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It’s very immature to get too attachedto an idea

A creatively converted shopping mall inCoconut Grove is home to the Miami-based agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.The history of the agency has been aquite unique success story. From theanti-smoking campaign “truth” to theextraordinary “Unböring” campaign forIkea, Crispin Porter + Bogusky havecreated not only groundbreaking workbut also won so many awards that cpbwas named Agency of the Year by Ad-vertising Age’s Creativity Magazine in2000 and 2002. The Ikea “Lamp” com-mercial, directed by Spike Jonze, winnerof the 2003 Grand Prix in Cannes, is thejewel in their creative crown. HermannVaske went to Miami to talk to Alex Bo-gusky, the creative mastermind behindCrispin Porter + Bogusky, who has justbeen voted the World’s Best CreativeDirector 2004 by Boards International.

L.A.: What was it like for you when youwon the Grand Prix for your Ikea“Lamp” commercial in Cannes in 2003?Alex Bogusky: Well, it felt really good.You start to hear little things before-hand. The night before, I think, peoplebegan to come up to me and say,“Hey, I think you guys won the GrandPrix.” I was like, “No, that’s crazy,” be-cause we were not there thinking wewere potentially going to be a winner.We went there for fun, like most peo-ple, just to have a couple of drinksand hang out. So then another persontold me the same thing, and thenanother person said something andthen, finally, I heard it from some peo-ple and I thought, “Oh, this person ac-tually would know.” So I started tomaybe half-believe it. I guess it waslike that until the next night, whenthey did the awards. You know they dothe whole show before they do theGrand Prix. It’s all waiting, waiting,and waiting. So, I am sitting there andeven right before they read it, I waskind of sure that it was all a big joke,and that it would not be Ikea. But thenthey read it and in that moment Ifinally actually believed it. I was veryhappy, it was fun. We don’t concen-trate too much on awards; I try not totake any self-worth from winningawards, yet at the same time it’s sounusual to get to win something likethat. I wanted to enjoy it as much as Icould and not be sceptical about it,not overanalyze it, just live in the mo-

ment for a littlebit. They fired offwith the gold flake– that was kind ofcool, so I guessthat was as closeas we can get towinning an Oscaror something likethat. L.A.: Yeah, sure, ora gold medal atthe Olympics, ifyou look at Cannesas the Olympics ofadvertising. Onceyou were sure youhad won the GrandPrix, where did youcelebrate?Alex Bogusky: Wewent all over –right after theshow, we went andhad a drink acrossthe street some-where and it actu-ally got to be lessfun after we wonthan before. Therewere so many peo-ple that you didn’treally know, com-ing up and sayingcongratulations andthey didn’t knowyou, and you knewthey didn’t reallycare. That wasn’tthat much fun. So I actually went homepretty early. I stayed up later everyother night than the night we won.That was the night I went home theearliest, but the best part was over forme, which was when the people thatwe did the work with went up on stagewith us and we all hugged, and thenafterwards we toasted, and that wasall I needed. The rest I didn’t reallyneed.L.A.: Are you very selective aboutawards shows when entering work?Awards have, after all, been increasingat an almost inflationary rate. Someeven claim that awards are badges ofmediocrity.Alex Bogusky: Yeah, who said that? Ijust read that the other day, actually. Ican’t remember – I bring that one upto my creatives here. I think it’s true,because there’s the craft and thenthere’s the art, right? And they are twoseparate things. The craft is sort of ad-vertising as we’ve all come to expect

it. And then, on the edges, there’smore the potential, the art of it, whereyou are really pushing the boundaries.To me, the stuff that is awarded isusually the stuff that is more in thecraft, it’s the highest form of the craft.The stuff that is often our favourite –that stuff won’t be awarded. But you’llsee the same kind of thinking awardedlater, a couple of years later. So it’simportant, as an agency, not to getwrapped up in awards. I would cautionpeople against getting too involved init, to the point where, if you’re doingadvertising based on what they think,someone in a jury at Cannes is goingto think that’s probably not the bestway to go.L.A.: What did Spike Jonze, thedirector of “Lamp,” say?Alex Bogusky: He was happy, I calledhim right afterwards and talked tohim. I think he was in Mexico. He onlydoes, like, one or two things and theyalways do really well. He’s able to

Alex Bogusky

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really select the projects he wants to, Iwas kind of wondering whether hewould even care at all, but he wasactually really excited. L.A.: There’s this crossover going on,that advertising directors are doingfeature films and feature film directorsdoing advertising. What do you thinkabout this two-way traffic after havingworked with one of them, Spike Jonze,in a very big way?Alex Bogusky: We also worked withWes Anderson last year, he was thedirector of “The Royal Tenenbaums.”But Spike has spent a lot of time withit; he has done a fair amount of com-mercials. He’s pretty comfortablewithin the 30-second format, or the60-second format. Sometimes, I think,the tricky thing is that a film directormay not realize just how short 30seconds are. It’s outrageously short.So you may have a certain shorthandthat you use for film, and it may notbe condensed enough for commer-cials. I think that is one of the reasonswhy you see so many commercialdirectors getting pulled in by Holly-wood. You learn how to tell a storyquickly if you need to, and how to useshorthand. Then you also work withhuge set pieces and elaborate produc-tions, so it’s a good training ground.But I think you just have to look at theprojects and see if they are right. Whatyou have to be careful of is that,sometimes, with a film director youmay want to use them because of theirname. And the creative people maynot always think, “OK, it’s a greatname but is he really the best thing forthis project?” So you have to weighthat out.L.A.: Yeah, because talking to featurefilm directors that do advertising andthe creatives that work with them, you

often get comments like they take toolong, they don’t adapt the psychologyto working with actors to the 60-sec-ond format, or the 30-second format.Alex Bogusky: Right.L.A.: It can even be disastrous.Alex Bogusky: Yeah. Spike is probablyunusual because he comes out ofskate films, so he comes from lowbudgets, really guerrilla productions,and just making it happen. He knowswhat to do when it’s crunch time. L.A.: Now there’s a new challenge go-ing on in your agency, one called“Burger King.” How is an agencyknown for its creative reputation suchas yours handling a more or less main-stream client? How did this kick offand what happened so far?Alex Bogusky: At the beginning of theyear, you know, you get a little bit of aholiday break and you’re thinkingabout things and what you want to do.We’ve had more good fortune and abetter run than I could ever have imag-ined. When I used to think back, whenwe were beginning, I imagined whatsuccess would be like. We passed thattwo or three years ago. The successwe have is so much greater than any-thing I’d ever hoped for, but at thesame time you get kind of bored withwhat you’re doing. On that holidaybreak, I was actually feeling kind of,“Oh, I don’t know,” and “What do wedo next?” And then this Burger Kingthing came up and it’s been reallyexciting to me. Mostly, because it feelslike an almost impossible task, youknow, to take a brand this big, that’sbeen this schizophrenic for so long.They have had so many agencies. Butthey’re really letting us in, to the pack-aging and all of the ways in which theycommunicate with the consumer, thedialogue with the consumer, and that’s

the stuff we really like to go into. It’sa huge challenge and I also like thefact that most people think we’ll fail.You know, it’s hard to be the under-dog anymore, and I’ve always likedthat role. But in a way, we’re theunderdog on this one, I guess. L.A.: And your client is also a bit of anunderdog, in terms of size, whencompared with McDonald’s.Alex Bogusky: Compared with Mc-Donald’s, yes.L.A.: Is it a bit like the Avis “TryHarder” case, if you compare that.Alex Bogusky: Yeah, I think that we asan agency don’t attract the numberone brand in the category. We alwaysattract number two or three. Becausewe grew up being scrappy, we like totry to cheat the system a little bit andget by with less money than the otherguys, leveraging every dollar. So, inthat way, it does make sense thatBurger King selected us.L.A.: Usually, it’s also a platform to dobetter advertising. Number two playersare usually more up against the wall.More attackers than defenders. Alex Bogusky: Definitely, and if youlook at it, to some degree BurgerKing’s back really is up against thewall. They’ve had declining sales andthey’ve had a different agency almostevery six months – every year at least,for sure. There hasn’t been a lot ofconsistency there. They have an amaz-ing team in there right now. They areprivately held, they are not traded onWall Street, so there’s less pressurefrom those sorts of people. You canactually get the job done right, whichyou can’t necessarily do with a publiccompany as easily. So it will be in-teresting to watch. The only failure forus would be if we had the account andwe did bad work, and then got fired. I

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Interview

Stills from Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s “Lamp” commercial for Ikea , winner of the 2003 Grand Prix in Cannes.

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think if we do good work and then weget fired, that’s OK. If we do goodwork and we stay on, and we actuallyturn the thing around, then it would beone of the greatest case histories ever.L.A.: What have you done so far for theWhopper?Alex Bogusky: When they came in,they briefed us on the question ofbringing back “Have it your way,”which is probably one of the greatesttaglines in fast food. Although theyhaven’t used it for a long time, peoplestill remember this one. We went outand found that people did remember –and liked – it. The thing about the lineis that it changes as consumer expec-tations change. So you can really havethe line forever. You don’t have to bechanging taglines, because if “yourway” changes, you’ll understand that,and you know it, and I don’t have totell you what the change is worth. Soit’s cool. One of the things that we’verealized is that a big part of “Have ityour way” now is this notion of mass-customization, which is a big trend.The Mini is an example of mass-cus-tomization, where you can buy a carbut you can make it unlike everybodyelse’s. Starbucks takes advantage ofthis, where your specific drink fromStarbucks makes a statement aboutyourself. It’s kind of a mini-brandedpiece. And I think Burger King has theability to do the same thing. Over 50%of every sandwich they make is cus-tom-made. What we want to showpeople is that everybody should havetheir custom sandwich. And when youhave that unique sandwich, you can

take pride in it. So the first thing wedid was about people ordering thesecustom sandwiches, sort of the inter-play between these people. Maybeone guy steals another guy’s “customsandwich,” and what happens there –things like that. So that’s the firstwork. We also shot this chicken thingwith Rocky Morton. He has kind of atwisted sensibility and we did somestuff about a chicken sandwich. Wecreated a website, which was launchedApril 7th. The betalink was sent toabout 20 friends and from there grewto over 245 million hits. It was createdto promote the new Ten-dercrisp Chicken sandwichat Burger King. Basically,you see a man in a chickencostume who interactivelyfollows your commands.What better way to illus-trate having chicken yourway? The website has beenviewed by consumers frommore countries than are inthe Olympics. It has beenreported on by CNN, FOXNews Channel, Business2.0, the Wall Street Journaland the New York Times, toname but a few. To thisday, the site still receivesover one million hits a day.The average consumer tothe site is spending justover 7 minutes at the site.TV spots also ran targetingmen 18-34. A consumeremail to the site reads, “Ifthis is marketing of the fu-

ture, sign me up for every product.”But the most exciting thing, actually, isthat they happened to be working withLandor, right before they brought usin. They were doing a packaging re-fresh, and we were able to get in-volved with all the packaging. Whenwe first started working with them, wewent to the restaurants and we werekind of analyzing things like the toneof voices. They speak like robots, theywouldn’t use pronouns and theywouldn’t say “please” and “thankyou” in the communications and soon. We are really trying to put somehumanity back into the experience. L.A.: Do you think there’s a trendtowards creativity even in genreswhere we don’t expect it?Alex Bogusky: Everybody’s worryingabout the end of the 30-second com-mercial, and while I think that it iscoming (although it will be a while), Ithink it’s good news. I really don’tworry about it. I am actually kind ofexcited about it. You will need morecreativity, not less. It’s like feeling badabout silent films. Silent films werereally beautiful, and it was a wonderfulart form. But not that many peoplemiss it anymore. I think during thatperiod, when the talkie first came out,there were a few people who said thatthey didn’t know if they liked it, ormaybe that the sound was too harshand disturbing. We’re in that periodnow with commercials. I am going tomiss my commercial and I can’t imag-

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Print ad from Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s Burger King campaign.

Burger King’s “subservient” chicken who follows your

commands at www.subservientchicken.com.

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ine anything else that will replace thecommercial in my heart, but there’ll beplenty of things.L.A.: Yeah, since traditional advertisingis dying, we are all looking for moreinnovative things to get the messagethrough to the consumer. I would liketo cross over to your work on Mini, be-cause I think that also has some as-pects of the unexpected and innova-tive. Such as posters with extremelylong copy lines and stuff like that.Could you elaborate on that? Alex Bogusky: From the very beginningwith Mini, we saw that the car is un-traditional, new, different and innova-tive, and we knew that we should tryto be the same from a media stand-point. So we used the same measuresthat we would give to the creativeexecutions in the media strategies,asking ourselves from a media stand-point: “How is this different?” I thinkthat was a really great filter to put thework through because, on the whole,it created a nice body of work thatseemed very unusual. We talk aboutproof all the time. Sometimes, we usethe media as proof. As an advertiser,you should never say: “We are cool.”If you say that, then it probably isn’ttrue. It’s the same with an innovative

brand like Mini. It’s tough just to sayyou’re innovative. You can say itsomewhat with the creative, but thenyou need to layer on top of it someproof of innovation. Like the long copyon outdoor boards. It was amazinghow many people understood that itwasn’t about reading the whole thing.You couldn’t even read the wholething at once. We got notes from peo-ple who read one line a day, on theircommute to work. Other people didn’tread anything but the first line. Butthey all understood that, as a car com-pany, we have a lot to say. That’s whatwe were trying to communicate withthat work.L.A.: Plus you grabbed the consumer’sattention. If you don’t grab the atten-tion, everything else is academic any-way.Alex Bogusky: Exactly. You know, oneof my favourite pieces for Mini wassomething we did with “Weekly WorldNews,” which is a tabloid. It’s allabout aliens and things like that. Webought the front cover – we didn’tknow it was possible, but we bought it– and made up a story about “Bat-Boy,” a half-boy-half-bat that steals aMini and gets chased all around. Tous, it was outdoor advertising, be-

cause we knew that our consumersprobably didn’t buy the thing, but it’salways there, in the grocery store onthe racks, and you walk by and it’slike: “Oh, there’s a Mini and Bat-Boystole a Mini, all right.” In terms oflooking at the media differently, this isa great example.L.A.: I don’t know about here but inGermany they actually integrated theMini into some kind of literature, insome books.Alex Bogusky: We didn’t do any ofthat. Our attempt at integrating Minigenerally focuses on pop culture. Sowe’ll do things like that tabloid. Wealso bought the Playboy centerfoldand, for the first time, they did a car asa centerfold – that’s pop culture. Wedid a whole series of icon cars, fromother manufactures actually, theStarsky & Hutch car, the PartridgeFamily bus – and we treated themgraphically on a Mini. We kind of stoleother people’s icons and took them forourselves. It was a funny exercise. Themanufacturers whose car it really was– like Dodge and their “Dukes ofHazard” car – wouldn’t touch it with aten-foot pole. Yet we came along andwe wanted it – and got it. That’s sortof our way of cheating, you know.Internationally we are doing thelaunch of the Mini convertible rightnow. We’ve got a bunch of stuff in pro-duction. It’s harder, though. Becausewhen you’re doing something that ismulticultural and international, youhave to put together all the piecessince it goes out to many differentcountries. It’s harder to do the mediathan that we do here in the UnitedStates. Because so much of that stuffhas to be done on a one-on-one basis,phone calls and so on. That’s a limita-tion when doing those internationalcampaigns, and it’s also a limitation ofthe media buying services, when yougo and buy your media somewhere

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Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s Mini campaign in various print media: from outdoor posters to...

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else. We actually buy media for mostof our clients ourselves. We see theactual purchase of the media as a partof the creative.L.A.: Is that your first real globalcampaign?Alex Bogusky: On that scale – it’s run-ning in 60 countries – yes, I’d say it is. L.A.: That’s certainly global. So, basi-cally, all the other agencies like Jungvon Matt in Germany, and whoeverhandles Mini, have to adapt yourcommercials?Alex Bogusky: Yes. What Mini did, theyhad all the agencies come in and weshowed ideas for the convertible. Andon that we got selected as the agencythat executes on the convertible. L.A.: Oh wow!Alex Bogusky: Yeah, it’ s fun – and it’sa neat car, too.L.A.: Where do you get your inspira-tion?Alex Bogusky: Generally? Oh, I see,we’re moving on to the tougher ques-tions. I don’t know – I think that Idon’t feel so much inspired by any-thing specifically other than fear. Idon’t know if that makes sense. Mywhole life, I’ve always been able tohear a clock ticking down, and that’sextra scary. I don’t feel so much in-spired, more just driven. If there’ssomething that has to be done, Iusually work really hard until it’s done.That makes us all pretty prolific, inter-nally. As an agency, we’re very prolific;most people that come here and thathave been to other agencies beforesay, “Oh my God, you guys do somuch stuff!” We always have, evenwhen we were little, we produced a lotper million in billings. I don’t know ifthere was a reason for it, originally,but now it’s part of what we believein. Marketing today is not about who’sbiggest, has the biggest budgets, or isnumber one somewhere – it’s aboutwho’s got the “momentum” in a cate-gory. And momentum, we think, comesfrom hitting consumers time after time,after time with new and inspired mes-sages. With Mini, people often cometo me and say that they really liked acertain piece and that they were trulyaffected by it. But it’s always a dif-ferent piece they’re talking about. Likethe straw that breaks the camel’sback. You don’t know what it’s goingto be, so you’ve got to be out there.And, at some point, the consumerfinally gives up and says, “OK, you’rereally a different kind of brand. I likethat!”

L.A.: A campaign that’s definitely putyou there is your anti smoking cam-paign. How did that happen andwhere will it go?Alex Bogusky: It happened probably5 or 6 years ago in Florida. Floridawon a settlement from the tobaccoindustry. They got a bunch of moneythat had to be spent to try to de-crease the incidence of teen smok-ing. Anyone who wanted to was in-vited to pitch, because it was agovernment-based review. You justhad to fill out an RFP. So we did, andwe got through the first round, thenwe met the client. We thought aboutit, went out and started talking toteens and we actually got worried.Because what we identified rightaway was that, if you spend moneyon telling teens not to smoke, then itwould increase the incidence of themsmoking. It became very sinister inour minds thinking that the tobaccoindustry might say, “Yeah, whatever,take this money but you have tospend it on telling teens not tosmoke.” It all made sense instantly.Yet at the same time it was a gov-ernment account, and I couldn’timagine how they could do anythingother than just tell teens not tosmoke. We told them what wethought was the case and they metwith us the whole day. Then theywanted to meet us again, and I wassurprised. I got surprised every timewe didn’t get knocked out. Withinthe agency, a lot of people didn’tthink we should do it, because it wasa government account. They didn’tthink the work could be good andthat it would just be typical. The no-tion was if you take away a tool of re-bellion, which tobacco is, you need toreplace it with another tool of re-bellion. You can’t just say “Don’t” or“You shouldn’t.” Also, you can’t treatteens as pre-adults, you’ve got to treatthem as people who make decisions.That framework was from the originalpresentation of “truth.” What later be-came “truth” was actually called“Rage” when we presented it. And thatchanged when we went out and talkedto teens. We found out that it was lessabout rage but more that they wantedhonest answers. So the “truth” brandwas created. And the other thing, Iguess, that was new in it was thisnotion of the brand, the degree towhich we took it. We tried to brand itlike a hip teen brand. When we did itin Florida, we weren’t sure it would

work, so there are two “truth” logosyou can see: one is a Helvetica insidean oval, that’s Florida work. We kept itvery simple because we didn’t knowwhether the whole branding partwould work at all. We wanted to beable to say, “Oh no, that was just artdirection,” you know. We could tellour contemporaries in the businessthat it was just art direction and not alogo and that we weren’t trying tobrand it in case it didn’t work. But onanalysis, when they went and talked toteens, instantly it was one of the mostrecognized teen brands. The brandingactually worked better than wethought it would. Then the nationalsettlement happened. We teamed upwith Arnold in Boston, who were doinga lot of Massachusetts state work,which was really good. And then, to-

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... small ads in magazines such as The New

Yorker and The Smithsonian.

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gether, we got the national piece. Ifyou look at the national logo and youlook at the national branding, it’sbeen brought up a couple of notches,because the whole brand conceptworked better than we would have ex-pected. The logo really looks like alogo and you couldn’t say. “No that’sjust an art direction.” I mean that is alogo, and, you know, “truth” is thenumber three most recognized teenbrand, or the brand with the highestawareness, behind Volkswagen andBudweiser.L.A.: I think the “truth” campaign shouldhave won the Grand Prix in Cannes. Alex Bogusky: It’s interesting because,when we did it, I was concerned that itwas the best thing I would ever do. It

seemed too early in my career to dothe best and most important thing, butit still may be. It’s been nice, becauseit has brought a lot of other oppor-tunities with it. It was the first time wecould really show what we can do, wefinally had enough budget. Gettingthat in Florida was a huge moment forthe agency, because we had never hada budget of larger than five milliondollars. Now, we had a budget wherewe could really execute. So it still maybe the best thing we’ve ever done. Itdefinitely has led into other things.L.A.: And it is considered by experts tobe the most effective social marketingeffort in history.Alex Bogusky: I mean, you get chillswhen you talk about it, because you

can kind of run through the numbersand figures. We did it once and therewere about 80,000 people in Floridawho would die from tobacco usage,who statistically would have, I mean.It’s hard to do something like that inadvertising and it’s nice to be able to.L.A.: It helped you to develop theagency, and to expand it. Now you’rein this building which I have alreadyadmired, especially the agora. How didthat happen? Were you involved in theinterior design, what’s the idea behindit?Alex Bogusky: It was actually fun to doit. We started by looking at somearchitects locally. We didn’t really findanyone we liked, locally, which was ashame. We hate the notion of goingout of town, because we’ve sufferedfrom that for our whole career. But wedid wind up looking elsewhere. Wefinally came up with a guy who’s aprofessor at Rice University, Texas,and who is a designer. When we satdown and talked to him, we gave himall the material we could. About whowe were, our employee handbook, abunch of advertising we’ve done,mission statements, how we communi-cate internally, and so on. He walkedthrough the offices and took a look atwhat they looked like. What I reallyliked about him was that he wanted tocreate the two things that were impor-tant to us: One, he understood the“Factory” concept. Because we talk alot here about the fact that we are a“factory,” and that this is a manu-facturing industry. Some people sayit’s a service industry and I think,generally, you would find advertisingon the list of service industries. It’snot the aspects of service; it’s aboutthe product. There are aspects of tak-ing someone to lunch and giving himwhat he wants, giving him the adver-tising he wants, but in the end it’sabout the product. You manufacture,and I think because people sometimesfeel that they’re in a service industry,they believe that saying “Yes” is moreimportant than giving a good product.So we’re really big on the notion thatwe’re a factory. Secondly, he kept inmind that the best interactionsbetween people take place outside ofoffices. More in halls, doorways, andthings like that. So he was trying todevelop a place where this couldhappen. So he cut it in half. He calledit an “ant farm.” We called it the“prison block” because it looks a bitlike that, too. He made all the activi-

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One of the numerous print efforts from Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s anti-tobacco “truth” campaign.

interview alex bogusky.qxd 19.10.2004 11:03 Uhr Seite 8 Gabi_OSX Gabi:Desktop Folder:Lürzer Print 5/04:Europa:

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ties transparent. If you stand in oneplace, you can kind of see all theoffices from either side. He also didanother very democratic thing – thereare no window offices. Everyoneshares the same external windows,because we built a building within an-other one. You’re always worried whenyou move. You think you might leavethat special something, whatever it is,in the old building. But it’s great,everyone is really happy with the newbuilding. We instantly did a bunch ofgood work after we moved. That waskind of like “Whew, OK, no curse oranything.” The curse of many agenciesis that they move into a new spaceand, at exactly the same time, theylose a piece of business. Then theyhave to take on anything to supportthe space they’ve got. So we wantedthe space to be really cheap – luckily,this one looks like a factory and facto-ries are easy to do cheaply. Wewanted it to be inexpensive so wedidn’t wind up having clients for thewrong reasons – to pay the rent. Weare lucky enough not to get into asituation where we lost everythingright after we moved in. It’s com-fortable now. The agora, this was atheatre and at one point we weregoing to leave a lot more of thetheatreness. You would actually gointo different theatres, and the agencywould have been divided intotheatres, but you had to tear every-thing out, anyway, and to rebuild thetheatre would have been too weird. Sothe agora is sort of homage to the factthat it once was a theatre. A lot ofpeople work on the agora, by the way.A lot of them seem to like to sit therewith their laptops and work. L.A.: I am fascinated by the concept ofthe agora. That’s where Plato inventedthe term idea. How do you protectideas?Alex Bogusky: I don’t even know if wetry to do that, it just happens. In termsof protecting our work, we do a coupleof things. One is that we don’t makethe account people present thecreative, generally. Creative peoplealways present the creative and theyalways have relationships with theclients. I learned that a long time ago,although we creative people, we wantto do our job and then give it away tosomeone else, because we don’tnecessarily like that interaction. Youhave to. The only thing we’re askingthe account people to do is to keep itsold. Once it’s done and sold, then the

account people have to keep it likethat, which is a tough enough job any-way. What else? I don’t know, maybein terms of inspiring people. L.A.: It’s funny, I was talking to somepeople, they have just created a serv-ice in Austria called the “idea protec-tor,” which they have on the internet,where people can obviously protecttheir ideas, which I found per se in-teresting and nearly impossible at thesame time.Alex Bogusky: Well, another thing webelieve in, in terms of ideas, is not tohold them too precious. We have aterm, before you go into any meeting,which says: “Be the ninja.” Thatmeans, expect that all your ideas willbe killed. Then you have the ability topresent them in a somewhat rationaland disconnected way, and the clientcan’t tell which one you prefer. Youjust battle beautifully. I think it’s veryimmature to get too attached to anidea. If you get too attached to anidea, then that’s communicating thefact that you can’t come up with an-other one. To me, that’s sad, youshould feel like you can come up withhundreds, and this is just the one thatyou have in front of you right now.L.A.: Never fall in love with an idea.Alex Bogusky: No, never, and if theywant to kill it, then kill it. We willcome up with other good stuff.L.A.: What can kill an idea?Alex Bogusky: Other than the clientwho just doesn’t like it? If it feels tooderivative, there’s always somethingcoming up where you think, “Well, thisidea is a little bit like this and that,”and you can’t move it further away,change it or kill it. There’s a lot ofsimultaneous creation that is happen-ing. It happens more often than youthink. You have an idea, and rightwhen you break it, someone elsebreaks something similar. Vice versa,someone breaks something you’vealso had nearly on the track. That cankill an idea. The other thing – gen-erally, or maybe it’s a personal thing –is that I don’t like stuff which is toocynical. Here in this agency, I like itwhen the work is somewhat positiveand plays on the more funny aspectsof humanity, not just on the cynicalsides of life. A lot of creative work iscynical – it’s fine but it’s just not thekind of work I want to do.L.A.: Because there are these usualsuspects. Stuff that kills ideas:Meetings, politics, censorship, self-censorship, apathy, or money?

Alex Bogusky: These things we canusually work around. Fear is alwaysthe biggest idea-killer, when peopleare afraid of things. People always askus how we sell our ideas. I think we’venever tried to. We just show our ideasand talk about ideas. That’s the waywe approach problems and the way weapproach solutions. The clients don’treally say one thing is risky andanother is not. I think they wind upseeing it very much the way we see it.Like there’s this issue we’re all tryingto fix and here’s a bunch of ways to doit. When you talk about it like that,they are much more open to gravitatetowards the best solution. If you say,“OK, I’ve got two things, I’ve got onething that is OK and safe but it’sprobably not going to break throughlike the second one,” this “break-through work” – we never talk likethat. Then you start to sell somethingthat feels risky. We just have regularconversations about it, and from ourpoint of view it’s very risky to do“invisible advertising.”

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