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THE LAUNCH OF THE ESCAPE POD
FMW: OK I remember Thirty-Something. Leaving the relative safety of an established agency/network/organisation/pension fund to set up on your own is not the comfortable way to run a career. It’s clear from your CVs that DDB did not entirely stifle creativity and great ideas and work.
Vinny Warren: Yes we had a great run at DDB Chicago and have no complaints award-wise or creatively. The Escape Pod is not a result of frustration. Quite the opposite. Our successes have let us glimpse what can be done with ‘new media’ and old media. And we want to continue doing that. But honestly I feel I'd done all I could do in the traditional agency environment. And I think we're at a unique moment in the history of our industry. There's unprecedented change happening in the media environment (thank you internet!) and a lot of the assumptions upon which advertising has traditionally been created – the mass TV audience most notably – no longer apply or will very shortly no longer apply. The partnership between Norm and I (he's a former media director, I'm creative) is very relevant to the problems facing advertisers now. In retrospect advertising agencies had it very cushy. What’s the old Chinese curse... May you live in interesting times?
Is there an element of the oil tanker in this – a huge agency needs to think hard about a change of direction, or stuff like slowing down and speeding up. You two in a catamaran are a bit niftier. Or should we bin the analogies?
Yes I think the oil tanker analogy is apt. The big agencies are, let’s face it, with few exceptions, TV production facilitators with deeply ingrained cultures and ways of doing things. In a way I see us as a throwback to the pre-holding company days of the Sixties. A boutique trying to take advantage of interesting (changing) times. Like the original DDB or Carly Ally. And I don’t want to spend my life worrying about a holding company’s margin. It’s not why I got into this industry.
Is there a future for the traditional ad agency? The TV commercial? The billboard? Surely it’s not a case of throwing away everything that used to work in favour of guerrilla, ambient, online, viral. Effectiveness, relevance, knowing your audience; knowing your media; this sort of stuff hasn’t changed that much has it?
Yes, exactly. The world in which we work has changed fundamentally. But people haven’t really changed. They still care about the same stuff they've always cared about, i.e. themselves and the ones they love. And advertising always was and always will be nothing more than a means to an end: selling stuff. The thing that strikes me as the biggest change is the erosion of the audience for our messages. Advertising has, until now, been a parasite on something more interesting than itself. Be it a TV show or a newspaper or radio show. Now it has to earn its own audience. And that’s hard! Much harder than being slightly amusing for thirty seconds. But people still watch TV and I'll happily do a TV spot as long as they do. I can eat M&Ms with the best of them.
It all gets interesting when it works and you’re hugely successful, and find you need a bigger and bigger staff, and offices in New York, London, Paris – and suddenly you’re an oil tankers too…
Well that's a problem I’ll happily deal with at the time. Certain agencies have coped with that one. Most notably BBH and Wieden. But not without a lot of trial and error. It’s hard to export creative cultures isn’t it? Even John Hegarty can only be in one place at a time. By virtue of being Irish and working in the USA, I've had to adapt to the culture here. Consequently my stuff seems to travel well because of that. I don’t lean too heavily on local culture. I’d love to work on international brand advertising. I think I’m good at it. And if that necessitates having an office in Amsterdam that’s something I'm willing to endure…
You’ve outlined your manifesto, your beliefs, your approach your usp; is there a particular client or brand to whom this is going to be attractive; or is it a model that works for anyone who trusts it?
Great creative requires a client who knows what he or she wants. Everything flows from that. I don’t have a bias. I've always been fascinated by popular culture and the media. And how advertising can affect culture. So I love working on brands that need to affect culture. I’ve been very lucky in that regard. I’ve had experiences that very few people in advertising ever have.
Are there any planned or ongoing projects you can talk about?
 We have some exciting stuff in the works which it would be premature to talk about at this point. But attached is a little thing we just did for Officemax. It’s a cool new projection technology that syncs up animation to the speed of the vehicle it’s being projected from.
Click Here to See the Video on YouTube (Owing to copyright restrictions on the music track, we are obliged to run the OfficeMax film without sound)
How do you see the future developing from a global, external point of view, as well as from your own? Worried or excited?
I think the future is only going to bring more and more change. It’s never going to ‘settle down’ and return to the predictability of the golden age of TV advertising. I think advertising’s role in society is going to shrink and the advertising industry with it. But I also believe that, of necessity, it’s going to be a great time for creativity. So much of what could be detestable about TV advertising (testing, over-thinking) goes away when you’re trying to attract an audience. It’s much more seat-of-your-pants and improvisational. And ulcer-inducing…
http://www.theescapepod.comhttp://www.officemax.comhttp://www.bud-true.com
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