The Egotist & Ad Club Interview Cal McAllister of Wexley School for Girls
By The Denver Egotist / /
In our business, sometimes we stumble upon an individual who reminds us, “Yeah. This is why I got into advertising.” Cal McAllister, co-founder and creative director for Seattle’s Wexley School for Girls, is that very individual. He’s just flat out fun, and that fun works wonders in the curiously quirky and juicy work for iconic Northwest brands Rainier Beer, Microsoft, Oberto Jerky, Darigold and the Seattle Sounders. It’s all just as delightful as our conversation with Cal.
Q: Pop the bubbly. Agency watchers congratulate Wexley School of Girls for being one of the most unique names in the agency business. Tell us what didn’t make the cut.
A: We were trying to avoid a name that really meant something, but still started a conversation. Ours certainly does that. The ones that got a serious look included Wounded Tarantula, Modern Furniture, Kittens and Ducks, Sure We Can Do That and The Inn at Bed and Breakfast. All that said, we’re confident Wexley School for Girls deflects million dollars of business every year in name alone.
Q: You’ve self-categorized Wexley as a fan factory. What makes this philosophy rain such attention from the public?
A: The consumer is so sophisticated now. Social media introduced a two-way street of communication, whether brands like it or not. Before that, the Internet turned a guy with a laptop and an appetite into a restaurant reviewer with a million followers. So we take brands and look for every opportunity to make a creative impression. Today’s consumer is human and just wants to be entertained. They want to be brought into the game. Who showed it best? Goddamn The Price is Right, that’s who. Give people an opportunity to play along and they might just go nuts for you.
Q: The Chinese restaurant storefront. Hanging rubber chickens. Giant bear statue. Wexley is the proud owner of an eclectic collection of interior decoration. What else can we peek at inside the agency confines?
A: We’ve got a 1973 Prowler that cost us about $3,000 on Craigslist, but we needed to put in an $18,500 hole in the wall to get it in the building. Now that’s smart business. Our fax machine sits behind a vault door in a room best described as Studio 54 meets a bank. We always welcome people to come in and visit when they are in town, so please do. We ask our clients to live out their brands and our credibility would be blown if I had a bunch of rows of grey cubicles.
Q: From scratch, you built the Seattle Sounders brand before they played their first game. Details please.
A: Well, let me start by saying it was certainly the perfect storm of sports awfulness in Seattle. The Mariners had almost the worst record in baseball, the UW football team went 0-12, the Seahawks only won four games and that living bitch David Stern used our Sonics as an example of what happens when a city won’t finance a new stadium with public funds. I say all that just to set the context, just to field a team that had never lost anything — well, the place would likely sell out no matter what we did. But there was a great chance to build a brand from scratch. That is truly a rare opportunity, one to build a brand that people already want to like with no baggage and only great expectations. The Sounders are also one of those clients who put as much work in on their side as we do on ours. We gave them March to the Match, they gave us the scarves as the first season ticket. We were just a couple of kids playing make believe in the sandbox and all of a sudden everyone came to see our little show. I still get chills thinking about opening day.
Q: For Microsoft, you built the world’s largest cell phone. Is that in Guinness?
A: It is not. I respect Guinness. They just declared themselves the brand standard of superhuman feat. And being a kid of the 70s, I spent all kinds of time trying to hit a zillion free throws in a row, or jumping rope, or blowing bubbles. And then I actually had the resources to accomplish some of these things. So that is the biggest phone ever. And one time, I had about 27K people throw a paper airplane at one time. Beat the record by almost 15k people at the time. But then Guinness wanted several thousand dollars to fly out and check it. And also said stuff like “well is there a carrier? Because I see that it places calls, but our rules state…” or, “were they all standing in a line throwing the airplane? Because our rules say an actual flight needs to record a distance from a starting point (blah blah blah).” So I would say, “They were not in a line, but a stadium with nearly three times the people in your book all threw at the count of three,” and they said there wasn’t a record for that. So, short question, long answer, and we have often been the world record holders, but not under the governing brand of said record.
Q: The bulk of your clients are Pacific Northwest big fish. Is there any appeal in expanding your client base beyond your corner pocket of the country?
A: All the time. We very much want to expand. A few things are always in the works, we just need a sustainable business model in a new host city.
Q: Let’s tap into your past. Before cracking into the ad game, you were a Chicago Tribune reporter. What’s the scoop behind this background and how did it play out into the ad game?
A: I graduated with a Journalism degree and thought that was my path. I could craft a story pretty well, and people enjoyed what I wrote. But the simple fact was advertising was a whole lot more accepting of me making things up. So a combination of that, and the fact I really prefer to be a story maker over a storyteller, and advertising just was a lot of fun. And still is. Journalism taught me the invaluable skill of taking way too much information, finding something interesting in there and distilling it down to that fact. They only time I ever doubted wanting to be a writer was when then Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight was yelling at me about a story I was about to write. He told me most people learn to write in the second grade, and then learn to move on and get a career. He was kind of a dick to me, too.
Q: What attracted you to Seattle?
A: It was less about the city and more about the first writing opportunity. I moved sight unseen and thought I’d be there for about a year. But I fell in love. With people, with the water, with the mountains, with the music, with the opportunities there. It is the kind of city where people not only encourage you to follow your cockamamie dreams, but support them. So it was really less about the attraction to Seattle and more that after living in New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago and Columbus, no place can beat it.
Q: What’s the craziest thing your agency’s ever brewed up?
A: I would hope if you asked that question to the agency that you’d get 41 different answers. Our clients might say giving away 10,000 scarves when we were actually tasked to sell them. One of my favorites was a video campaign for a rebrand when peoples’ pants burst into flames as they told common misperceptions of the client. But that was just because fire is crazy. It’s a tough question, because there isn’t anything we’ve done yet where I can lean back in my chair and say, “Yep, career box checked.”
During interviews, what kind of candidate earned a business card for Team Wexley?
A: The humble kind. The ones who prove they love the process of getting to the work, not just the results of the process. And anyone with a superpower. I don’t really care what it is.
Q: Where do you see this wacky roller coaster ride called advertising take us all next?
A: The industry will continue to shrink. Advertising won’t. But Google is putting agencies out of business. Craigslist basically put newspapers out of business. Budgets for the vast majority of clients will continue to shrink. And more than ever, the idea, not the dollars behind it, will ensure the best people keep making a hell of a living.
Want more of Cal? You got it, this Thursday, February 26th 6PM at The Denver Post, 101 West Colfax Avenue in Denver. Register for tickets now at adclubdenver.com.
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