GLOBAL – According to Ted Royer, Chief Creative Officer at Droga5, there are two types of marketers: those who play it safe, and those who take risks.
In an interview with adobo editor in chief Angel Guerrero at Spikes Asia 2014 in Singapore last September, Royer talked about the evolution of the client-agency relationship, what makes a good marketer, and why the pitch is like a first date. He also talked about the stuff that goes into amazing, ambitious work. In their conversation, Royer, who has won over 50 major awards in the advertising industry, shed light on what makes a great case study – and that it isn’t actually about the case study!
You’ve seen a lot of changes starting from a young creative to where you are now. What you know now and what you’re teaching us now, do you see change in the evolution of the whole relationship over the years?
I guess I see some change. I don’t know if that’s a function of marketers actually changing or just the industry is changing in awesome ways. I do think it’s a more adventurous time than it was before. By before, I mean 10 to 12 years ago. But I don’t know if marketers themselves have changed. I think there’s still certain types of marketers, some who are very ambitious and we were great with those kind of people who really want to change their category and really understand that if they do great work that makes an impact, that’s really good for them and their career. And the other type of marketer, somebody who just wants to survive in their organization and doesn’t want to do anything adventurous because that would rock the boat. That’s never really changed. There’s always those two types.
I don’t know, I don’t think marketers themselves have changed too much, because they are in a really tough position and they have been for decades. You have to respect that. Because how many times do you read news reports where the CMOS tenure is 18 months at the most. They are so vulnerable to being cut all the time. They can take heat from any angle. Knowing that, we have to be empathetic to that that they have some things they’re freaking out about. So that’s where the communication bit comes in. I want to know your real problems. I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness to hear you tell me your real problems. I want to know how i can help you best and how we can work together best. But also, I want to communicate to them that if we do amazing work together, like I think we’ve done on Honey Maid and Prudential, things like that, we can help make these marketers the rock stars that they should be for buying work like that and supporting work like that. And I love delivering on that.
I love delivering to my clients work that we’ve hashed out together, that makes them transcend their business and that the whole marketing community knows. Because they’re bulletproof. Then even if they do fall into that CMO I got fired thing, they’re the person who did amazing work. So I think it’s fantastic to help them achieve that potential.
At what part of the process are they there with you? Are they there all the way through?
The best ones are there all the way through. The best ones are there early on and all the way through. And the best ones are there calling bullshit when it really is a real bullshit reason, or being able to say, you know what, like (marketing director) Gary Osifchin did in Honey Maid, he said, ‘I love this work so much let’s not test it.’ And he killed the testing process. Which never happens. It was so great. Because we were there all the way hashing this out together. So they have to be involved all the way.
Whenever we do a pitch and sometimes the clients say, ‘Okay, we can only meet with you once before the pitch and there should be no contact,’ we always do badly. We always lose pitches like that. Because we work best when we work incredible close and talk every day and meet two times a week and really, really hash it out together because it’s artificial otherwise. It’s us just making shit up otherwise and trying to impress them. And again, it’s like that first date analogy, where you show up on your first date you’re wearing your best shirt, and you’re pretending to be a person that you might not be. That’s what pitching is, it’s bullshit. That’s why some of the best relationships are when you start going out with your best friend. Because you already know each other so well and know your strengths and weaknesses and that’s what we want. We want contact all the time so we become true friends before we get into bed together.
You talked about the power of saying no. Do you turn down clients?
All the time.
What kind of clients do you look forward to working with?
Ambitious ones. Ones that truly want to disrupt their category. Ones that don’t want to do sleepy work. And have ambitious mandates. We work great with ambitious mandates. We work great with large budgets, too. Let’s just put that out there. But we love ambition. David Droga is the most ambitious person I’ve ever met. And his character pervades his whole organization. So when we meet ambitious clients, it’s like chemistry comes alive. It’s really, really great. But again, I want to be clear on what those ambitions are. Sometimes it’s like, yes, we want to do the greatest ad we can about the chocolate creme filling in our cookie. Well that’s not, that’s a small ambition. Because every other product is talking about their chocolate creme filling. We want people again like Honey Maid who are willing to step into a much larger conversation. And really make an impact.
Have you done average work while working with Droga5? Have you done work you’re not really happy with, that didn’t work, and what’s the reason?
Sure, and Dave would hate me for saying this but we’ve done some stuff that I don’t want to show. I’m not really proud of.
Why did it happen?
And it, because of the things that I laid out before broke down. Communication broke down, sometimes you want to have a good meaning, so we present work that we know will have a good meaning but is it really the work we really want to sell? We’ve fallen back on those traps, too. We’re certainly not perfect or anything, but when an account gets to that point, we have a real come to Jesus moment, we say this account cannot fall into being a ghetto account. I’m so proud to say that we have no ghetto accounts at Droga5. We swing for the fences all the time, and it’s exhausting and we burn people out, but people don’t quit in the creative department. They just don’t quit, which is so awesome. Because they know that we have their best interests at heart. They know that whatever lands on their desk, we’re going to try to burn what we can to make it great work. And yes, we burn through resources quickly. We serve dinner every night at eight o clock because people are there every night. But they know that work hard for an organization that wants them to succeed and wants us to succeed.
Honey Maid was a good example. We were doing work that we were not proud of, and they called us out on it. Rightly so, and we said, you know what, we’re going to give you Droga5 work. We’re going to give you the best work that we can. And thank god they did, thank god they called us out on it because I think it’s one of our best successes ever.
How would you describe Droga5 work?
I think Droga5 work first an foremost has a point of view on the world. And when we’re at our best, we make a statement about the world that the brand has the right to say. Like I don’t think a chocolate cookie should be able to talk about cancer. Sometimes brands overreach. So we take brands and we try to put them in the conversations that they have the right to be in.
Again I’ll use Honey Maid as an example because it’s fresh in my mind. It’s the most wholesome snack. We have the right to talk about what’s wholesome. And we have the right to stand up for what’s wholesome. Newcastle talks about how much bullshit there is in marketing. And that opens up a huge conversation and allows us to be very very timely. If something new comes out about marketing is total bullshit, awesome, let’s have fun with that.
Prudential is another great one where the insurance category and the retirement category was so full of crap, it was always promising like golf and mansions and everyone’s going to be wonderful if you go with us you’re going to have a wonderful life. That is total bullshit. Most Americans retire with 35,000 dollars in the bank. It’s fucking scary and hard and who knows if we’re all going to make it, and people are going to live a long time on very little money. They allowed us to talk about these big scary themes in a way that the rest of the category wasn’t doing. We have an honest point of view on the world and we help take the brand and march into that territory in a new way to make a different conversation.
And that thinking in your agency comes from?
All of us. We have really ambitious planners who want to come up with strategies that are of the time and of the era that we’re in now but also have a completely new take on things. And creatives and planners work really really closely together. I used to think planning was bullshit. I don’t think so anymore. It’s an invaluable tool. And the clients are right there along with that because we can’t just make something up that doesn’t feel true to the DNA of the company. So the three together work really well from the very beginning. Otherwise we’re just inventing shit.
I don’t want to make something up out of thin air. I don’t want to do something I don’t really want to – There’s that Twix campaign where it’s like, are you left Twix or right Twix? I don’t give a shit. And that’s an invented thing. I’m not saying it’s bad creative, it’s perfectly fine creative. But it’s an invented story. I don’t want to have to invent the story. I think there’s enough going on in the world. We can be part of bigger themes, we can tap into bigger themes and therefore brands can be better citizens by tapping into those bigger themes and having a point of view.
What kind of talent do you take in at Droga5?
Our print studio is more and more robust. We have editing suites now, we have in house photography, we’re going to develop in house film capabilities. We love doing work in house. We love our culture so we love hiring people in house to do stuff fast. Now if I want to I can do man on the street interviews the same day we came up with the idea to do it.
Now I can actually shoot products the day that we think about it. Our tech dept is getting so good and so robust, we can build prototypes in three days now. I love that. Nothing sells better than an actual working prototype. We need this. We’re working so fast, we’re in a world that works so fast the kid in his garage down the street is doing his prototype faster than most companies are. And
I sometimes lose people to tech companies because they’re such exciting places to work so I want to be as good as any tech company.
Since you were bought out by this entertainment company, how has life in Droga5 changed?
On the surface level, it’s changed. Robert Redford came in the other day and just talked to us. That part is fucking cool. We have access to talent now and conversations that we never had before. So that’s the fun surface level of it. But it’s changed in that, the sense of possibility with what WME does and what we do, it really ties up well. So. We’re having conversations now that are more ambitious than we ever had before. You know, they work a certain way and we work a certain way, and there is definitely a growing period where we haven’t figured that out properly. They have misperceptions about us and we have misperceptions about them but we’re getting really, really robust now. We’ve got guys on the ground in LA, 24 hours a day working with WME to best understand how we can create stuff together.
But it’s getting fantastic. We just pitched a show the other day, I can’t talk about. We’re pitching shows, we’re finding ways for brands to work with Hollywood talent and work with literary talent that have never been done. And that’s the goal, isn’t it? There’s an ocean of talent that is interested in what we do, and there’s an ocean of brands that is interested in the creative power of that talent. If we facilitate that and we tie that together, I think we can start creating things that no one’s ever seen before. But the coolest part or the scariest part is, I can’t even think of many examples of where this road goes. I swear to god, the best one, and I can’t believe there haven’t been any imitators since, was BMW Films years ago. We bring that up, and it’s amazing. That’s what, 12 years old, 15 years old? There are so few examples of brands and talent working really well together. And that’s what’s so exciting about it. We’re making this up as we go, in a great way.
Years ago, I think why you moved to the States, you were saying you wanted to go into TV. Does this tie up with your ambition?
I don’t want to go into TV as much as I did before. Because we’ve been pitching a bunch of shows and it’s even harder and worse than advertising. The pitches are five minutes over the phone. And you think advertising is heartbreaking? Try to sell a TV show. But I don’t want to just sell a TV show. I want to do it smart. I actually want to do it through a brand. Or for example I’m on the board of The One Club. I think there’s potential for a great advertising show but I don’t want to just sell an advertising show. Because that could be shitty. The ones I’ve seen on TV, like, the wackiest ads in the world. It’s like, I’m in advertising and I wouldn’t want to watch that. I want to sell something smart that’s on a mission for The One Club, and for the network that has it.
Do you think Cannes is too big?
No, I don’t think Cannes is too big. I think it’s harder to get a drink, but no. For years we’ve been talking about a massive influx of clients. It’s finally true. And what I loved about Cannes this year is I gave a couple of different talks to groups of marketing directors and CMOS. If I can go to Cannes, the festival of creativity, and then stand in front of CMOS and help them believe in what we do, then that’s fantastic. then I want more clients to come in. Because we can’t do great work without great clients. There aren’t that many. And so when you see fantastic work that is due to a great client, then everybody wins. The category wins, the viewer wins. So I don’t mind that Cannes has grown to be more client-centric. I think we can actually really change things there.
You know you go on the Heineken boat, and you have the CMO of Heineken punching my arm saying, where are my lions. Not a bad thing. Because you think he’s going to ignore his business goals? No. He believes in both. He believes in business goals, and fantastic creativity. There are very few clients like that. But the more we can create through Cannes, the better.
Everyone says Droga5 makes the best case study videos. How do you guys do it?
I don’t want to be known for the best case study videos.
But you have the benchmark.
We do it all in house. We do it all of it in house with the same editors. We put the shit together ourselves. So it’s not like we spend a ton of money on the case studies, but we enjoy telling the story of the work. We enjoy it. We get excited about it, because we love the work. So, we’re not trying to create case studies to dazzle people. All I want to do is tell the honest story of the work. And again, the Honey Maid thing, it’s a pretty straightforward case study. But it’s what we did I think that makes it compelling. I really take issue with people saying we do great case studies. No. I think we do great work. The case studies just show it.
