INTERVIEW

 

How did you get into advertising?

 

B: I came from a web design background. I started doing web design in high school because I thought it was interesting and I started making websites for people and clients and everything. Then doing more graphic design work, and then in college I stumbled into advertising and sort of found out more about what it was. So I kind of applied to a couple different agencies, but I didn’t really have an advertising portfolio at this point, so I basically found the creative director that was willing to trade web design advice for advertising advice, and so I interned with him for about two years and he would give me all these spec assignments to help me build my book. It was kind of just learning as you go type of thing.

 

T: And I, have just always, maybe not my entire life, been fascinated with commercials. There were certain commercials that would really capture my attention and I just liked it. I don’t have any other reason, but I just liked it. And while I was in college I think one of the commercials that really got me was “Think Different.” So I tried to get into the communications program at UCLA, but I didn’t get accepted to that, so I majored in sociology. And then I ended up getting into advertising not in creative, I didn’t even necessarily know I wanted to be a creative. I got in through media and I was in account for a little bit. Then I actually started doing creative work in the interactive side and there’s some, not necessarily, portfolio school, but something out there called Book Shop and Art Center and I attended that while I was working. So yeah, just kind of made my way into an agency then decided I wanted to be in creative. And tried to build a portfolio and work and that’s it. Here I am!

 

So both of you took unconventional paths into the industry.

 

B: I think a lot of times portfolio school will encourage people to be thinking in the same type of way. Which is good for building a baseline for having knowledge, but it can also be dangerous if you can’t go beyond that and develop your own unique style and voice. In a way it was both a disadvantage and advantage for us. It was probably a little harder for us to break into the industry, we didn’t have those connections, but it also helps us come at things with a little bit of a different perspective.

 

Tell me a bit about your creative process.

 

B: I think generally a lot of times we’ll go off and think on our own a little bit and then come together and just talk about stuff. I think the actual process of creativity is kind of messy, so you don’t necessarily always know where that breakthrough will come from. It could happen when you’re talking about things or trying to crack things for a long time and then you’ll go for a walk and at a moment you’re not expecting, it’ll be in the back of your brain and then something will click. It's kind of hard to have a really defined thing, but something that at least helps for me is being in a place where there are minimal distractions so when you get on a roll you can keep going and not be hassled by someone who needs something or to have to go into a meeting. I think blocking off a space for that. I’ve also found that in between moving helps me.

 

T: He likes to juggle.

 

B: I just walk around the room or something like that. It kind of helps. I don’t know why. I think maybe something about walking helps me.

 

T: I know we’re really cooking when he grabs something and he starts playing with it. Really just, it’s just thinking about it, and then for me, it’s just talking, talking, talking. Even if I’m just hearing myself talk. And then I don’t know, something starts coagulating. Yeah. For me, it’s like just musing. I’m musing about things and then that sparks ideas.

 

What are some creatives you look up to?

 

T: There’s something to like about everybody. But I think that really any creative that was able to get something produced and out into the world, you have to look at it, and go, “How did they do that?” We know how near impossible it is to get through your own agency, through your client, and actually out there It’s actually really, really difficult.

 

B: I think that’s what I was talking about earlier with the organizing part of it. The process of coming up with ideas in itself is a bit of a messy process, but in advertising, coming up with the idea isn’t the hardest part. The hardest part is keeping the integrity and getting it through the agency and through the client and out into the world.

What's the campaign you're most proud of—Cannes or otherwise?

 

B: I mean it’s probably Boost Your Voice. Second would be Project Drive In that we did. I really am just proud of the campaigns that can make some sort of impact in the real world, so that was really special. Someone was asking me the other day what the most special campaign was and the truth is a lot of stuff we’ve worked on has different special elements about it. Boost Your Voice got the most creative recognition and we love that, but in all of our projects, there’s a little special thing about that.

 

T: I think if you take Boost Your Voice off the table, a lot of our Honda work has a sweetness to it. Project Drive In is in both of our books, it won some stuff at Cannes and Monsters Calling Home and Million Mile Joe. If you watch them, you can see that there’s a specialness to both of them, all of it.

 

B: A sort of sad story, but showing how much advertising can actually impact people. Million Mile Joe was a Honda owner who got a million miles on his Honda Accord. We followed him for about a year, and when he hit the million miles, he thought he was going to a press conference, but we’d actually organized this surprise parade for him. So we got the whole town together and threw this parade in his honor and he became this local celebrity. Several years later, he actually passed away and they sent his obituary around, and it in said the happiest day of his life was when he hit a million miles in his Honda with the parade and everything. Even the photo in his obituary had him wearing his Honda hat and everything. So that is obviously really sad, but it just you know, really hits you. What kind of impact you can have. You think we’re creating advertising, but it’s actually able to have a real impact and being really meaningful to peoples’ lives.

 

T: You really want to create a human connection. Honda is a dependable, reliable brand, feel-good brand, so it felt natural. One more thing about Million Mile Joe, we did this print ad. You could write him a letter, congratulate him, and I don’t even know how many, but it was a giant box of letters and some of them even came from people in prison, because I don’t know, maybe they wanted a pen pal. But a lot of it was cards and letters from all over the country. We gave it to him, and I think he really loved it. What we heard from his wife is that he answered every single letter. It’s really a special project.

 

If you were to describe the Cannes in one sentence, how would you describe it? 

 

B: I guess kind of like the Oscars of advertising.

 

T: I feel like a lot of people would say that.

 

B: I think Cannes is the most well known internationally and probably has the most prestige. I think there are different shows in advertising and DAAD is probably the hardest to win (especially for Americans), but I think Cannes has more prestige than that. I think that’s the one everyone recognizes no matter where you are in the world.

 

What are your thoughts on the difference between innovation and disruption?

 

Innovation is the act of creating something new, whereas disruption is the way in which that act or new thing upsets the status quo or the environment that it operates in. I think neither of them have any value in of themselves, no that’s not fair to say, I mean, there’s no intrinsic point to doing any of those things unless you have an end goal in mind. I get tired of both of those words as well. Why disrupt something? That’s not enough of an end in itself. Disruption can have good and bad effects, but I think that’s what I would say. Innovation is the act of making something, disruption is the act of breaking something along the way. Potentially through innovation or something else. I use both of those words sparingly, but it’s difficult not to. I definitely feel that a reason the Cannes Lion is important is because the industry is still trying to put a language and commonality among these things that are happening. Without the language and without our attempts to find out what things are, giving things names, we’ll be struggling even more.

 

How do you feel the Cannes Lion impacts the advertising industry?

 

B: I think that it sets the bar. So it tells people what is good work and it does influence trends. So when something wins, one year, you’ll see the next year or a couple years later, pieces that kind of piggyback on that trend. It’s a source of inspiration for the industry.

 

What does the Cannes Lion represent to you personally?

 

T: As a creative, it’s what everybody wants as a creative. I remember we won a Bronze Lion and I was so excited and you don’t know at the point if you’re ever going to have that experience again. When I won Bronze, I didn’t know at that point we might win a Gold or Grand Prix or Titanium. So I think, sometimes you hear creatives saying, “Oh, whatever with awards.” I don’t believe when they say that. I think creatives really, their work is--that’s what says everything about your career. To have it awarded and recognized on the highest level internationally, I think every creative deep down wants that.

 

B: To me, it represents the acknowledgement from your creative peers. It opens doors for future opportunities because I do believe that awards shouldn’t be the goal, but if you look at them as a byproduct of doing the work you really believe in, it’s the only tangible measure of creativity that the industry has. The thing for me that no one can argue with is that awards = better opportunities for you. Whether that’s a better salary, better projects, or better agencies, because they’re the only thing you can hold up and say, “See this was really good.”

 

How do you define innovation?

 

B: Maybe new solutions to old problems. Or just something that hasn’t been done before. I don’t know.

 

T: I think it’s the same. Innovation is innovation, no matter what industry. It’s something that turns something upside down or it makes you look at it and say, “Wow. I’ve never seen that before.” It’s innovative when you look at it and it excites you and you don’t think it’s a derivative of something else.

 

B: I think some things can build upon itself. Thinking about something like Google. There were a lot of other search engines, but Google came along, and they did it a lot better. I think that it was their approach of making things simple and accessible that was innovative. Same thing with apple creating the MP3. To a level that hasn’t been done before. But some aspect of it must be new and has not been seen before.

 

What are your thoughts on innovation as recombination?

 

B: Totally, I totally think that. I think creativity is really the art of connecting dots. That’s definitely true. You’ll find some experience that has nothing to do with advertising or whatever just informing your work. With the Boost Your Voice example, a lot of different. You’re limited by your own pushback, you can only see the things that you know. But the beauty of creativity and working with other people is bringing in those new and diverse perspectives that lets you see more dots you didn’t know could connect. As an example, we knew the Boost customer base, we knew they weren’t heard during the election, so we were trying to come up with this campaign of how can we get these Boost customers heard during this election. One of the people we were working told us, I don’t vote. Why don’t you vote? A lot of Hispanic people don’t vote. And I was asking why. And because of that, we were led to discover all of these long lines and these problems. Several years later, I remembered I had voted in a car dealerships when I was living in an apartment there wasn’t another place to vote. That made me think like, commercial places can be polling places. Connecting a couple of those dots together, that's how we ended up with Boost Your Voice.

 

T: With the dots, you need a lot of dots. You might think some things are a waste of time, but really in a creative sense, when Brian is talking about perspective, nothing is a waste of time. Because you’re filling up your tank with experiences. If Brian had never voted at a business before, we wouldn’t have known you can turn a business into a polling station. When Steve Jobs, or someone, dropped out of school and he’s sit in these classes. Like calligraphy. What will calligraphy do for you in life? Later on, it helped him form fonts on the computer. It’s like yes, innovation and creativity is connecting the dots and bringing together different perspectives. Fill up your subconscious, or whatever you want to call it, with dots. I’ve found that you can have an experience with something that seems so mundane and it comes back and has influence on a problem you’re trying to solve.