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Lee Clow Lecture / Lee Clow Power Hour – 11/18/2009 Art Center College of Design (LA Times Auditorium)

Lernik Ohanian, Lee Clow, Chris Gilbert. Creative trio to be feared and reckoned with.

Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero, ’cause what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man – and I’m talkin’ about Lee Clow here – sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s Lee. In Los Angeles. He’s an awesome man – and the Dude is most certainly that, quite possibly the awesomest in Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for awesomest worldwide – Sometimes there’s a man… Sometimes, there’s a man. Ah, I lost my train of thought here. But… aw, hell. I done introduced him enough.

Thanks, Cohen Brothers. You helped put into words what I could not: an intro for a blog post about a man who really needs no introduction.

Not to contradict this introduction, but Lee Clow actually has been my hero for quite a long time, not only for his laid back surfer dude ethos, or his connections with Steve Jobs and Apple, but his thinking and creative output is at the vanguard of the creative revolution currently catalyzing the advertising industry into thinking differently, and embracing creative work. In a nod to the history of this “creativity-valuing” thinking, (and to the notion that he is following up with the initial creative revolution with a contemporary one of his own), Lee praised Bill Bernbach, “Bill made creative people proud of advertising… He made advertising an idea business” and poignantly alluded to the evolution of the enhanced story telling ability that emerged in advertising as being the key breaking point between the smoke filled conference rooms of “Mad Men” and the creative, artistic agencies of today. “Our job today [as art directors] is about telling stories.” Luckily for us, Lee brought a reel of his own “stories” to share. A masterful raconteur, Lee was able to eloquently tie the works he presented into extremely relevant and concise bits of wisdom, advice, and above all, inspirational insight into our rapidly changing field.

Of his work, perhaps the most notable is for Apple (1984 anyone?)… So with great enthusiasm he used some of his work for Apple to lay out some extremely important theory about projecting a brand’s values, identity, and goals in every possible way. From the ground up, Lee has helped Apple project a unified, unique voice that intimately couples the core values of the company with really beautiful design. Lee reiterated that that every level of communication, from the packaging to the instruction manuals,  all the way down to the signs on the restrooms in the Apple retail stores, is designed to echo and resonate with the “soul” of the Apple brand, which is at it’s heart, a voice of accessibility.

This concept of a brand’s “voice” is an integral part of Clow’s prevailing philosophy that “branding”, “marketing”, and “advertising” are all components of a dialogue between consumers and the producers. Whereas old-school advertising had the tendency to err towards the condescension of “talking down to” or “talking at” their consumers, Lee spoke of the need to instead engage and stimulate the minds of the consumers, and the need for ads to be clever and he emphatically reiterated the fact that “creativity [in advertising] is now an imperative.”

"Apple's best Ad."... The NYC Apple Store

From Apple, he dove into a case study of Gatorade, a company who desperately sought to “reclaim” their brand’s soul. From it’s roots as a product of the sports scienctists at the University of Florida, formulated to replenish their football team, Gatorade has of late devolved as a brand into a soda-pop, sugar water commodity that lost touch with its athletic origins. Acknowledging that you could’nt just revolutionize the product itself overnight, Lee oversaw a redesign of the packaging, and from that a new “voice” for the brand was born; one that spoke to a youthful audience with a contemporary slant, while retaining the lightning bolt as a key symbol of the product’s heritage:

Lee Clow's "G" spin on Gatorade.

This concept of an Ad-Agency doing the packaging design work for a company with an extremely deep-rooted identity as a jumping off point from which to do an ad campaign fascinated me to no end, and come Q&A time with Lee, this became the focus of my question. I asked him about how difficult a “sell” it was to convince Pepsi (Gatorade) to go with a new design in a climate where most companies are so wholly absorbed (and invested!)  in their own identity (ie: make our logo 20% bigger crowd.) His response was impassioned, and is soon going to be published here in video format, but in the meantime, a summary: He basically spoke to the desperation facing Gatorade, which greased the wheels, but he also lamented (with expletives!) the fact that the bottles are undergoing another redesign not headed up by his team. Gatorade’s loss!

The next stop on the wondrous journey into “The Tao of Clow” (© Chris Gilbert Design, 2009) was Pedigree, the dog food company. In addition to invigorating the packaging, Lee revamped the entire company culture. In the dog food market, Lee observed, and subsequently helped Pedigree capitalize upon, the opportunity to seize the “emotional high ground” in a product category that most people relegated to relative obscurity on supermarket shelves. Lee developed a strategy that placed people’s connection to their dogs at the forefront. “Dogs Rule.” In coming up with this strategy, however, Lee recognized the crucial responsibility Pedigree now owned in living up to this ethos. “You can’t just invent it [the dedication to dogs.]” It started with enhancing the nutritional content of the food, “no more dog junk-food,” included a revamp of the company structure to allow employees to bring their dogs to work, and culminated in the formation of the Pedigree Foundation, a drive that aims at helping in the rescue and finding of homes for shelter dogs worldwide.

The Pedigree Foundation

Pedigree wins big here. While seemingly altruistic, the brand is reaping major rewards for their mitzvah. In online conversations people will literally fall on their swords in order to stand up to the elitist naysayers who decry Pedigree as a supermarket-cheap brand.
This concept of “conversations” about products was a recurring theme, and one that has become increasingly prominent for advertising as a whole with the advent of the internet. People are finding a voice through the internet that allows them to increasingly affect the products being advertised. Companies care more and more about feedback, so it is imperative that the advertising that is created invites engagement, encourages interaction, and will stimulate the essential “word of mouth” or viral spread of the content. At the same time, there is a major hazard of not coming across as anything less than “likable.” In a similar vein to the adage (ad-age?) that “nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising” it could be argued that nothing will kill a brand faster than making annoying advertising… “The new interactive world means customers can destroy a brand.”
The inherent dangers the internet poses to a brand are mitigated by the potential for massive presence expansion the internet can facilitate. Case in point are the lower budget, “viral” ads done by companies like Ray Ban and Skittles which harness the populous capacity of the internet to spread a message in ways that make a mockery of the reach potential of more traditional media. With these viral ads, the emphasis is on fun, and the voices of these brands are fully youth-centric, whimsical, yet still creative. These ads underscore the need of up and coming art directors to elucidate the clients about what is cool, fresh, hip and new, and in the face of the adversity more out of touch clients might pose, to be resilient and stay true to “creative.”

Okay. Enough. I’ve given y’all enough to think about. Lee’s given us all enough to think about, though It would be amiss if I forgot to share his parting wisdom. “There will always be a need to print stuff on paper.” Viva la print. Thanks Lee, for everything.