Interview with legendary adman Lee Clow
By Bob Garfield - June 11, 2007

Clow: I found my way into advertising because I loved, kind of, the art of communication. I was inspired by the ’60s and Bernbach and all that stuff, that it could be smart, it could be artful, it could be interesting. So I always feel a little bit mixed, because advertising has such a, kind of, a damning definition, and at the same time, I love it when it’s done well. And that’s what I’ve tried to do for a lot of years.

… The world has evolved to a place where brands that need to speak to their audience have to understand that everything that they do is media. Everything that they do is telling their story.

… I think it’s this new age of transparency and kind of obligation that everything that a brand does is a message, and it needs to be done artfully and truthfully and intelligently, because that’s how people are ultimately going to evaluate brands that they want to do business with. And I think ultimately brands are going to become media.

… Creative people are 50% ego and 50% insecurity. They need to constantly be told they’re good and they’re loved. And nobody’s figured out a way to celebrate the people who do interesting, multimedia accomplishments on behalf of brands. Sometimes it ends up being looked at as just kind of integrated marketing, where everything uses the same typeface and the same color. So it’s kind of denigrated by, oh, well, it’s just, you know, that old integration, whole egg bullshit. And sometimes it’s viewed as, that’s the interactive guy’s job, and I’ll do the main media. …

… You also have a generational thing. I’m, like, the oldest guy in the business, and I think I get it, but so many of the older creative people are just comfortable in what they learned to do and what they like to do and what they care about. The kids that are doing the coolest stuff in our agency are these young bloods and these young, just-out-of-school [kids] who love the idea of doing all media and love the idea of doing underground YouTube films. So it’s also going to be a bunch of the older creative people retire or die, you know, and young people smart enough to know what they love doing may be the ones that figure out how to celebrate or recognize it.

… It seems like it’s the agency’s responsibility to try and harness the creative talent and enthusiasm and point it at a marketing problem and so on. It’s like coaching a basketball team. The players are young, multimillionaire kids that can do amazing shit. And the coach has to make them play together and win championships. If they were left to their druthers, they’d be out there trying to out-slam-dunk each other and not sharing the ball. So you’re basically harnessing.

… We have to figure out a way to get paid for our ideas, own some of our ideas in perpetuity. If Ammirati still owned the Ultimate Driving Machine and got residuals every year, like the voice-over announcer and the music people do when they rerun spots, it would be a much fairer model. But instead it’s just a commodity, and we pay you whatever we pay you, and we own that line forever, and you can’t come after it. I’m a huge champion that we’re going to — we should move to a compensation model that has to do with our talent, our creativity and our ideas and the storytelling ability that we have in all media. If we don’t do that, we are going to either be sliced up or eclipsed.

[Lee Clow: Advertising Age]

Via The Hidden Persuader