My real talent was for losing clients.
Transferring successfully to the next generation means producing work that’s as good as or better than the work of the first generation that founded the agency.
Eighty percent of what everyone’s talking about never happens. I don’t mean in terms of product development that’s happening right now, I’m talking about the far-flung visions of the future.
First, this isn’t about telecommuting, because we still have offices that people will come to regularly when they need to brainstorm together, meet with clients, or do research in the library.
We set up a beta site, a test site, with movie, music and book reviews. If you’re reading them and you want to buy a book or a ticket for a movie that’s reviewed on the site, you can do that without leaving our site.
Second, we’re spending a huge amount of money on technology so that everyone can check out laptops and portable phones. We’re spending more money to write our existing information into databases or onto CD-ROM.
If you really think about it, when watching television, you have product placement all the time.
It’s very fascinating, it’s very addictive, and it’s incredibly challenging. You’re never satisfied. It’s kind of like advertising. You’re never satisfied.
Charlie Rose is the ultimate ad.
It’s hard to build a brand, competitively, and tell people what you do as well.
I can’t say the advertising model is obsolete yet but it doesn’t make a lot of sense in the long range.
The team architecture means setting up an organization that helps people produce that great work in teams.
We don’t have titles on our business cards. No one really gets any special treatment. No one gets a corner office to put pictures of their family and their dog in.
Technology is the fashion of the ’90s. It affects everyone, and everyone is interested in it – either from fear of being left behind or because they have a real need to use technology.
But I think technology advertising will have to stop addressing how products are made and concentrate more on what a product will do for the consumer.
Advertising ought to work by telling you what it is you want to tell, you should understand what you want us to do, what you want us to think, where you want us to shop.
Outside of advertising, the person who’s influenced me most is quite possibly Frank Gehry.
You start losing a client the moment you get it.
How big can we get before we get bad?
In the ’20s they were telling us wed all have our own private plane and take vacations to the moon.