• Super Bowl Ads Can Go Suck A Tailpipe

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    Another Super Bowl is over, and the topic of conversation around the various water coolers across the country will focus more on the ads than the game itself. And I am so bored with it all. Can we please just stop this fucking madness?

    Creating an ad for the Super Bowl makes shooting fish in a barrel look difficult. I'm not saying I could fart a good one out any time of the day or night, although I probably could...and so could you.

    No, what I'm saying is that advertisers have a captive audience of millions and millions. It's the one time of the year when people look forward to the ad breaks, rather than zipping past them on the DVR.

    So as a creative team "lucky enough" to work on one, you are told this: "hey guys, here a few million bucks, getting noticed won't be a problem either, and the usual client bullshit and trepidation won't apply...now go, get creative."

    What happens? On the whole, we see lame ideas wrapped in lavish packaging. We get effects usually reserved for Hollywood movies. We see outrageous plots and stunts. And when the budget doesn't stretch that far because it's all been spent on the media buy, well, we see the other standbys - frat house gags and semi-naked women. The beer brands love them some naked chicks.

    And as for GoDaddy, well that Bob Parsons fella should be charged with criminal pollution for the complete shit he puts on the air, and the "too hot for TV" horse manure that plays on his website. Oh, yeah, that's real tough...start a Penthouse pet stripping on TV; tell the guys she'll finish it off on the site. Fucking genius.

    Advertising as a craft is more than a big budget, cheap thrills and a captive audience. In fact, I was once told that any kid can come into an agency with a book filled with amazing, but expensive, ideas. Come into the agency with a killer idea that will capture the imagination of the target audience, and do it on a dime...you're hired my friend.

    If the Super Bowl ads are an example of what our industry can do when they're left to be creative, then we're all royally fucked. What's creative, if you're really being honest, about most of the stuff you saw over the course of Sunday's TV viewing? Were there a few gems? Sure. Was it the big effects that made those gems great, or did they have a genuinely good idea that would stand out regardless of what the day was? That's way more likely.

    As time goes on, the Super Bowl ads will no doubt go one of two ways. They'll get even more costly and ridiculous, with the 2019 GoDaddy spot featuring hardcore anal penetration and midget bestiality. Or, brands like Pepsi (who pulled out this year) will find a better use for their millions and millions of dollars. I'm looking forward to the latter.

    These Super Bowl ads are not a challenge, and they're not advertising. In fact, they're the freak show of advertising, and it's about time we put them out of their misery. Haters, leave your scathing remarks in the comments box below. Thanks.

  • New Year. New Site. New Rant. New Felix?

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    Last night I sat in my favorite old armchair, put on my smoking jacket (I don’t smoke, oh the irony) and poured myself a glass of Glenmorangie Single Malt. There’s nothing quite like sipping on a fine whisky as you’re flicking, metaphorically speaking, through the pages of your old articles. And then I noticed something of a pattern.

    Did I spend 2009 being a vile and viscous hater, spewing acidic venom on anyone and anything that caught my bloodshot eye?

    Yes. No question.

    Did I take every opportunity to be a complete bastard, even when responding to comments?

    Guilty.

  • Predict the 2010 Colorado Agency of the Year

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    You’ve cast your vote for last year’s Agency of the Year. Who’s going to be the best agency in Colorado by the end of 2010?

  • Vote for the 2009 Colorado Agency of the Year

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    After a year in which it was a struggle to even keep the lights on, let alone grow an agency, we proudly present our third annual 2009 Colorado Agency of the Year poll. Our criteria for the most deserving agency is as follows. Feel free to add your own when you cast your vote.

    1 – Authenticity, creativity and consistency of output.
    2 – Success in retaining clients and winning new business.
    3 – Strength of billings.

    Who gets your vote?

  • Get Your Gossip Here

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    It’s been a while since we did this, but let’s give it another go. Pick up a tidbit and drop one off. We’ll start. One Denver interactive firm is going up, another is going the opposite direction. Your turn.

  • Selected Winning Work from The Denver 50 Show 2009

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    If you were there last night, you already know. If you weren’t, you’re about to.

    Instead of standing on the ad stage for its annual award show like an awkward, pimply-faced teen stumbling through a rendition of the Jonas Brothers’ ‘Lovebug,’ Denver was Ozzy in his Black Sabbath heyday biting off the head of a rabies-ridden bat last night. That was dramatic. The winning work made us feel pretty damn stoked to be part of what’s going on in the ad industry in this city right now.

    Among the many “I-wish-I-did-that” looks on attendee’s faces, it was great to see some agencies that haven’t been represented in the past. Similar to Sukle dominating the show with its work for Denver Water last year, Boulder’s TDA had a huge number of well-deserved pieces selected from their FirstBank campaign this year. We were also happy to see Crispin’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign for Burger King posted among the 50 winning ideas. The Boulder juggernaut could certainly have overtaken the entire show if desired, but we’re excited (and hopeful for the future) that they’re showing support for the local scene by at least firing off a handful of entries. A few new players also grabbed up some brass, including Futuristic Films, OBrien Advertising and Sterling-Rice Group.

    The only low point of the evening was when they ran out of mini-beef wellingtons. And the bar ran out of limes. Or rather, the bar never stocked limes. Two things we’ll easily look past because the work was so tasty.

    The ad club was kind enough to let us post a pdf of the entire book (40 MB pdf) for your downloading pleasure if you didn’t get a hard copy at the show (be sure to look at the sponsors page to see who helped fund the fun). You can grab that here. And if you want a hard copy of your own, order one for $15 here.

    Here’s a selection of our favorite work from The Denver 50 2009. Nice showing, Denver. And nice work, ad club. The club has definitely righted itself after last year’s snore fest and the future is looking bright(er). Let’s keep going.

    – – – – – 

    Pizza Inn TV; TDA Advertising & Design
    Families find some ridiculous reasons to argue, but Pizza Inn provides one thing they can always agree on. That was the simple idea behind this TV and radio campaign meant to make people laugh and get them talking about Pizza Inn again.

    Jimmy John’s Studio Micro Site; Xylem Digital
    Jimmy John’s is a sub shop that happens to make a killer sandwich – but one thing that separates it from competitors is their speed. They make a sandwich so fast, it’s Freaky! Using viral and community marketing, which as we all know can also be Freaky Fast, Xylem used the theme to develop and design the yearlong Jimmy John’s Freaky Fast campaign.

    The campaign began with the Freaky Fast Garage micro site, using NASCAR to emphasize sandwich delivery that’s “So Fast You’ll Freak.” The Sizzle site promoted making it fast and fun and the Jimmy John’s Studio micro site enabled fans to record their own karaoke, singing along with the “So Fast You’ll Freak” theme song. Xylem gave fans the opportunity to create custom vocals set to 5 music genres, record the audio mix and send it to friends or to a mobile device as a ring-tone.

    FirstBank Airport Mobile Alerts; TDA Advertising & Design
    Denver International Airport is one of the biggest and busiest airports in the country; over 50 million passengers fly in and out. FirstBank wanted to make their presence known, by practically owning the advertising within the facility. They set out to tie-in airport-related ideas with the fact that their Mobile Banking and Mobile Alerts features can work anywhere. Now, everywhere you go is a branch of FirstBank. You can see if your check deposited while waiting at baggage claim, or check your balance while sitting at your gate. A great feature with an appropriate tie-in.

    Mountain Dew DEWmocracy; Motive
    Mountain Dew reintroduced its user-generated soda program, DEWmocracy, with a twist—this year, every component and decision about the program would be user-driven. Flavor; name; packaging; advertising. In 2010, the new DEW would be truly “by the people.”

    For its launch, Motive created DEW Labs, a crowd-sourcing think-thank providing a transparent platform for consumer involvement. Web-centric celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Shira Lazar helped kick things off with a promotional challenge encouraging consumers to “show their DEWness” via video or email. The top ‘DEWmeisters’ landed roles in DEW Labs’ first phase: choosing the flavor. Winners received seven never-before-tasted DEW flavors, DEW-inspired art, FlipVideo Camcorders, and one objective: taste, debate, and ultimately decide your favorite flavor, capturing the process on video.

    Hundreds of video submissions, 50 tasting videos and millions of social media impressions made DEWmocracy’s launch a viral sensation. DEW Labs is now evolving into a permanent platform for consumer engagement.

    Denver Water Grass Is Dumb; Sukle Advertising & Design
    After months of intensive account planning and in-depth research we uncovered THE key insight; grass is ignorant. It didn’t know the square root of 9,879,879,212,340. It didn’t know the 17th President of the United States. It didn’t even know basic geography. And it certainly wouldn’t notice a little less water. A reduction of just 2 minutes of watering would save the city nearly 1 million gallons of water each summer. An out-of-home, TV and guerilla campaign drove the message home and helped to reduce water consumption to new levels.

    Wyoming Department of Health Let it Out Campaign; Barnhart
    Wyoming is a beautiful, sparsely populated state. But sadly it has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the country. So when the Wyoming Department of Health came to us for help, we asked ourselves “How do you tell someone not to commit suicide?” We concluded that you don’t. Wyoming needed a cultural shift to get teens and young adults to open up. We developed a campaign aimed at promoting a website for them to talk openly and honestly about everything: a place to vent. We set up statewide rage events that included car smashes, guitar hero competitions, live bands and even a bucking rooster, all with the theme Let it Out. Add in a video contest and give away posters and t-shirts, stickers and custom skateboards, and we found that we weren’t only getting our message out there, but we’d started a bit of a movement. What started as a website with blog postings and multimedia content, has become an online community where kids have opened up much faster than we ever thought possible. Engagement and time on the site has surpassed everyone’s expectations. Here’s to letting it out in Wyoming.

    Department of Public Health and Environment The Cigarette is Dead; Cactus
    The brief was to motivate young adults to quit smoking. Today, smoking has become passé due to the wide-spread knowledge of its unhealthy effects; but, we needed to bury the impulse to light-up completely.

    The Cigarette is Dead hit the urban landscape with chalk stencils, banners, large-form posters and building projections, murals and structural drapes. It created an underground sensation and ignited chatter for the movement. We extended the movement by documenting the guerilla components in print and TV ads. Guerilla and mass media pushed to the Web site; the site presented the grim facts, invited visitors to share their experiences, and linked them to resources to kill their addiction.

    From sidewalks to skyscrapers, 75,000 off-line executions were posted, projected, glued, draped and dropped in the first three months alone. We conducted events on 17 campuses and in 28 communities in 73 days.

    The Cigarette Is Dead from FL2 Interactive on Vimeo.

    Keystone Light Keystolog; The Integer Group
    Campers and hunters have two things in common. They love the great outdoors, and swapping stories around the campfire. The last thing these guys want to do is waste time scouting for soggy twigs to get the fire going.

    Keystone Light comes to the rescue with the Keystolog: kindling these guys could download and print from a special microsite, cut and fold into logs, and bingo—the fire’s going in no time.

    Colorado Lottery “Bomb Squad” TV Spot; Cactus
    The Brief: Drive sales of Colorado Lottery Scratch tickets. Remind viewers that luck happens everyday.

    The Execution: The Luck Happens TV campaign tells the story of everyday characters who are hit by the stroke of luck. The quirky spots feature unexpected, over-the-top story lines that are rooted in reality—they resonate with the dream of winning inside each of us. For the first time in the Lottery’s history, the Lottery has received consumer emails asking why “Bomb Squad” was taken off the air and asking for it to run again.

    Chez Cheese Gourmet Market Posters/Nontraditional; OBrien Advertising
    Research showed that many people were too intimidated to enter a fine cheese store due to their lack of “cheese knowledge.” So we decided to position Chez Cheese as the cheese experts who can put people at ease and educate them on all the different types of cheese in the world.

    The posters were placed in high pedestrian areas around the cheese store and the mouse trap with the sign “Capture some cheese knowledge” was placed in the same vicinity with an arrow pointing toward the store.

  • The Rant: Don't Screw The Crew

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    Volume 38 In a Series By Felix

    I’m taking a break from the usual ranting on work, although this is somewhat related. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but not always an easy one to follow; don’t have sex with anyone in the office. It really is that simple.

    It’s not prudish, it’s common sense. Personally, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what you do when it comes to sex. If you like to dress up as Tinker bell and sodomize a David Hasselhoff lookalike with a Swiffer Wetjet, go for it. But do it without involving your coworkers. Because I have lost count of how many “relationships,” casual or otherwise, have completely fucked up the work dynamic. And when the work suffers, the agency suffers. Which means everyone feels the fallout of your monkey-piling escapades.

    There are no good outcomes from this, as some of you will already know. Here are a few from my past, and in good Dragnet style, the names have been changed to protect the innocent(ish).

    When I was in my first ever agency job, my AD took a real shine to the PA of the CEO. Annie was equally smitten. Before I could yell “noooooo” in slo-mo, they were screwing each other’s brains out.

    I took him to one side, bought him a beer and said, in no uncertain terms, “if you fuck this up, you realize we’re both getting the shaft.” He said he knew what he was doing. And for one year, everything was rosy. Our expense reports got approved instantly, sometimes we even got extra cash for “out of pocket” expenses. We were getting on the good accounts. We were on great pitches. Then, at a Christmas bash, he decided he’d play the field and hooked up with someone from the account group.

    Before I knew what had hit me, I was in the middle of a quagmire. Emails were flying back and forth, people were ignoring us, we got taken off the primo account and were stuck doing credit-card mailings. And all because my AD decided to dip his wick in a moment of weakness.

    Fast-forward a few years, and two great friends of mine joined the agency I was working at. Chaz and Dave both instantly had eyes for the same girl, a blonde from Norway with the physique of a Playboy bunny and the hair of a mermaid. Heidi liked them both, but she made her choice, and dated Chaz. But it wasn’t long before the rumors were confirmed… she was dating Dave at the same time, without Chaz knowing. It was not an easy secret to keep, and after a few months the game was up. It was a civil war, the accounts they were on suffered and it almost split up a great team. The girl moved on to another agency, but the damage had been done, and Chaz and Dave were the first victims of a downsizing.

    You have no doubt heard many stories like those. You may even have been involved in a couple. But nothing good ever comes of these trysts. Either things go sour (90% of the time) and the work suffers, along with anyone in the crossfire. Or, things go great and you end up with two people who make puppy-eyes at each other instead of getting on with the job at hand.

    Advertising is a business that forces people to work together for long hours. It’s also an emotional business, filled with creative, emotional people. The chances of relationships forming are vastly increased. But this is not the time to listen to your reproductive organs. Use your head. Have relationships with people in other agencies, by all means. But do not screw the crew.

    If you do, everyone gets screwed in the end.

  • The Egotist Interviews: Director Ondi Timoner of "We Live In Public"

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    Interviewed with help from Aubrey Cornelius

    How did you get such unrestrained access to Josh Harris?

    I was called by Josh Harris and asked if I wanted to document “cultural history.” This is sometime in mid-1999. He said, “It’s the millennium. Someone has to do something and no one is doing anything.” He didn’t like the way he looked on film, so he stole all the masters, and that was the end of the project. I walked away and that was going to be that. When I won Sundance in 2004 for “Dig,” I got an email saying, “I’d like to finish the film.” I said “no” and had no interest in working with someone who took my masters. He made a proposal to me – he’d give me all the masters back, full creative control, and no end date for filming. It wasn’t until 2007 that I saw Facebook status updates and thought “we’re all living in a bunker” and wanted to complete the film. That was his hope to get back on the scene, so he gave me all the access I needed. By the end, I had creative control and owned the film myself. I was able to go make the film I needed to be made.

    ––

    WLIP has garnered so much critical acclaim. To what do you attribute such a strong response?

    It’s an extremely relevant film – a social issue film for our time unlike any film that’s out there in terms of how it applies to all of us. Even if you look at a film about water shortage or climate change, it doesn’t really affect you on a personal level as much as the Internet. The film also has a rocking soundtrack and amazing footage culled from 5,000 hours of tape. It’s an extremely entertaining film as well. A unique beast. One of those weird organisms that’s a miracle to make. I edited the film in 8 months and felt like it really needed to premiere at Sundance in January 2009. We Live in Public is a harbinger of things to come for all of us as the virtual world takes over our lives. It has implications for all of us: how we behave and how our friends behave and what the ramifications of all that are.

    ––

    What do you want people to take away from the film?

    I want people to be conscious of their lives online and the way they behave. There’s a good opportunity with this film to reflect afterward. Josh is a double cautionary tale – he was raised on technology and a TV set, which informed his idea of family. The film is a good cautionary tale for adults and parents to realize they shouldn’t park their kids in front of a computer or TV set. As obvious as that is, it’s so easy and compelling to babysit your child that way. Josh made his life way too public. He screwed up the only relationship of his life on camera. The Internet is not an intimate media. It’s not private. It’s not any place for love. It’s great for promoting a film and a book and efficient communication, but you’re connecting with 50% less depth. This film makes you aware of that. How much you take out your iPhone or Blackberry and look down instead of looking up at the world around you.

    The thing I love about this film is that we’re looking 10 years back at the bunker, and it’s really not that long ago, which begs the question: where are we going 5, 10 years from now? Everything changes so fast. It’s important that everyone is aware because we may live in these boxes. We’re going to lose our individuality and freedom. The movie shows we’ll gladly trade that for the recognition we feel we need – it wakes people up a little bit. The Internet is the most powerful and wonderful invention of our lifetime, but it has a dark side and this film happens to capture that dark side.

    ––

    What compels people to share such intimate details of their personal lives?

    The feedback. Wanting to leave a lasting mark. We want our lives to matter and we want to feel connected and not alone. The Internet give us this 24/7 opportunity not to feel alone. The more we connect online, the less alone we feel.

    ––

    What is the next boundary to be crossed in social media?

    Self surveillance – the ability to record everything in real time. We’re going to film ourselves and that’s going to become programming. This is Josh’s prediction, and I think he’s right again. What’s scary is that really we live in public wherever we are – if you’re not shooting it, someone else is. You’re out there, whether you like it or not.

    Will we reach our tolerance of “living in public” before it turns to self destruction?
    I don’t think we can. Some people will be over it, but we’re too hooked into the web – you can’t pull out of it. You can choose to pull back, but it’s not going to be possible to disconnect. Completely. I’ve joked at Q&As that if everyone organizes to get off the grid, they’ll do it on Twitter.

    ––

    What are you working on next?

    I’m working on a film about climate change called “Cool It” about certain solutions being overlooked because of the hysteria. I hope to finish it in the coming year. I’m also developing a few features, like the story of Robert Mapplethorpe.

    ––

    The film We Live In Public screens at the Starz FilmCenter in Denver from December 3-10, with special screenings this Thursday and Friday night. Get your tickets before they’re gone.

  • The Rant: Death to Focus Groups

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    Volume 37 In a Series By Felix

    I’ll start this one with some words from a great man, much greater than myself, who died way before his time at age 32. Ladies and gentlemen, the late Bill Hicks:

    “Saw a movie this year called Basic Instinct. Now, Bill’s quick capsule review: piece of shit. Thank you. Anyway, after I saw it about eight times… I come to find out, after seeing this film, all of the lesbian sex scenes were cut out of this film because the test audience… was turned off by them! Boy, is my thumb not on the pulse of America. I don’t wanna seem like Randy Pan the Goatboy… but that was the only reason I went to that piece of shit film. Sorry. If I had been in that test audience, the only one out front protesting that film woulda been Michael Douglas demanding his part be put back in.”

    So, they showed the first cut of that shitty film to a test audience, a focus group, and then asked them what they didn’t like about it. And based on the opinions of a very small group of “average” people, they decided what the next cut of the film was going to be. As it turned out, it was a version without a bunch of lesbian sex scenes.

    I’m not saying the crappy film would have been better with all of that stuff in there, although it couldn’t have been any worse. No, the problem here is that you cannot judge what everyone wants by asking a tiny, tiny percentage of the potential audience what they think. And that also goes for product launches (New Coke anyone?) – or advertising.

    Some of the major pitfalls here are obvious. First, your average focus group is made up of people that aren’t a true average of society. For a start, they volunteered to be in a focus group. Right there you have a bunch of people who aren’t the norm. I know my dad would rather gouge his own eyes out with a dirty spoon than sit in a room with a bunch of strangers, spending two hours talking about a TV spot.

    You also have the “saving face” factor, and this is huge. When Seth Godin spoke at DU a few years ago, he talked about coffee. When asked what people want from their cup of joe, they give the usual response. “I want it rich and bold and strong. I want a roast with lots of flavor and depth, something Colombian or French.” I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea. However, when it comes down to it, that’s not what people want at all. They want weak, milky, sugary coffee with none of the bitterness associated with rich, dark coffee. They want middle-of-the-road.

    Focus groups are controlled, usually, by moderators who ask leading questions and probe for cracks in the armor. A prime example of this is the tragedy of the Larry David American Express commercial. I wish, wish, wish I could find a copy for you. I was lucky enough to see it at the Steve Hayden talk recently, and he showed us all. It was fantastic. Larry David refuses to do the ad for Amex unless he can do it in the style of an over-the-top Japanese commercial, like the shitty ones done by Schwarzenegger, Nicolas Cage, Tom Cruise and more. The result is an assault on the senses, and as funny as any episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

    The focus group, a bunch of Japanese-American people, gets together to watch the spot and they’re then asked the question “what do you find offensive about that ad?”

    WTF?!!

    The question should have been “what did you think of that ad?” or “so, thoughts please?” Instead, the question probes for negative responses to the ad and, of course, it gets them. When asked WHAT you find offensive, you rack your brain to answer the question, and you usually find an answer. So, the ad never saw the light of day.

    The director of the spot was so pissed, he went and did the same commercial with Conan O’Brien. It was a pale, heartless imitation and did not work anywhere near as well. Ironically, the Larry David spot pushed the benefits of the Amex card more than any other spot in Amex history!

    There’s a phrase from Men In Black that I use all the time when I refer to focus groups – “A person is smart, people are dumb.” It’s true. Put a bunch of people in a room with a great product, movie or TV spot and you watch them hack the shit out of it. The original cut of Blade Runner was amazing. It still stands up to the test of time, and it’s one of my all-time favorite movies.

    But the pansy-assed test audience hated the downer ending, the implication that Deckard was a replicant (he was), and they got completely lost within the plot, requiring help throughout the film. The studio makes Ridley Scott add a vomit-inducing happy ending, cuts out the dreams of unicorns (which makes the origami unicorn almost meaningless) and then adds this hokey Sam Spade VO that Harrison Ford had to recite almost at gunpoint. Cheers, focus group! You’re morons. And thank fuck for the Director’s Cut, probably one of the only necessary Director’s Cuts ever needed (Aliens needed one, too).

    So, it’s time to kill the focus group. For research, I guess they’re fine. I do agree with Luke Sullivan to some extent though – “extensive research has proven that extensive research is often wrong.” But, if you want to get a bunch of people in a small, sweaty room and ask them what they think of your client’s current product, service or ad campaign, go ahead. Use people for insights. But never, ever think that putting people in front of the finished ad is a good idea. You’re playing Russian Roulette with your campaign, but this time there are five bullets and one blank.

    Please, print the poster and stick it around the office, under your account manager’s nose, or email it to every dick that insists focus groups are a good idea. Focus groups kill good ads and save bad ones. You have been warned.

  • The Egotist Interviews: Leif Steiner of Moxie Sozo

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    Three months ago, I was sitting in a Starbucks coffee shop in Mexico City. It could have been the same Starbucks that sits on the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder. The posters, music and furniture were identical. Over the past six weeks, I’ve been to Starbucks in Hong Kong, London and California. Somewhere, someone at an ad agency figured out how to seamlessly market to consumers in 49 countries. Blond wood and earth tones.

    Perhaps the shadow of global homogeny is upon us. Eventually we will all speak the same language, listen to the same music and watch the same movies. This coming cultural genocide will not happen by force, but will probably be welcomed in the form of a White Chocolate Mocha Frappuccino®.

    So, when I sat down this afternoon to do this interview, I chose an independent little coffee shop on Pearl Street and ordered a 22-ounce bottle of hard cider. I parked at a table in the back, popped the cider, poured a glass and immediately attracted the attention of a carefully crafted hipster from across the room. He walked over, sat down, looked at my hair and asked me if I was ‘that guy’ from Moxie Sozo.

    Presumably I am.

    The following is a mix of questions from you, The Egotist, and our resident hipster.


    Leif Steiner, Creative Director + Founder, Moxie Sozo


    Moxie Sozo Office Interior, Boulder, Colorado

    ——

    Is Moxie Sozo a secret project of CP+B?

    No. We are independently owned, governed and operated by a benevolent dictator. No investors. No loans. We are free to pick, chose (and sometimes fire) our clients at will.

    ——

    Moxie Sozo is known for turning away accounts, accepting a select few, and then maintaining long term relationships with the clients that you work with. All client/agency relationships have their rough patches, but you are rumored to have never lost an account. What is your philosophy toward relationships, and how are you able to make them last as long as you do?

    The obvious answer: We pick our clients very carefully. We deliver on time. We don’t nickel and dime. Our work is effective. / More importantly, we take excellent care of the clients we have. Sometimes this means servicing accounts in ways that you would not expect. Like seducing strippers. We had a wealthy client in the fashion industry who wanted a particular dancer to model her clothing line. She offered me a large sum of money and a decent operating budget to seduce the girl. That weekend I went to the club. Without a game plan, I simply walked up to the girl and told her exactly what I was there to do. She laughed, drained the budget with an evening of lap dances, and then became a model for the next three years.

    ——

    How do you coax such great work out of your designers?

    Bigger cages and longer chains.

    Actually, this is a tough question.

    1) It starts with the people. When we hire or bring on an intern, I rarely consider only the resume. One of the best designers we’ve ever had was from India. She showed up for the interview in full Indian regalia, complete with a flowing sari, elaborate makeup and an ornate bindi on her forehead. She hadn’t slept in 24 hours because she had driven to Boulder nonstop from San Francisco, assembling her portfolio along the way. / In general, I search for people who possess an inordinate amount of passion, drive and desire. Smoldering souls who never rest and never give up. It took Thomas Edison 10,259 attempts to create a working light bulb. These are the type of people we hire.

    2) Office environment. We have a working office on the second floor of a hundred-year-old building. It is too hot in the summer, drafty in the winter and there might even be a ghost. The walls are covered with an eclectic collection of antique taxidermy, medical prints and signs from around the world. We have one fridge that freezes everything and another one that can’t stay cold. There are supposed to be sleeping bags in the closet for late nights, but they seem to have disappeared. The floors sag towards the middle of the building and cockroaches wander up from the restaurant below. People frequently work long hours, occasionally longer than labor laws should allow. Everyone helps everyone, up and down the food chain. It is a vibrant, collaborative atmosphere that sometimes gets too loud. People are almost always laughing and I’ve never heard a single complaint about anything. It seems to be part of the culture. / Those are the ingredients. I have no idea why it works, but it does.

    3) Great clients. We’ve been fortunate; we seem to have a large percentage of clients that say things like: ‘We want to launch a line of skin care products. Go have fun.’ This is smart. I prefer to hire geniuses and point them in the right direction. Whether it is a researcher, designer or programmer, the folks in our studio tend to be very good at what they do. If we are being considered for an account, I usually explain how we operate, and then tell them to go interview other agencies. If we’re a good fit, they come back. The ones that return are looking for work that is out of the ordinary. After a few successes, we’re usually given even more creative freedom. The designers flourish, the clients are happy and the cycle continues.

    ——

    Describe the motivation behind your trip with employees to Peru last fall, and tell us an interesting story that happened along the way.

    I drive our accountant crazy. Wandering around San Francisco a few years ago, I found an antique taxidermy hippopotamus for sale. I bought it for the studio. Have you ever tried to depreciate a dead hippo for tax purposes? / Peru was another spontaneous purchase. I was returning from lunch, and decided to stop by a travel agent. I walked out with tickets for five people in our office. They deserved it, and that was the only motivation I needed. We announced the trip during an office lunch a few days later, but didn’t tell anyone where we were headed. It was a big secret until we got to the airport. After landing in Lima, we rented a truck and drove 2,100 miles through the Andes and into the upper reaches of the Amazon. Most of it was on unpaved roads. We stayed in $6 rooms, ate guinea pig and one of our designers had his chest licked by a Peruvian midget. It was good trip.

    ——

    Moxie Sozo receives thousands of internship requests and you review hundreds of designers for a single position. The firm is also known for working 80-hour workweeks. What do you look for in potential interns/employees?

    When we hire, I look for people who want to achieve greatness in this profession. Becoming the best is a full-time commitment, requiring time and dedication well beyond the traditional forty-hour work week. Greatness does not know the time of day, or the day of the week. Greatness is a mentality and a way of living that permeates everything you do; it is not a part-time job.

    We’ve had many designers come through the doors of our studio. Some of them don’t last, but others thrive and flourish. Those that do, understand what it means to be great. These are people who do not look at the clock, waiting for the end of the day. Rather, they are a rare breed of individuals who approach life and work with an unbridled passion.

    There are many agencies that are 9-5 affairs. I know this, because I’ve seen their offices at night. There is nothing wrong with these agencies, but as far as I am concerned, they are just businesses created to make a profit. The owners drive nice cars and go home to nice houses at night. But to what end? Someday they will wake up 70 years old and rich, wondering what they did for their whole lives.

    The people who work at Moxie Sozo are cut from a different mould; these are people who could probably be successful in any pursuit, but they chose design. They do not work hard because of unrealistic deadlines, or because I’ve told them to stay late. They work hard, because in some people – truly great people, there is a commitment to excellence.

    Over the past year, we’ve stopped looking for designers ‘off the street.’ Instead, we have a pool of interns that we occasionally hire from. Indeed, there are only three people in our office (out of seventeen) who did not start as unpaid interns.

    One of our current designers spent his first year interning full-time and working the night shift at Home Depot. Nate Dyer. He didn’t start out as a great designer. In fact, he didn’t even have much of a portfolio when he started. But he had an unwavering desire to be good, and he never gave up. In the past six months, his work has been featured in Japan, Germany, Hungry and Argentina. As I write this, it is Sunday afternoon. He’s working on a line of juice drinks. While the rest of America is watching TV, he’s in the office swinging for the fences. He might strike out, but he might – just might – hit a home run.

    Success in anything requires an extraordinary amount of work and sacrifice. Nothing less.

    I hire people who want to be successful.

    ——

    In one sentence, what is the secret to managing an office full of creative people?

    Creative people don’t like to be caged.

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    What do you hope will be the most important contribution you achieve during your career?

    We re-packaged a brand of raisins. Their revenues jumped from 5 million dollars a year to 25 million. But I believe ‘success’ means a lot more than making money.

    After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Moxie Sozo organized an international collaboration of artists and designers from around the world to help raise money for the victims. Over 180 different limited-edition series of posters were produced, raising about $50,000. Many of the posters won major design awards, and the effort has been profiled in numerous publications. Exhibitions of the show have appeared around the country and in Europe. Additionally, many of the posters are now in permanent collections of several major museums, including the Library of Congress and the Louvre.

    The Hurricane Poster Project consumed several thousand hours of effort, but it was one of the most satisfying things we’ve done as an agency. After an article appeared in the New Orleans Times Picayune, we had dozens of calls from people who had lost everything. Some even sent us handwritten letters. To know that you’ve touched a life or made a difference in the world is a lot more satisfying than being able to buy a faster car or bigger house.

    Moving forward, a dream client would be villagebanking.org. Having spent a lot of time in the developing world, I’ve seen first hand the impact that a few dollars can make in someone’s life. The next time you buy a coffee, remember that two-thirds of the world’s population lives on less than three dollars a day. Microfinance – the ability of the working poor to get loans and have access to capital – is a simple concept that produces enormous results. / Have we contacted villagebanking.org? No. But given the opportunity to work together, I’d throw the full resources of the agency behind the cause.

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    On a more serious note, how do you get your hair to stand up like that?

    Polyvinylpyrrolidone and other chemicals produced in New Jersey. Moxie Sozo was the first design and advertising agency in the world to become carbon neutral, zero waste and powered by renewable energy. At this point, my hair probably causes more environmental damage than everything else we do combined.

    ——

    We picked up Computer Arts, a British design magazine, and noticed that Moxie Sozo was named ‘Studio of the Month’. At last count, you’ve been featured in twelve books and magazines in six countries this year. On the other hand, you avoid the award shows and abhor the hype that other agencies chase. How do you explain this dichotomy?

    I can’t stop a book, blog or magazine from writing about us, but I can avoid the hype. We entered an awards show several years ago, and won. That was that. Since then, we’ve never entered another. Many agencies love to enter award shows, but awards are not given for effectiveness; they are given for aesthetics and creativity by industry-insiders who like to stand in a big daisy-chain and pat each other on the back.

    That is not us. The only validation I need: In ten years of business, we’ve never lost an account. The vast majority of our clients would refuse to work with any other agency.

    When agencies win awards or start believing their own hype, they get fat and relax. And then they lose their clients to the hoards of younger, more agile agencies who are willing to work a little bit harder, stay up a little bit later, and push the boundaries a little bit further.

    I will not let us fall into that trap. There is a Persian term: یارکی // یارکی is a state of readiness; alert and hungry, but not weak. یارکی would be a good description of Moxie Sozo.

    This August, we passed the 10-year mark. Most of our office wasn’t even aware of it. I don’t care where we’ve been – I’m focused on where we are going. And there are many miles to go before we rest.

    ——

    What is the future of Moxie Sozo?

    In London, I bought a beautiful tablet of finely ruled graph paper. 35 squares wide by 50 squares tall. With each square representing one day, the average human lifespan can be represented on 16 pages of paper. 16 pages of paper.

    We’re here to be a world-class, world-renown agency.

    And if it takes all 16 pages of my life to accomplish that goal, so be it.

    ——

    Any parting thoughts?

    Two years ago, I was in North Africa. It was the last day of Ramadan, and catching a ship across the Mediterranean was unpredictable. I needed to get across by 3:30 p.m. in order to catch a train. My ship had an oil leak, and then a fire. Or maybe it was the other way around. Other passengers were anxious and irritable. The crew seemed to have disappeared. While everyone else was huddled together inside complaining, I climbed to the top of the boat and lay out in the brilliant sun. I hadn’t eaten in almost 36 hours. If I missed my train, there was a decent chance that I might miss my flight the next day… yet there was nothing I could do, but enjoy the moment.

    Several hours later – still savoring the peace of my solitude – the big smokestack above me belched a giant cloud of black smoke, and then the ship was off. I wandered around the enormous mass of iron and steel, curious as to where everyone was. Eventually, I found the entire lot of passengers at the very front of the ship anxiously watching for the tip of Spain. As if watching for it would make it arrive any faster.

    So I made my way back up top. And with an azure sky above, turquoise waters below, North Africa behind me, Europe in front, a whale jumping off to my side, and a train that was leaving me behind… I realized that I was the luckiest man in the world.

    ——

    FYI

    Leif has agreed to help us take advantage of this two-way forum we have here by monitoring comments under this post and responding to any additional questions you’d like to ask that he finds interesting. So ask away. He’s out out town for a week starting Friday, but will add his thoughts when he’s able.