How to be brave in advertising? Love your spouse, says Barton F. Graf 9000 founder Gerry Graf
“The reason people don’t take chances or try to do something bold or different is because they are afraid. What are they afraid of? They’re afraid of losing their job. They’re afraid of not having money,” said Gerry Graf, Barton F. Graf 9000 founder, at Advertising Week New York during a session about bravery in advertising.
So how can fear be removed from the equation? Here are his suggestions:
“Keep the overhead low. Don’t get married. Don’t have children. Don’t have dependents. Don’t take out second mortgages. Try to pay for everything in cash. Follow the lead of Steve Jobs and stay unmarried for as long as possible so you can spend all of your time at work. Don’t buy a boat. Move to Queens.
“If you are married; do not get divorced. Love your spouse with all of your heart and make sure that they love you. Because love is good and everything, but nothing kills a creative career like divorce. Alimony can make us stay at horrible jobs. Remember, if you have your own company you lose half of that in a divorce.
“So love, love, love.
“If you have kids, you can ignore them until they are about five and they won’t remember. So work really hard during that stretch. And remember, public schools are fine.
“So here’s to bravery. And here’s to love.”
During a more serious moment, Graf also discussed his experience of setting up his own agency having spent over a decade in well-paid, secure, creative director roles at the likes of TBWA, BBDO, and Saatchi & Saatchi. He said it was one of the most terrifying moves he has made – comparing himself to Frodo Baggins of Lord of the Rings “who people think is brave for destroying the ring but, really, he knows he was shit scared” – but that four year in “it seems to be going alright”.
Joining Graf on the panel was Cindy Gallop, founder of BBH, Make Love Not Porn and ifwerantheworld, who said “bravery starts at home” not with clients.
Gallop urged people to take a stand against the lack of diversity and in advertising agencies; to be brave and walk away when clients won’t work within the agency model you want to build and refusing to give away pitch thinking for free; and to say what you really think, even if you are the most junior person in the room.
And finally, Colleen DeCourcy, partner and co-executive creative director at Wieden + Kennedy, said that to be brave, is to be vulnerable with your work, believing that digital media – “a hedge bet against media over ideas, not the idea itself” - will not save the advertising industry; only empathy, connection and creativity will.