not really going to box. Check against both these briefs.
- [17:54]
C
It's really.
- [17:55]
B
Best ideas win. Could be five against one brief, one against the other one brief might suck. It's good on, on the page, but doesn't yield anything, which everybody in this call has dealt with before. You're like, hey, that's great on paper, but I don't know what to do with it.
- [18:09]
A
So you got multiple creative briefs in play.
- [18:12]
B
Correct. And all the teams, I mean, or let's say there's like two teams on a project. They both get both briefs, and we say, go to town. Best ideas win. And so I. And then I think in terms of trying to. To find something that's effective. All of our creatives are trained to think about what the PR line is. We are far from the first agency to do that. Obviously, everybody thinks about it in terms of boiling the idea down to the essence. What is this? What's the takeaway? And if you were to write about in the headline, what would somebody actually care about? Like, if they saw it, what would they actually be interested to read? So it's such a core, simple thing, but so important that people think of their ideas that way when they present them.
- [18:57]
A
So you're, you're, you're coming. You're seeing five different directions that they could go strategically. Right. When you have this sort of core senior management group. So Jeff and his strategists have already gone at doing strategy work to come up with those five. You're not involved in any of that early on or just. You're just coming up with.
- [19:16]
B
They'll come up with. They'll. They'll take shallow, but lots of. Lots of shallow holes. Right. So they'll come up with eight or 10 potential ways in, and then we get that from eight to 10 down to four or five, and then we take the four or five to the clients, and then we do the same thing over with them.
- [19:35]
A
Yeah, yeah. What about you Guys. Ryan, is it different for you? And I'm thinking more like. I know with Fansville, you've got a brand platform, so it's a little different. A little bit different structure there. What about a new business or in new assignments?
- [19:50]
C
I mean, I think especially early on, I think, you know, similar to what Kevin was saying, we all like to get in the room from the account leads to the strategy leads and the creative leads and, you know, really sort of hash it out. I was, yeah, I'm definitely going to take notes on Kevin's and formalize this new. Actually love that. That you really traded. Treated as a creative review. Because I think, you know, in my career, sometimes, you know, creatives, we are so used to being put in front of everyone and the slings and arrows of, you know, the agency clients and then ultimately the public, because, you know, again, you put your work out and, you know, hopefully people see it. There's always, you know, in this media landscape, you never. That's never a guarantee. But, you know, oftentimes, you know, our creatives have to, you know, build this, like, Teflon skin. And I don't necessarily know if that translates throughout the agency, but that idea,
- [20:47]
A
the idea that Kevin brought up about, you know, multiple shallow holes versus going. Versus strategy going deep on one thing or another, I mean, that. That to me feels a little different because as a. As a purist strategist, the. The direction would be, I'm going to give you a strategy that I believe is going to be the right strategy to meet the business objective. But this idea of shallow holes is a different approach to it.
- [21:13]
B
I love what you're saying about fandom and like, finding those little insights about football because, man, when you're not. When it's not the season of the sport that you love, it's crazy how fast that information just shoots out of your brain and you can't think of anything. So I love that you tell people to take notes in the moment, but this. Our strategy is kind of similar. It's like, what are like, 10 things that are true about this brand or the people that use it? What are just like 10 insights about the thing that we're trying to express? And then, like, we can. We can build it from there and then we can sort of like, you know, go deeper from there, but it's just like finding those little bits and everybody in the room goes, yeah, that's true. I buy that.
- [21:56]
A
You know, so it could be, because they'll be great creative territories that ultimately, in other words, a great idea doesn't have to be supported by data. You know, it can be just a great idea that's going to work because it's a great idea. I mean it's.
- [22:12]
B
And I think when we bring in those like, like we cut it from eight to five and bring it to our clients, often those four or five will get better because our clients will go, here's a data point that's, that supports that. Here's something that happened with, with our consumer that tells us that that works. And, and that's kind of what I'm talking about. Then they're more invested in the smart part before they see the stupid or weird or provocative or whatever part of it.
- [22:39]
C
I think having those data, data points is really great. And I think anytime you have like a statistic and to your point, Fergus, earlier, like, my creatives love that, you know, they love having those like little like juicy, like, you know, morsels of like an idea that is based on truly in an insight that is data backed. It's like, you know, it really gives you sort of the confidence that your work is going to resonate because you have that data that backs it up. And our, in our, our insights and strategy team is really great at finding those. And so when they bring those to us, like, it's, it's awesome because it just, it's a, it's inspiring. But it also just gives you that confidence that this is going to work.
- [23:26]
A
You know, one of the other things was, Alex, one of the interesting things that I've noticed to Kevin's point about multiple shallow holes versus going deep too early is I've been really excited to see that many client briefs are pretty amazing these days. I got one this week that came in for a show that we're prepping for and I read through it and I was like, this is, this feels like it came from a really good planner. So I'm wondering whether sometimes the planning team's idea is just to develop creative strategies and potential creative directions to go to because a lot of that work is many times being done well on the client side. Does that make any sense to you?
- [24:10]
D
Makes 100% sense. I think like nowadays, like the client briefs have gotten a lot sharper and I think there's a lot of great training. I mean, a lot of clients have of coming from agency side or have had a lot of experience working with agencies. And you know, over time that osmosis is kind of spreading out into, into everything that everyone's doing and the briefs are getting sharper. I think to your point, it is our job as the creative agencies to kind of find the unique pieces within each of those briefs and find those different viewpoints bit, you know, when the zigzag thing or building fandoms or. Or, you know, whatever it may be of each of the agencies. But it is like, those briefs are so much sharper now, and it's like, leading to better and better work. And everyone's starting to see how, you know, the media landscape has changed a lot since we've all started doing these things. And it's finding out what resonates on TikTok or Instagram or wherever you may be. All of those things are starting to inform, like, what we're seeing in the world and how we react to things. Be it something like Kevin, you know, what you guys did with causelite, like the super reactive thing with the baseball, or Ryan, like, you're talking about before being super reactive with the Dr. Pepper jingle. It's like clients are seeing those things happen out in the wild too, and they're as much asking us to kind of come up with those really quick turn things and how do we respond and how do we be more reactive and how do we essentially, like, get our brands, the fandom that they're. They're all chasing?
- [25:48]
B
One thing I was going to add, Fergus, is I think that clients are good at identifying problems that they have. I think the thing that they can usually use out, like a third party to help them with is which problem should we be solving? It's because usually they identify five, and you got to go, it has to be one. And like Jeff McCrory, our CSO, says this all the time. Strategy is sacrifice. Somebody else may have said it. Let's just go with Jeff. It's so true, though.
- [26:20]
D
It's.
- [26:21]
B
It's so true. It's like they usually come to us with a litany of issues that they need to solve, and you gotta be like, not step one. You gotta kill four of these problems and focus on the one that you think is most important. And then. And then that's how you get, like, simplicity, clarity, and then that's how you can write a PR line that people can all, you know, relate to. Like, oh, yeah, I get that.
- [26:43]
C
I actually think the guy who wrote Strategy of Sacrifice is the same person who wrote the zigzag line.
- [26:52]
B
His hand came through the dirt in his grave and he's.
- [26:55]
A
That's another name we gotta try.
- [26:57]
D
Yeah, I did. Was Barbara Noakes. So shout out to Barbara.
- [27:04]
C
Oh, nice, nice.
- [27:05]
A
So what what, what can you teach? Because again, back to. And I know it's. I'm trying to. I'm trying to see what's in here that we can actually identify as something that others can learn, that they can apply in their agencies. I mean, have you learned in retrospect because you've done such great effective work, have you noticed anything about that work that it shares in common that you apply to the things that you do going forward, even if it's the structure of an idea, if it's how you think about them? I don't want to put thoughts in your mind, but is there, is there shit that can be, that can be learned from doing great work like this?
- [27:50]
B
I can tell you one thing that we talk about a lot. I don't know if this is what makes work effective. I don't know. I think it does. I think it does. So there's that this great quote in the particular is the universal. You know, the more specific you are about something, the more people see themselves in it. And we preach that all the time. Specificity versus.
- [28:15]
A
Versus a universal appeal.
- [28:17]
B
Well, no, you want the way to get to universal appeal is by being more specific. Which sounds counterintuitive, but it's sort of like the more of an inside joke, you make something feel like the more almost like personal appeals and the more people are like, oh my God, that, that's me. I. I get that. I feel that. I mean, it's exact. It's like the jokes we're talking about for during college football season. It's. It's what we're talking about, right?
- [28:41]
C
Yeah, yeah. Progressive and progressive.
- [28:44]
B
It's. My God, that's my parents.
- [28:46]
C
Holy.
- [28:46]
B
That's my. Or you know.
- [28:48]
C
Yeah, so low hanging fruit. And then there's like stuff that goes a little bit deeper and sorry to cut you off, but yeah, we go through that a lot with fansville in a lot of conversations. You know, we do eight or nine spots during the college football season. So, you know, some of them lean really deep into like the, the like for like not casual fans and you know, and I think that's okay. And we have those conversations a lot. Like, is this too far? Are we going too far into like the nuances of college football fandom? And you know, are we alienating people who aren't like hardcore fans? And so we have a lot of those debates with clients internally. But, but those are the ones that actually resonate the most, it feels like. And become sort of the fan favorites and even just the universal favorites because I think even if you're not like maybe a heart, what you would describe as a hardcore fan, you recognize something true about that behavior or whatever that concept is. And, and so anytime you can kind of get like a level deeper than surface level with, with the, the insight, with the relatable, you know, piece of it, it's like, I think I, I think that's when you're like getting, you're touching those magic moments. And similar to what Kevin was saying about the Ubereats work, like just, they're keep, they keep, they're able to keep kind of finding new things because they're going deeper, you know.
- [30:19]
D
Well, it's fully committing, right? It's commit to the bit and like that, like that's where the work gets, that becomes more effective. It's when, like when you soften the edges and make it too generic, it just feels like, you know, you can feel the touch of everyone kind of taking the, taking the kind of edges off things and it's just like, it's nice, it's a nice idea, but maybe it's not as effective or resonates or provokes conversation or sparks people. You know, it's like, like the example before of the Columbia thing. Like they went so hard at that and went really hard at like antagonizing the flat earthers and leaning into the conspiracy theorists and whatnot. That, that's what made that so effective. That could have just been a nice idea had they kind of just, you know, done the soft version of it.
- [31:08]
A
So Kevin, how would you describe the mischief creative style? Because there's always a little twist of either weirdness or the unexpected by design. It almost feels. Is that a fair way to describe it?
- [31:23]
B
Yeah, for sure. I mean, when we first started the agency, Greg, Bianca and I took a lot of pride in having range. So we want to be able to solve any problem. We don't want to just be just too funny or just too stunty or whatever. So we want to be able to apply what you're talking about to any project, which is. I've said this before, everybody wants to be wrong about the ending in any, like any unit of creativity. It can be tiny. You just, you don't want to know that what's coming, otherwise it's no fun. So finding a way to obscure the ending in anything is maybe one way I would describe it. You nailed it. It's, it's like surprise. Just find some way to be like, oh, I did not, I didn't see that coming.
- [32:06]
A
I love it because I mean, Alex, the Neutrogena work, I mean, talk about a twist. And I know that when we talked on the show about it, that was a data point that came from planning. Right. Originally about the fact that the way that consumers were reacting to. Yeah, it was all around skincare to
- [32:26]
D
themselves and no one really thought they were old anymore. Right. What's perceived as old now has changed a lot. And it's like the conversation around wrinkles and all of those things has really gone away and people are really looking at like preventing, you know, their skin aging much at much earlier ages. But the conversation around wrinkles sounds like it's something for your grandparents. And I think what, what our strategy team found on that one in particular was like, you've got this whole generation of millennials that still think they're like 25. And it's, and it's then once you realize that nirvana like came out with Nevermind in like 91 or something and you're like, holy shit, that is a long time ago. Or it's like you're looking at like when Friends first aired and those kinds of things and people really get that wake up call that it's like, oh, I am way older than I think. And it's, that was the, that was the strategy behind that was the whole idea. And that just unlocked a world for us to kind of play in. They, they gave us and they gave us a great start and then it was just like, okay, what's the best execution?
- [33:30]
C
Do you think guys in their early to mid-30s like us should be like, serious about? Right?
- [33:36]
B
I'm not worried about that at all. I don't know what you guys.
- [33:39]
A
This feels like a great time to be a creative in this industry. And I bring it up only because I think in the last couple of years the pendulum has swung to the shit you guys have always wanted to do. And I think, I don't know if you sense it, but even in the way the effectiveness guys are talking about it in terms of the principles of a really great core idea that's original, that's supported over a period of time with Sigma, significantly with significant budgets. It's all this, that we've been, we've been talking about for years, but it feels like now the momentum is swinging. Do any of you guys feel that? Does it feel like there's a little relief now from having to be everything about short termism?
- [34:25]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a double edged sword to a lot of it. I mean, I think, you know, if you Compare it to when we were all, you know, us in our early 30s, these guys starting in the industry back in the late 90s.
- [34:37]
A
No.
- [34:39]
C
Yeah. Like, there was a simplicity to what, how this industry used to do things, and now there is a little. It's a little more complicated because of what we were talking about with the media landscape. And, you know, I think one of the things that work has to work in so many different ways now and so many different channels. It's almost like we talk about almost like you're. You're not even sometimes building campaigns. You're building, like, Lego pieces that can kind of like, like, fit together and then also, like, go apart and end up on the floor for you to step on or for a consumer to step on. But it's like, you know, it's like these little, like, pieces. But at the same time, I do believe, because there isn't sort of this monoculture and that, you know, the landscape is sort of fractured, that there is a value being put. A sort of a new value being put on work that is a little bit more daring creatively. Because to Kevin's point, we use this one, too. I don't know if, you know, Mischief coined this one, but, you know, the scariest thing you can do is to. To do work that's boring. And I think there is now a new. A little bit more value being put on work that is a little bit more provocative. And.
- [35:54]
B
Yeah, can I add to that? Because, yeah, we. We often say the riskiest thing you can do is be ignorable, but also the most expensive thing you can do is be a good.
- [36:03]
A
Right.
- [36:04]
B
And it's just like, I love that we are. We're in an ideas industry. We're not. People hate ads, but they love great ideas. Like, anytime you hear someone says, I hate ads, show them a progressive spot. Like, that's great, you know, So I love that we're still very much in the business of great ideas. We have, like, a really simple one, two process for work. It's like, what are we trying to say? Number two is? What's the most interesting way to say it's. It's always still been. It's always been and it still is. You can't move on to two until you've figured out what one is. And, like, that's the core idea or the core insight. And now there's just like, all these other ways that you can do the second part of that. Like, what's the most interesting or where is the most interesting place to tell this? What we got to say. So I think it's, it's. I think it's even more fun and cool and finding different ways to express the thought.
- [36:58]
D
And I love too, that it's moved on from, like, you know, a long time ago now, but it used to be about, like, we put a message out into the world and just expect people to take that in. And it's like how they react to the work. But now it's very much focused on, like, what are the tools we can give the audiences to play with, to remix things, to take things and make it their own, share it, like getting back to the fandom kind of thing, right? It's like, how do we give people all these amazing tidbits to go off and play with and make it their own and then they're sharing it on our behalf, which is, you know, the goal of a great idea is to make it spread far and wide. And it's like, how do we equip people to spread those things for us? And I think that's. It's a whole new way of looking at the work. But it's definitely something we would do internally to judge the effectiveness of an idea as to, like, how is this idea going to travel beyond just a PR headline, but more that, like, people will take it and run with it.
- [37:57]
A
The interesting thing about this show is, you know, obviously OnStrategy Showcase is the name of the show, so we get a hose load of voices about effectiveness that are in my email that are coming from the industry. Do you guys get that? Are people in the agency talking about that? Does it impact your work and the way you think in any way? Are there things about it that you have, like Byron Sharp's work, the Lesbinette's work, Peter Fields, a lot of these reports that come out from people like System One or from ipsos, Are you aware of that shit or is that not on your radar?
- [38:41]
B
We're aware of it. The problem with some of that theoretical approach to strategy is it's always sort of after something is wildly successful, they're like, well, here's why. It's because they show the color blue over and over. And the color blue is what? And it's just like. I don't. I mean, I. What I do think is true is success is typically associated with exposure. More people need to see the thing. And I think that, you know, people aren't going to go see an ad and then go buy a thing. It's going to make it top of mind for them. So. But I Think exposure. And if you don't have 100 million to spend in media, you have to find other ways to expose more people to the work. So to us it's kind of a bunch of the things we've talked about. It's like simplicity of the message, starts with strategy. What's the PR headline? You almost want to have do a journalist job for them and then they're more likely to cover it.
- [39:41]
A
Are clients talking about it? Maybe you guys are not talking about it, but are clients coming to you about it or are clients that you work with not as. Obviously everybody's concerned about things being effective, but there are some that just come into a meeting and say, well this says that, this says that, so we should do that. Versus I suspect that in your stratosphere you have clients who already are very confident about how they feel about what great work can deliver. Like, I imagine that's the same for all three of you.
- [40:13]
B
I think so. I think they come to us and recognize the value of something punching through and understand that thought that we talked about, which is the most expensive thing you can do is be boring.
- [40:23]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [40:25]
C
We work with system one quite a bit with, through Keurig, Dr. Pepper and you know, so we, I'm, I'm definitely on their newsletter and I have good relationships with a bunch of the, the folks over there, Vanessa. And you know, and again, we find what they, you know, the learnings that we get, very valuable. And I also think they are very, I wouldn't want to say creative friendly, but there is a value of creativity through their process and you see it in, in how the, you know, the work is translated and the testing results that we receive. And I find value in a lot of what we, we, we get from our testing partners. I mean again, I think, you know, like anything, it's a double edged sword. I think you can over test things and you can kind of take in too much and I hate necessarily having to make decisions by committee. Sometimes things, you know, sometimes great things don't maybe test as well, you know, And I think you could look throughout the, the history of advertising and some of the greatest ads weren't tested. But I also know that testing sometimes like sort of saves you from certain things that you might not have known were going to be an issue. Because again, especially when you're thinking of the concept of a 30 second ad, you have to do so much with contextual clues and sometimes you know where you think is supposed to be communicated, but you put it in front of someone and you realize that there was a little bit of a hole in your thinking. And testing often sometimes brings those things to life. Especially, you know, within the context of the 30 seconds.
- [41:57]
A
Tell me about what you mean when you said contextual clues. Because it's, that's an important factor in story.
- [42:01]
C
Well, you know, you don't have time to explain who everyone in a spot is if it's a narrative. You have to do things of like, who is the real. How is this relationship between Alex and Kevin? Well, I'm gonna put Kevin in like a higher position in frame and you know, because he's the boss, but I can't necessarily, you know, I have to cast Alex if he's the slacker worker, to look like a slacker worker. You, you don't have time to explain everyone's history. And so again, a lot of it's through casting or through wardrobe or through the dynamics of what is in frame. And so sometimes, you know, those things aren't as clear as they need to be to like communicate what you need to communicate very fast. You know, again, when you think about a 30 second spot, oftentimes there's like a little bit of a brand intro mnemonic and then there's an out mnemonic and then a product shot or two. So you really sometimes only have like 20 seconds to tell a narrative that is a going to be breakthrough, it's going to be effective, it's going to have the surprising, you know, ending that Kevin and Mischief love to put on everything. And so again, it's like you start running out of real estate. And so that's what I love too about what Kevin said and what I always try to preach and what we try to preach at Deutsch is to be very simple minded. And what this insight and the takeaway is with the strategy and the creative. Because, you know, Lee Clow once said, I like to say that he didn't say it to me, I think I was like down the hall. But he once said if you have three balls and you throw them at someone, they're only going to be able to catch one. And that's the same with communicating, you know, anything creatively with strategy.
- [43:36]
D
Yeah, I, I think testing is, it can be extremely effective. But I, I think the, the trouble with it is just, you know, everybody's become an expert on best practices. You know, we've all, we've all got those, Every client knows all of them and what, what to do. I think it is the point of like, like knowing when to use things and when to let them go, when, when to allow for the magic to happen. I'm a big fan of testing ideas and idea statements before production. I honestly, I'm not a huge fan of testing afterwards. I, I don't know that it necessarily improves the, improves the end product that much. I think we need to make sure that we do leave space for magic to happen. You know, like we hire these amazing, like in the case of a film, we'll hire an amazing director to bring something to life. But if we're going off and shooting testing boards, then we're really kind of robbing them of their opportunity to bring their magic to the things we do. So I think I've had clients on both ends of the spectrum, ones that will test initial creative concepts and then let you kind of go off and do what we do best. Right. We've all done this a lot of times over a long period. And we do know how things work and where to leave space for magic and where to leave space for improvements or whatever it may be. But then also, like, once you start nitpicking and over testing everything at the back end of the process, I tend to find we, we start making decisions based out of fear versus decisions based out of like, what we all liked. I always try and remind our clients too. Like when we watch a rough cut and if everybody laughs and, and loves it and then you start getting the feedback like three days later, that really starts to kind of of butcher it. It's like you've watched it a million times now, so you're looking at it differently to the way you first looked at it. And the way you first looked at it, your initial reaction was I love this, or it was funny or it was sad in the right places. Whatever those, whatever the responses we were trying to get out of it, you know, it's like, make sure you hang on to that a little bit and don't over test things to the point where we just kind of, you know, dull the edges and take the magic out of things.
- [45:55]
A
How do you come back to your teams when everybody feels that idea A was the greatest idea, but it didn't get through the gauntlet? I mean, how do you manage the emotional vulnerability and the anger that must come from your ideas getting killed for what you believe are the wrong reasons? Even in great creative shops, I mean,
- [46:21]
B
we're, we're in the business of stuff dying. It's just, we're in a business of rejection. I get used to that pretty quickly. And most creatives get used to that very quickly. And I think we're, you know, we're not going to bring stuff that we don't. We'd be bummed out if it got made, you know what I mean? Like, we're only going to bring stuff that we'd be excited about making. So it's rare that it's like, oh, they didn't buy the good one, they bought the shitty one that we brought them because we just won't bring the shitty one, you know?
- [46:54]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [46:55]
B
So teams are usually pretty used to that.
- [46:59]
D
Yeah, we operate on a pretty similar system as well. It's like I got that advice very early in my career. I was working with this writer and he was, I went to present an idea and he's like, you're going to spend the next eight months making that. He's like, do you want to make that? And it was like a hard no. And he's like, well, don't present it. And it was.
- [47:17]
B
I, I want to, I want to have more people use that because I use it all the time too. It's just like, yes, it's on strategy. Yes, it works. Yes, it makes sense for the brand. Do you want to make it. It's so, it's like it's an automatic yes or no. You know the answer to that immediately. Do you want to make that for the next three months and do you want to haggle over it and fight over it and find a director and it's just. And by the way, easy ideas to sell are no easier to make. You know what I mean?
- [47:46]
D
And it's still that.
- [47:48]
A
Yeah. Hey, one or two final things would be what advice do you have for agencies that are trying to get to a place where you are but they're struggling with it? What is. Give me one or two things you think are pretty critical for them to sharpen the edges with, with set ambitions
- [48:09]
D
with your clients early and get on, get on the same page. From the jump, I think is a big one. I think if you, if you are not aligned with where a brand can go or you know, the ambition of the agency of where they want to take the brand. If you're fighting from the jump, it's, it's just never really going to work out in your favor. I think a shared ambition and then bringing people along for the ride I think has been another really big successful thing for us in the sense of, of don't spend three weeks behind closed doors and then ta da, here's the big presentation. It never works. I think get aligned with Your strategy, get the clients aligned with the strategy and then get the creatives super aligned with the strategy. I think one thing we always like to do is I love my CD teams. Back to one of your earlier points, Kevin, on the briefing and the way you guys do that is I like my CD teams to work with the strategists and then they present the strategy to me or to the other creative lead on the project because then, you know, your Creatives or your CDs are bought in on the work that they're going to be working on. They're the ones that have to pressure test it and know whether they can throw, throw a great idea against it. And I think, you know, to bring that back around to the bigger question, I think, you know, it's aligning on all of those different steps and aligning with your clients is one of the biggest ones to getting the best work out the door.
- [49:36]
B
There's a great book called Hit Makers. Have you heard of this book?
- [49:40]
A
I have heard of this book, yes.
- [49:42]
B
It's really good. And it's, it's, it just examines what makes things a hit from a bunch of different perspectives. And it's, you know, it's not just let's get in a celebrity attached to it or buy a bunch of media, you know, like it's, it's just a really interesting way approach. And one of the things, one of the chapters in there is talking about specificity. Like I was saying, there's this kid working in a boring bookstore and he's just starts rewriting greeting card slayings just to be dumber and funnier. And then he starts a little shop on Etsy and he's making buttons and they're just like inside jokes that he thinks nobody's going to get. And it fucking blows up because it's kind of what I was talking about before. It's like, like the more specific he made it, the more it felt like an inside joke that everybody was in on. And people passed it all around and it just blew up. It's just a really interesting look like approach to what makes things work.
- [50:44]
A
A last question is what advice do you have for planners in terms of working best with creatives? Because you've worked at, you've worked at, both of you have worked at other shops. You've seen it work well. You've seen it work not so well. A lot of people are coming up and planning and they're failing because they don't have good relationships with the creatives. What are the obvious things that you can share from your position of strength that might be helpful for them.
- [51:11]
D
Collaboration early, I think, is the biggest one for me. It's like, I've worked at a lot of places where it's felt like there's a competition almost between different departments, and it's like, we're all on the same team, and it's like, how do we get to the best work? And to Kevin's point, how does everyone in the room work to sell that through and be equally devastated when it dies versus, like, I told you so or I told you, we shouldn't have taken that forward? I think it's those kinds of things. And then the strong opinions, lightly held, right? That's another one I love to live by. It's like, you should have a really strong opinion on the work, and you should have a strong opinion on your strategy, but also, like, just be open to it. You know, it can be wrong. And the creative, like Kevin said, the creatives can be wrong. And I think everyone needs to come into the room with that mindset that it's like, we're in this together. How do we get the best out of this and really collaborate on it?
- [52:12]
A
It's Alex Booker, head of Creative BBH in New York City. Kevin Mulroy, partner in ECD at Mischief in New York City. And Ryan Lair, EVP co Chief Creative Officer, Deutsche La. Thank you, Gu. Guys, man, this was really great conversation, and I know, man. Kevin, you did this while you're on vacation, so you get extra credit, man.
- [52:35]
B
This is part of the vacation, baby. This is it.
- [52:37]
A
That's right. It's nice to get away. All right, thank you, guys. And we'll see everybody on the next episode.