Welcome Change. There's A New Agency in Town. It's Hoping To Kick Ass and Take Names.

Grad pride.

Amazing what I get to witness being part of the lives of young talented people on a regular basis. The future of advertising is in good hands.

Each fall I take a group of my students to New York Advertising Week. A couple of years ago we had the pleasure of being hosted by Scott Goodson of Strawberry Frog for a "meet and greet". Besides the opportunity to engage with one of the industry leaders the day turned into a day beyond inspiration. Scott asked each student introduce themselves and what discipline they saw as their niche. After presentation and Q&A session a simple question was dropped upon my crew by Scott, "with all the talent at the table, and each of your disciplines why not start your own agency?" Wow, start your own agency. Why not. A short 15 months later a group of those students in attendance took the led and did that. Born from a soft economy, abundant talent and passion Playground Digital was born. But that is just one story of well planned success.

A second group of talented young AdLanders have hung the shingle on the door and are planning to "switch" the thinking of advertising, communication and engagement.

Meet Switch. Welcome to Switch Advertising.

Recent grads Ryan Thomas, Stuart Chan and Neil Damania put their passion and vision behind their deep entrepreneurial skills to create a better advertising agency.  They started out as people who wanted to change and build things, not just for clients but to rock "communication culture". To make  clients' businesses better and more engaging. It's in their blood. These guys are all "culture vultures". They get the "new media", they are fueled by the power of "social media" and they want to help "switch" the minds of clients who don't understand the new power that is needed to build brand loyalties and switch the culture change needed to engage the "new" audiences living in a digital space.


To get things started they have launched their website last week and have collaborated with talented local artists to make a series of outrageous indie rock style posters, because between artists and indie rock bands, no one has to work harder to earn your attention. The site is a "social exercise" "something that could become a case study in itself. The site isn't designed as an info dump or sales pitch of services and talent, but a place to exchange insights, creativity and thinking.


I asked Stuart Chan, Operations & Branding Director, what was key to starting Switch, "We have the same passion as our clients. We wanted to own or work, our ideas, our sweat and our labor".  He added, "Creativity; there is a huge gap in knowledge and development in social spheres. About 80% of companies currently operating in this space have no real strategy or planned objectives to move forward with".

It became clear to the partners that there is a real problem in a cluttered media environment, especially when you need to communicate a single point. Stuart pointed out that being children of the wired generation, actually gives them a leg up on larger agencies. Simply put getting these kinds of "simpleminded" ideas to clients first means educating them on how technology can be used effectively and intelligently.

“This became clear after pitching at other, more traditional agencies; and we saw an opportunity to move on pace and in the same direction as the emerging social era. So we grabbed it and ran with it. There was never really any doubt” Stuart added.


When asked if there was a key "mission statement" of philosophy, the plan is to build the agency on three fundamentals; one, to create integrated work that involves consumers; two, we want to select clients that run a business we ethically and morally agree with and we do our damndest to really make them shine; and finally, they don’t just want our work to tell the story, we want our work to be the story – and in turn, have the consumer become the storyteller instead. In short: The best work possible, the best clients possible, the best results possible.

Ryan Thomas, Social & Digital Strategist added, “Honestly if you don't have those three things in this industry, it gets harder and harder to sleep at night".

When asked if they if this requires clients that are brave and willing to accept ideas that are nowhere near timid, and executions that span the three fastest growing sectors of advertising; Public Relations, Digital Development, and Social Marketing, Creative Director Neil Damania strongly believes, “we are an industry of ideas, and they should be able to live in all spaces; but if a concept or communication is not best utilized in these three mediums, it's often more expensive and less effective". 

So what's next for Switch now they are launched and poised to change the environment, the boys answered as one, "It's about choosing clients with similar vision, being prepared to scale, and leaving a global footprint. There’s no such thing as going home, only going big. We’re here to stay.

Bonne chance, keep the passion, change the world.

A View From A Graduate.

Stuart Chan was a student of mine who was kind enough to email me the other day after one of my Blog items about Alex Bogusky caught his eye. After reading his email, I asked if I could post his thoughts. He simply replied:

"By all means, you may publish it... After all the next best thing to getting inspired is to be inspiring".

Stuart is currently a copywriter at Yield Communications in Toronto, a full service integrated communication company. There clients include, Cadillac Fairview, Sears, Epost, Altimira and 407ETR.

Here are of Stuart's thoughts... unedit, as sent.

From: Stuart Chan
Date: Friday, May 8, 2009 11:35 am
Subject: A Word to the Students

After reading your blog post on DOCTOR Bogusky today, it sparked that memory of the lunch with him we had. I believe... What was it, 3? Total students from our semester were invited? And I was lucky enough to be one of them.

It’s funny how memory serves you, and how things can spark from the slightest hint of other things, but I also remember one day in class now when you told us about the quote: “Always give UP.” and that’s stuck with me ever since.

So I figured since there’s so many prospective "adlanders" coming into and out of your program each semester, I’d write to you with a some words to the students. Not to the advertising students, but rather, to the students of advertising. The ones who have the passion, the ones who become believers of the religion of advertising.

Everything that you do is to add value to the program and I figure I might as well try and help.

Firstly, whether you’re Left or whether you’re Right, the old “1% Inspiration, 99% Perspiration rule applies.”

Take your inspiration, beat it to death, and when you’re done doing that, beat it back to life.

The best ideas in the real world always come last. (I know I know, that’s because you got the idea you wanted and stopped thinking about it, but seriously, with each passing idea, you’ll find a new gem.)

Here at Yield, I’ve had many meaningful conversations with colleagues, but the best ones always come with a takeaway that should be applied for the rest of your creative life.

So here are a few things that I’ve picked up, that I hope stick with YOU - The students of Advertising:

It doesn’t matter if you’re junior, senior, left, right, or completely sideways... FIGHT FOR YOUR WORK, until someone can legitimately prove you wrong. Sorry but out here, you’re not always going to get others to fight for it for you.

My creative director here is right about this: “As a CD, I can always bring you back. You can go as crazy as you want with an idea, and maybe I’ll like your 75th, 76th, and 77th concept, because I think your 78th concept will get you thrown into an asylum. But at least you got there. I can’t be the one to help you if you came up with 6 concepts and they’re all crap.”

Get used to killing your babies. This is the reason why you have to be full of ideas, ALL THE TIME. Take this example: You present 20 concepts, your Creative Director likes 10 of them, you present them to the client, the client likes 5 of them, and 2 of them are out of budget range, and another 1 of them is simply not executable. You’re down to 2 concepts from 20, so... By simple math, 18 of your babies died today.

A word on portfolios: Don’t think about building your book as a manner of “This is what I can do.” If you do that, your book will always be second rate. Think about it as building a book as a way of showing “THIS IS HOW I CAN THINK”. That became apparent to me when one CEO (who asked to see me specifically after the CD had already seen me) flipped through my book and asked me the following question: “The whole world is beginning to go engagement and interactive. Can you think like that?” Of course I replied that I could, and all he said was: “Well why is it not in your book?” Doh!

So touching on that topic, I think it’s about the right time now to include more than just print ads in your books. If you are an out of the box, crazy thinker, make sure your book says that about you. Lots of people are going to say “they just want to see ads”. I think that’s incorrect, I think they want to see “FRESH”. They want to see “CRAZY”. THEY WANT TO SEE YOUR 78TH CONCEPT. Because remember, they can always bring you back. They look at ads all day long, what in the world makes you think they “want to see ads” in your book?

Finally, for all of you set to forge your way into the real world: KNOW YOUR TARGET MARKET. No... Seriously... Know them! I’m not talking about the target market of your ads, I’m talking about the target market of your portfolio. I’m talking about the Creative Directors you want to get a sit down with. The same Creative Directors who get thousands of e-mails a day, and probably don’t have too much time for crap, so God help them if they haven’t gotten back to you after you’ve sent the generic “See my portfolio cause I’m a student” e-mail for the 5th time.

Find a way to stand out, and for fucks sake, be aggressive. SELL YOURSELF.
Remember, an ad isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t sell. And guess what... Neither are you.

-Stuart Chan, Copywriter, Idearator, Student of Advertising.

P.S. WRITERS: Never underestimate the power of “Knob Creek”. I landed my job in 8 words or less.

Thank you Stuart. You can contact him at: schan@yield-ica.com