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Sep 27, 2026
[Volume 1 Issue 1.2] BEN JAMES: His First 30 Days as Crispin's New CCO (part 2)
[Volume 1 Issue 1.2] BEN JAMES: His First 30 Days as Crispin's New CCO (part 2)
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Transcript
0:00
And I'll tell you what, Vince, the most motivating and exciting conversations I have had in 15 years are just sitting here talking with people at Crispin about what we wanna make.
0:15
So we were talking today as a growth team, and we were saying, "When clients ask what's going on at Crispin, we're gonna say, 'Stop by and see.'"
0:22
[upbeat music] Well, I think that the concept of AI itself has created a needed conversation in the inter- industry about intellectual property.
0:51
[chuckles] Yeah. Um, well before AI, you know, I mean, in, well before even, like, I worked in the industry in a time before Google Image Search. I worked when, you know, you had, like, stock photography- Yeah...
1:07
in a bunch of, um, you know, books, and you'd scan what you need for a meeting, and you'd go and have the meeting, and you'd be like, "Well, we s- you know, we, we built this, and now we wanna go out and do a shoot."
1:25
And the value to photographers and artists for being a part of those books and, like, having that stuff be out there was that it promoted them in a way that then the agency came back and said, "Hey, we'll work with you."
1:41
Now, when Google Image Search happened, it really went exponential in, in terms of, like, you know, we, we would call references swipe, you know? Like- Hmm... where did we swipe this from? You know? Huh.
1:58
And, um- [chuckles]... we needed references in order to illustrate what we were trying to do. You know, the, the, the best thing that you can really do is walk around in the world, you know? And like- Yeah...
2:14
see what's out there. So today I think the challenge is, is like, if you're saying, "Oh, I'm very inspired by this artist,"
2:26
but, like, their art inspires you to do something else in another medium, and you didn't necessarily work with the artist when you actually saw that all the way through, are you taking from that? Or are you, you know,
2:43
uh, helping? And, and then if you expose the artist to other people enough and you work with them, then that will have a benefit because eventually, like, they'll get work. You know? Like- Yeah...
2:59
th- this is a guy that you should actually talk to. So- [chuckles] This is, this is the art of a guy named David McLeod. Mm-hmm.
3:09
And David McLeod is a, uh, Brisbane-based Australian artist, and he's a close friend of mine. Huh. And his work is amazing.
3:24
Like, and he's done a lot of work for very big brands, and he's designed things, you know, as backdrops for the Oscars. Hmm. His work has been used by Apple. Hmm. You know, lots of different things. So
3:38
I came in the other day, and we do work for New Balance. Nice. And a lot of the industry doesn't know that Crispin is working on New Balance,
3:52
but what we're doing specifically for New Balance is that we do a lot of, like, social media reporting. We do a lot of editorial reporting, brand editorial reporting- Hmm... on even just things that they're doing.
4:03
And there's a creative here named Charles who does a lot of, you know, kinda editorial-based creative direction and, um- Hmm... like work for them. And so
4:18
one of the things I did is, you know, printed this, and we were talking about, hey, some ideas that when New Balance is at the Australian Open, what should they do, you know? Hmm.
4:28
So I came in and I was like, "Oh, what if we worked with David McLeod to, uh, create a concept tennis ball and reimagine the tennis ball for the 2126 Australian Open?"
4:43
So, like, what should a tennis ball look like in 100 years? Nice. And we could use AI to create some fun around, like, how should a tennis ball b- look, and, like, from the,
4:54
like, uh, like a New Balance perspective, how should it work? But we're gonna work with this art- We're gonna collaborate with an artist to imagine a tennis ball. Like- Hmm. Nice...
5:02
why would you reimagine a tennis ball in the first place? They need to stay round. You know, like, like whatever, you know? Yeah. So are we really gonna innovate on the tennis ball? I don't know. But, like,
5:14
I bring in David McLeod's work, and then, um, I am very inspired by his work, and I've never found the way to work with him. Hmm.
5:27
But he knows that, and, and he's, like, down with me talking about it because, like, that's... We know it'll end up doing it. So I, I, I mentioned it to the team the other day, and it was funny. They,
5:41
they pulled up his website and they, they showed me. They go, "He already did it." And I went- [chuckles]... "What do you mean?" And they're like, "No, look here." And I didn't know this. Like, he
5:54
did, like, a tennis ball NFT for the Australian Open in 2022, and it's, like- [chuckles]... a beautifully designed tennis ball as David McLeod sees it. For the Australian Open, you know? Huh.
6:07
And I was like, that's [laughs] like- And you had no clue, you had no context or clue that that project existed? Yeah. I had no idea that that had existed. And it's even part of the process that if we don't
6:23
pull material from the real world as much as possible, you are set up in a way where you actually can't create brand differentiation. Right. You know, like the, the old agency vibe of like been done before, you know?
6:40
Yeah. Like, it's funny, the media ecosystem is so fragmented now that been done before, some people don't even think it really matters that much. We think it matters a lot. Mm-hmm.
6:51
You know, uh, the, you have to make sure that it's distinctive, you know? Yeah. What's actually happened is so much happens in social media that we've created averages of things in social media.
7:04
We just throw something on, you know, the next moment, and that's just, like, trying to grab an impression as it's like, you know, blasting down the wind tunnel of life of, like, what you're trying to do, you know? Yep.
7:18
But, like, true brand differentiation means look at their competition, look at the rest of the world, look at the history of what they've done.
7:27
Really, really get deep and investigate what has happened so that we can create something entirely new. And I think that's the situation that we're in. Like- As Crispin-...
7:39
what we have as an opportunity as Crispin is to look back into what worked about the process, which was always about reinvention. Mm-hmm. And go in and say, "Well, hey, our ideas come with a business plan."
7:57
Like, I think that's the magic of this place that wasn't really, truly unearthed. Like, the stuff was so unorthodox and broke through in such inventive ways that, you know, it's not always talked about
8:13
what remarkable growth happened in the businesses that we worked with. Like, you know, it revolutionized- Right... Domino's. It revolutionized-- Like, I'll give you a great one, you know.
8:27
People think about the Truth work that happened at Crispin years and years and years ago. Yep. And I got to work on that some way back then.
8:39
I also got to work on the Truth Initiative in 2023 at a different place, and we put Truth in gaming. So- [laughs]... um, the amazing thing I think that people do when they talk about the Truth work is they talk about
8:56
the ad that they remember that they saw on MTV, and that was remarkable stuff. Yep. But one of the things about Crispin is Crispin invented the Truth brand. [laughs] Like- Yeah...
9:13
you know, in the original strategy, what really happened was that the Florida Department of Health came in and said, "We want to prevent kids from taking up smoking and chewing tobacco in their lives."
9:26
This is in the late '90s.
9:28
And they were like, you know, "We have the ability to fund this and do this because there's some, you know, money and energy that's actually against what's happening, you know, in the, in the tobacco industry." Yeah.
9:41
But the strategy at Crispin and the creative at Crispin, the execution of it, was so unorthodox to be that they said, "You know what? We can't just go out there with some kinda
9:58
just don't smoke message." You know, they were like, "In fact, we know the audience where, like, if we did that, they're gonna be more likely to smoke." [laughs] And so they said, "The magic here is that
10:13
we understand from what's been unearthed from legal documents that kids are being manipulated by marketing. And so if we expose them to the truth about being manipulated and give them the ways that they can share it,
10:31
then that will be the thing that actually makes it cool to not smoke and actually go against and rebel against what media is telling you to do." Yeah.
10:46
And so they did that, and the way that they did that is they said, "We have to invent a brand. It's called Truth." [laughs] You know?
10:55
And, and that started there, and then, you know, later they worked with another agency, you know, to do that kind of work and, and, and to do some of those things in order to get scale. But
11:08
the magic was the invention of the Truth brand, you know? And so an example, and I'll come back to exactly this place, is, like, I went to the Truth offices in 2023, and they gave me this
11:25
glass water bottle, you know, as a gift for coming to a meeting and, you know, getting Truth into gaming and stuff. And that was, that was amazing. It was a great day, and
11:34
thank you for the water bottle, you know- [laughs] Right... and all that. And we're gonna treat this like a flower vase here on our shelves- Hmm... in the office. We're gonna put this down and
11:48
have flowers coming out of it, because we're gonna get back to talking about the magic of the Truth brand wasn't that we did amazing ads. [laughs] Hmm. The magic of the Truth brand is it saved the lives of children.
12:03
Like, that's, that was the, that was the effects.
12:06
So, like, you know, what's going on here, and, like, you know, like, what are we making and, you know, and all, and then AI and, you know, it's like- All of that stuff should be used because we're in the invention business.
12:20
Okay. You know? Like, this place has been radically reinvented a few times, and radical reinvention is a feature, not a bug. Yeah. D- is this-- So I mean, this is, this...
12:34
I, I, I just, I just took a few things down 'cause there's like themes and buckets and things, but is the-- I know you're just talking through this, but just to kinda get into it, the brand differentiation piece, is that something that you're--
12:45
Were you saying that that's something that you're having to kinda reconfigure or figure out again as far as like- Hmm... the business impact, like the business plan attached to your, your pitches, that piece? Yeah.
12:58
Um- 'Cause, uh, you've, you've said the, you, you've said like the, the phrase, your work comes with a business plan. You said that last week, too. I'm curious if you wanted to, if there's more on that.
13:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, different, distinctive, inventive, and breakthrough. I think that the, the real special thing is
13:17
we come up with really inventive approaches for doing things, and I think that the job to be done for branding is to be distinctive. Yeah. And I think being different doesn't just mean different in what you express.
13:35
It certainly makes sure that it's different from your competition, you know, different-- If it needs to be different than what was happening before, that's important.
13:43
If it needs to be the same as, you know, how it has worked, that's important, you know? Mm-hmm. But like to be different in messaging is part of what will help you get attention. Um, distinctiveness, you know, is
13:56
does this hold a place in my mind that occupies a space that I'm thinking about it when I go pick it up, you know, off the shelf in a grocery store? Yeah. And breakthrough is
14:11
very difficult in media, and so we're really looking at-- We really put media first even in a creative plan because that's really a people first way of doing it. Hmm. And it's really a data first way of doing it. Hmm.
14:26
'Cause if you-- Like, like our job, dude, is like do the most creative thing where the most business growth is possible. Yeah. Yeah. That's the- And guess what? That's the job... but that's your, that's the f- You know?
14:44
[chuckles] That partnership, though, and I think it's, I think, I think it is interesting 'cause this isn't always the approach. It should be, I mean, 'cause obviously like commerce and art and- No... the connection.
14:51
But like again, to put a point on it, you're saying the focus is the creative partnership with the business impact that you're trying to find for each client. Is that kind of- For sure. Yeah.
15:02
Like we do really creative things intended to create big business impact. Where does that-- Is that from day one? I-- From day one, that was happening here. Like- At Crispin. Okay, got it. Yeah.
15:14
You know, I think, um, it was marketed differently in a different time. Yeah. Like where back then we would say we exist to make our clients famous, and [chuckles] today, you know,
15:28
some of our clients are already famous and, and there were things that we did like with the Burger King brand that made a lot of clients famous.
15:36
Even clients that weren't later working with Crispin, they became famous based on- Hmm... the foundation set up at Crispin. So it was not just fame for fame's sake. It was always in service of a business result. Like
15:52
the Burger King work, the foundational Burger King work in, in the early aughts was, um, a turnaround job. Like- Hmm... the Burger King, when it came into the agency, I was there.
16:06
Burger King, when it came into the agency in '04, it was like, "Do we have to work on this?" Huh. Yeah. Like they were not in great shape, you know?
16:18
And the work that happened there, you know, I mounted some of that work in the studio- Hmm... as it was coming out, and I was part of the team that got to help
16:28
do the training information for Subservient Chicken, and there were some-- there were many people involved in making that stuff great. I just got to ask the chicken questions, you know?
16:37
But like, I mean, Burger King was helped by doing that. Yeah.
16:42
And, and for years and years and years, you know, they liked it so much that like, you know, they, there was like a famevertising thing that went on with, you know, what that did. And- Yeah...
16:54
today, the Burger King work exists elsewhere and, you know, they've got strategies to do what they need that business to do now, and that's great, you know?
17:04
But like everything we do is intended to get a quality business result. I think you're right. Like there's a lot of places that are trying to do it as a high art. We are doing this as a commercial art.
17:20
This is a commercial art. It is an art, but commerce is in the front of like what we're intending to do. So like- Yeah...
17:29
we are in the commercial art business, and we work with artists in order to drive good commercial results, and we work with businesses to get the art they need to reach the world, and that art can exist in many, many, many different mediums.
17:44
The art is multi-format. The art exists in your phone. The art exists in what you see in the world. The art exists in the culture that gets brought into the agency every day.
17:56
On like day two of taking this job, I said to everybody in the agency, I'm like, "Everybody brings culture into the agency." Hmm.
18:04
So I said, "We have to find a way to bring culture into the agency," so we created the Thursday Chop Up. Yep. And we call it Chop Up the Algorithm. This last Thursday, um- We had 12 people come to chop up the algorithm,
18:23
and seven of the people printed things from their algorithm and then talked about it with each other. Hmm.
18:32
And what it created was conversation with people that they started to connect dots sharing together that you don't get, like, just sending each other links. Like- Yep... I'm having a human experience on my phone.
18:48
You're having a human experience on your phone. We can be sitting right next to one another, and we're not having the same- Totally... experience, you know? Yeah.
18:57
We tr- because we talked about this last week a bit too, when you were kinda kicking it off. Like, how, uh, how is it... Like, so we talked last week. This is the second week now.
19:06
Same, it sounds like the same thing happening on Thursdays. Any difference of, like, approach or sentiment or, like, how people are kind of interacting with it this week compared to last week? Yeah.
19:19
So we did chop up the algorithm in my first week, and I printed things just to create the vibe of what we wanted to do. Yep. So I printed that.
19:29
I printed, like, seven pages of what that looked like, and I brought it in and I shared it with the team. So
19:36
that conversation took 10 minutes to have, and then they started sharing what they see and what they feel comfortable sharing- Yeah... about what's in their algorithm.
19:45
In week two, we did chop up the algorithm in Houston. I flew to Houston. I spent three days with the team in Houston, and that's where our designers are.
19:56
That's where a lot of our influencer team is, and they're doing remarkable work, amazing package design, amazing influencer work, all these things. Hmm.
20:05
So I said, "Hey, because I'm here on Thursday, let's do chop up the algorithm." And they said, "What should we bring?" I said, "Nothing, except for if you wanna print things that are inspiring, you bring them." Hmm. So
20:20
many of them did. They brought zines. They brought package design. They brought interests [laughs], you know? Um, they brought sticker books. Um- Hmm... and they brought, uh, you know, things that inspire them, and
20:39
I brought that stuff too, but we, we had a conversation about time and how we spend time together. And so in that one, I said, "You know, listen, I live
20:50
in New York, and you live in Houston, but we're gonna work a lot together. So how we spend time together really matters, so out of respect for that, I wanna show you my algorithm." And it
21:04
evolved into a conversation about time, and there was a strategist talking to someone on the media team that had... They had never quite connected, and they- Hmm... started talking about,
21:17
uh, geolocation capabilities and things and what were strategies in their work. The, the, uh, the people team was there, and they were talking about how it created a sense of collaboration.
21:30
Our chief of staff was there, and she said that you could feel like people were thinking together in a way that was moving forward. Um, and
21:44
the influencer team there, the people that commission the most creator work for us and are really working with a lot of influencers, we do a lot of influencer work- Hmm... um,
21:57
started saying, "Yes, we do th- something called Culture Jam every few weeks." And I said, "Well, who's seen it?" And they said, "Well, we've seen it on our team, you know."
22:05
And I said, "Well, oh, let's use this to talk to this team." And I brought the creative team over and the designers. I'm like, "Have you seen this?" You know. They said, "We haven't seen this," you know. I said, "Well,
22:16
how m- how many PDFs of information do you have?" And they said, "We have about three years of these," you know? [laughs] And I said, "Okay, good.
22:24
Creative team, designers, let's use that to be inspired to start showing more of the way that a brand's work should look as it appears in algorithms and feeds." So
22:37
chop up the algorithm week two was in Houston, and it went very well. So then- And that's already-- Like, functionally, that's...
22:45
I mean, not to say that Crispin is siloed or anybody's siloed or whatever, but, like, that's already bringing people together that don't normally, would- Totally...
22:52
wouldn't normally, like, interact cross-functionally, right? That was the thing. And the, the magic of this place was it, it has always been unsiloed. Like- Yeah. Nice... the, the radical invention stuff was unsiloing.
23:05
Like, I worked at this place in a time before all this stuff comes up about the distance between creative and media and all that. Hmm. Like,
23:15
if you know me and you've worked with me at, like, 12 shops through freelance gigs or any of the other stuff, you know that I'm thinking about media and how we invent in media as much as possible. Okay.
23:29
I never had a distance between me and the people doing those practices. And so what's cool is we've expanded into a space in New York, for example, where
23:44
we all sit together even more, and it's, it's, it's our newsroom. It's our social newsroom. And so in that room, we do chop up the algorithm. So
23:55
in the third week of chop up the algorithm, uh, like seven people printed things. Like- Which is this week, right? Just to clarify, that's this week- Yeah, yeah... we're talking about.
24:04
Yeah, yeah This week was chop up the algorithm, the third one that we did, and, uh, one guy on the team, Charles, brought this, which was actually really beautiful.
24:14
It says, "We pass hundreds of people a week, the gym, the grocery store, the airport, the coffee shop, the bookstore." Any one of them could have been someone, but we don't talk.
24:26
Instead of endlessly swiping an app, evaluating people based on static images or the hat.
24:32
And another thing that came out is, um, outside of even stuff on the algorithm, you know, I think I talked about this a few weeks ago, but one of the things was ask one of the creatives, a maker on the team, Michaela,
24:45
she had made an alphabet out of breakfast food, you know? And so I'm like, "This alphabet's pretty good," you know? And, and so, um, we put it here, and everyone that comes into our studio now sees it and says- Hmm...
24:58
"That's great." Like, we have 35 people coming in here every week seeing this on the wall now, and I'm having conversations about who gets to invent the names of colors. And- [chuckles]... you know,
25:13
somebody on the team in Houston saw this exercise, and they were like, "A dream job for me is to name the colors of nail polishes." [laughs] Nice. And I'm like, "That's great. That is a job." Yeah.
25:29
Like [laughs] like, there, there is a job where you do that, and, uh, a lot of that we do here at Crispin. That's what we do here. It's, you know, create things that are distinctive, different, break through the noise.
25:45
But the, the most important is inventive, you know, in my mind. Because if you do that, it's gonna create new value because of the thing you create. It's, it's-- Creativity is not the output; creativity is the approach.
26:03
Yeah. That is it. And it's like there is a huge desire in the business world for creativity to be a new approach, you know? And that's, that's the point. That's interesting.
26:16
Are these-- [clears throat] So to bring it back to, like, this week, just kinda your moment in time, like, is, are these active conversations right now?
26:21
Like, these are the things that you're thinking through this week, for example? Like, those connections between business and creativity.
26:27
You're-- I mean, it still seems like, I mean, obviously, in week three, like, team dynamics is still a big piece that you're working through and getting to know, and, and, like, you're-- the things that you're implementing, like the chop up the algorithm.
26:36
Is that- Totally. Yeah, 100%. So, uh, the first thing I've done is I've gone on this listening tour one-on-ones with- Yeah... I've talked to about a third of the agency one-on-one. And that's still ongoing?
26:50
Is it- Um, yeah, I'm actually just at the close of it. I have one more to do on Monday, um, uh, on the planned one-on-ones. Yeah. Um, more, more are coming.
27:00
But I asked the entire team to recap what we talked about because I wanted to see what they heard me say, and I wanted to make sure they could say what they wanted said so that it would be heard. Yep.
27:14
I was also really transparent with them. I said, "I'm gonna do a couple things with this. I'm gonna also share it with our CEO, Maggie Malek, and I'm gonna share it with our head of people, Melissa,
27:26
and we're gonna look at it to try to really understand, um, is anything standing in our way of doing remarkable business solutions." Hmm. And
27:38
I'm glad to report that there's a lot of remarkable business solutions already happening. What we noticed was
27:46
there are people raising their hands, but maybe they're raising their hands in a Teams chat, like, "I'd like to be part of that," and
27:54
somebody else who's maybe not in that particular chat doesn't necessarily know that the person asked. So, like, we're creating more of a hand-raising- Yeah... kind of approach.
28:06
The other thing that I talked with the team about is I said, you know, "You'll email th- you'll email this to me. It'll come in Microsoft Outlook. I can take Microsoft Copilot and, like, actually
28:19
use AI to understand the themes really, really quickly, and we can look at that."
28:23
So we're extracting the themes that we see using that, but then going back to see if that matches what's really going on, and then see if there's any change that needs to be made or, like, what needs to be implemented.
28:35
It's, it's- Hmm... I think that the mistake that new CCOs make is that you go in assuming that you've gotta be like, "I have to have the answers, and I have to, like, fix what's there." It's like
28:53
I'm approaching this as there are really amazing creative people that work here, and I wanna understand what they're seeing and what they're feeling and thinking about, and I wanna connect them to business problems.
29:08
Mm-hmm. Because I want that to be the creative approach. I don't want it to be, you know, you fit neatly into this box, and we only have these steps for you
29:24
so that one day you can make the greatest TV commercial in the world. That's never what this has been about. Yeah. Like, we're making great TV commercials. Like, um, and that's great.
29:37
Uh, what is the real value is connecting the dots. So what you see in process is really like, okay, this inspires me. That inspires me. I saw this going on. You know, I,
29:51
I talked with you a little bit about this, you know? Yeah. Um, I was in the bodega the other day, and my daughter was dancing. Oh, that's what that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:03
So that's the-- Just to say it out loud, that's, those are the screenshots of the thing that you put together with your daughter, right? With like s- Yeah, totally. Like,
30:11
she started dancing at the bodega to the music in the bodega. Yeah. And I stayed in the moment. I didn't stop and shoot this. But
30:20
I w- I was thinking so much about hilarious and amazing the dance was that I went back later, and I took just a picture
30:28
Of the bodega there Yep And then I was like, "Okay, let's use this picture with a prompt to, like, actually place a kid in dancing in that spot," just so that I could explain what that was.
30:43
I didn't have to shoot exactly what I saw in the moment, but I was deeply inspired by this. And then funny kid dancing always goes viral on the internet, so, like, that's the, you know, that's the, that's the goal.
30:57
But it's per- but I think it's a...
30:58
Yeah, I think that's great 'cause things like that, and I think the tech- pointing out the tech part of it is the difference, I think, because things like that have always existed, right?
31:05
Like, you know as well as anybody, like, being in the wild and being in your own world and life, and things inspire you, and you, you write things down, or you remember things, and you bring them back into projects or work later and stuff like that.
31:14
But you're talking about something that hasn't always been there, which is the ability to, one, stay in the moment, and then, like, still create something that didn't exist but still told the same concept story that you were thinking of in the moment.
31:26
Yeah. Right? Like, and that, those layerings and that kinda, that kinda tech-specific way of going about it didn't...
31:31
I mean, not a year ago, let alone three years ago, just the way that these things are, are moving forward. There's a, there's a guy in our neighborhood who wears these purple-striped overalls- [chuckles]...
31:42
and he makes balloon sculptures, and he rides a moped through the neighborhood with a balloon sculpture, uh, with helium in it up above the moped, and it's, like, going like this. [chuckles] And, like,
31:56
you can't, you can't make him up. There's no- Yeah... there's no prompting that's gonna give you that, you know? Yeah. I'm like, "Ooh, that's good." And then later on, I've been like, "Okay,
32:12
what if I wanted to cast him in something?"
32:16
Or, "What if we wanted him to be an ambassador of something and be a creator that actually shows up, and we actually do the story of his life and, like, build a relationship with a brand with him?" And so
32:29
I have to be able to explain how unique he is to a brand and, like, how amazing this could be if we, if we shot it. So, like, there's also a coffee shop in my neighborhood that I love.
32:42
And so currently what I'm doing is this morning I went and I took a picture of the coffee shop with, like, a clean street in front of it.
32:50
And so I'm just working on, how do I get the image of that guy on his moped zooming down the street so that I can create the inspiration of like, "Hey, client, there's a guy in my neighborhood. It looks like this.
33:04
If we did this kind of thing, this would work for your coffee brand." You know? Like, you know- Yeah... it's like- Yeah, yeah... like, that's wild. You know what I mean? It's like... And I--
33:16
There's a real danger of not creating distinctive work if we just keep looking in our phones and don't look at the world. I mean- Yeah... when we last talked,
33:29
you know, one of the things you asked was like, what am I doing to prepare myself for next week? And I said, "The truth is, is I'm putting all this down so that I can walk around Brooklyn with my family this weekend."
33:41
Yeah. And I'll tell you, the, one of the funniest things was we started that walk Saturday morning, and these are the moments that I was seeing some of these things.
33:51
But we were walking through Gowanus, and I was, like, looking at my phone. [chuckles] And Ally goes, "You're gonna miss it." Hmm. And I said, "What am I gonna miss?" And there were two things. Uh,
34:05
there's some art project going on on the Gowanus Canals that they're about to unveil. Like- Hmm... it... I don't know what it is. It might just be sculptures that stay there. She's, "You n- you need to see that."
34:17
But the other part that she was talking about was my kids were so fascinated with, like, what is that gonna be, you know? Yeah. And creating fascination with, like, what is that
34:30
is better than just figuring out how to pump the message at everybody and, like, you know, do it, do it efficiently is like, you know, like, that's not, that's not the goal. That's, that's a means.
34:43
Like, that's, that's a way to get there.
34:45
Is that some- Do you think that-- I mean, 'cause I think that that's something that has to be paid attention to very closely 'cause I think that's a very fast, slippery slope that we can lose.
34:53
Like, that, those opportunities and being able to, like, experience those things and the focus on, like, volume of output over quality, all, all the, all the traditional arguments right now with the tools that are coming in to play.
35:04
Is that something that you kinda stay aware of in, like, your day-to-day as far as trying to stay connected to those moments and those, those more, like, kinda human aspects of the process?
35:13
So Chop Up the Algorithm as a practice on Thursdays is really built so that- Yeah... we say, "Hey, what did you notice this week? Why did you notice it? Was it because of what it was? Is it because of where it was?
35:28
Is it because of how it was designed? How was it designed? Is there something we can learn from what that is?" And, like, that's how we turn it into a business. The other parts are also how we turn it into a business is
35:42
what inspired us about this human moment that is so moving that it is a universal human truth. So can we sit down and talk about why that's a hu- universal human truth? Did we pause and, like, look at each other?
35:56
And then
35:57
as a practice, we have media people who are very creative, who are spending a lot of times with media brands really understanding what's coming from those brands, and then we take that information, and we make it available to each other so that we can go talk to clients about the best way to reach those audiences.
36:17
And when you combine those things, you can create that. It's, it's not available everywhere because not everywhere has that combination of, like, creative and media, social interests, maker people. Yeah.
36:33
But we have creative media Social newsrooms and package design really as, you know, kind of an approach. It's-- In the package design space, it, there's a working title that I've got.
36:46
I've been like, "Is it culture design? Are we-" Hmm. Like, like, what are we doing there? And, um, y- you know, there's a value in that too that we're talking about, which is like, make that very cool.
36:59
So one of the things that I'm really in process about designing is this very room. We're calling it the left brain living room. Yeah.
37:08
And we are going to invite clients to come sit with us in the left brain living room, and we're going to create a vision of the algorithm for them that matters to them on this wall. Hmm.
37:21
And we're gonna sit here and talk, and we're gonna have a nice Samsung television on this wall here very soon. Yes. And, uh, we do TV spots for Samsung, and we're gonna show them some of those TV spots.
37:35
And we do package design, and we're gonna be able to say, "Here are the package designs of the things that we touch it." And what's really interesting, Vince, is like,
37:46
we-- People who have worked here for a very long time do get asked what is going on at Crispin. Hmm. And that is the strength of the Crispin brand. And
37:59
what's really honest about that is that the industry has a tendency to devolve into gossip about stuff. Hmm. There's a lot of like, "What's really going on there?"
38:10
When people ask us that, we are going to say, "Come by and see." Hmm. If you're in New York, Houston, Los Angeles, we've created living rooms in the rooms where you can come by and see.
38:23
So a lot of clients are in New York. A lot of clients come to New York. There's a lot of clients in Houston interested in what's going on in media and the world. Um, we're gonna say, "Come by and see." Like,
38:37
if you're here for some thought festival or something, you know, we're gonna have you come by and see. So- Hmm... we've created the left brain living room so that people can come by and see.
38:48
We've created chop up the algorithm in order to create the material that we need to create come by and see, and like, it's, it's, it's really that simple.
39:04
Real quick, so, so before we go anywhere else, or I know we're at time and stuff like that, but just to bring it back, is this-- 'cause I, I just started getting-- I mean, we've talked for a couple of weeks now, but I'm, I just kinda a second ago got a glimpse of how this is starting to fit together.
39:17
So the, the chopping up the algorithm, your approach to the physical space, your approach to how you're bringing clients into the actual work, uh, as like an exploration of the relationship and things like that, is this all, is this all in stride, and you're kind of pulling these pieces together into a, a framed objective as you go, or is this part of a larger plan that's already there for you and set out that you're working towards?
39:40
Oh, I, I've been-- So I've brought these ideas here as frameworks for us to have those conversations. Got it. Yeah. Um, I've noticed that teams i- throughout the industry
39:56
are needing to stop and have a conversation with one another about what we make. So when I thought about what I would do to introduce myself to the teams here and the agency here,
40:11
I thought, "Well, let's chop up my algorithm." I've talked a lot about the challenges of breaking through the algorithm in the past. Um- Hmm... I've spoken about it at conferences, with students, with CMOs. So
40:31
I have a lot of material around this is what the algorithm looks like when you got too much coming at you. So when I thought about this job and the role to play,
40:44
I said, "Well, I wanna learn about the team's interest in culture and what they're seeing and what influences them very, very quickly and create ways to have a conversation."
40:56
But it's also now feeding into your s- your s- like the physical space design- So-... which I think is interesting, like, 'cause that's what you just mentioned. Yeah.
41:03
Like, those ideas are now kind of making their way onto the walls of your space. So th- that was the thing was, um, I wanted to physically print it so that we could stop and talk about it. The other thing is, um,
41:21
before I took the job, um, I came and I walked the space that we would be in. Hmm. And the team wasn't in the space yet. So- Hmm... uh, we've moved into a space in the World Trade Center that's like a newsroom.
41:36
So I came in and I walked the space. Walking a physical space whenever it's time to present or before presenting is something I do a lot of. Like, I like to know where we'll present
41:53
maybe even more than I like to know exactly what I'm gonna say. Huh. Yep. Because I am very big on the context of a space. So
42:06
I learned that at Crispin, which was I learned on out of home, that if you can think about physical space of where something exists, you think about the people that are seeing it, you think about what's going on around that space, and you think about where they're going, and you're trying to communicate something.
42:24
So here, I'm trying to communicate that we are here to help clients break through within the algorithm. Yeah.
42:35
We are here to help clients get their messages seen and felt Inside of these spaces. Some of it is social, some of it is on TV, some of it is outside, some of it should be at an event. The job is to break through.
42:50
It's not just to be famous. The job is to break through and connect with people.
42:55
So when I thought about meeting the team and working with the team, I came up with the idea of creating Chop Up the Algorithm, which was I'll print what I'm seeing and I will
43:07
completely remove the digital piece of it for 30 minutes and not do it on a Zoom, but actually do it where I sit with them and we talk and we can look at each other and like feel some things, you know?
43:26
Yeah. So that was by design, which is like thinking about what is the message we need to convey, what does need to be received.
43:35
So then the next part is when I came into the space, I discovered that we have this beautiful wall. There's already a potential client who's seen this wall and went, "That is a beautiful corkboard," you know?
43:48
[laughs] Nice. And, um, it was here before us. I think there was a group that was occupying this before us, but I didn't see anything on it whenever I was here. And, um,
44:01
I said, "Well, everybody's gonna wanna decorate the agency to make it have a feeling." I said, "I want it to make it look like the work that inspires us and the culture that we bring in from the world."
44:12
So then as we started to do this, we said, "Well, uh, this ran-- this room's on the left and that room's on the right, and we'll call this the left brain living room and that r- room the right brain conference room."
44:26
And, you know, and so we said, "Oh, well that's, that works great. We can make it a cozy place where we can sit down and have ideas." And I'll tell you what, Vince,
44:36
the most motivating and exciting conversations I have had in 15 years are just sitting here talking with people at Crispin about what we wanna make.
44:48
So we were talking today as a growth team, and we were saying, "When clients ask what's going on at Crispin, we're gonna say, 'Stop by and see.'" That's awesome.
44:57
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