Guerrilla Renaissance

As the marketing mix mantra of “Product, Price, Place, Promotion” emits is monotone sales pitch, guerilla marketing is the caffeinated antidote to our advertising doldrums. It is imaginative, experimental promotion; it’s the guy dressed in a gorilla suit handing out restaurant menus in front of a ramen restaurant. It’s also how Cunning, a London-based creative ad agency, won fame while working for FHM Magazine in 1999: it projected an image of centerfold Gale Porter, towering in her naked Amazonian glory, onto the Houses of Parliament in London.

Cunning now has offices in New York, where I meet Head Creative Bloke (his official title) Floyd Hayes. Floyd is no sales shark. On the contrary, he is sincere and curious. His side projects include “Twipple” (the “world’s kindest Twitter feed”) and Seksi Spam Buttons, pins printed with hilariously misspelled taglines from pornographic spam e-mails (sales profits go to the Sexuality Information & Education Council of the US). Nothing seems to be off-limits in this creative space.

As Hayes shows me around the Cunning office,  I note the staff’s meticulously arranged Smurf action-figure collection and the basketball-headed statues created for L’Oreal Vive displayed near the foosball table.

Hayes adeptly navigates the untested terrain of guerrilla advertising. He’s been filmed and for documentaries about marketing and widely quoted. I repeat one such phrase to Mr. Hayes: “those who don’t risk anything risk much more”. He answers that the quote is relevant and eloquent- but he must have dropped it whilst hung over. Thus, I sit Floyd Hayes down to learn about the unconventional limb of an old profession.

Motherthunder.Com: How long have you been at Cunning ?

Floyd Hayes: I’ve been at Cunning for eleven years, and I joined the company as the first employee in 1998. I joined with Anna Carloss in the London office.

We used to work out of her garage (he pronounces it “gAh-rahj”, then chuckles and re-pronounces it “ga-rAjh”, the American way). And that’s where it developed.

I moved to the States in 2004, to start up with Mark (Voysey) at Cunning New York.

So yeah, it’s been quite a long ride.

MT: Is the marketing landscape different here in New York than it is in London? From a bird’s-eye view, they are both cities with similar viewpoints.

FH: I think there’s more of the same as there is that is different, really. London likes to think of itself as being more creative than New York.

There has always been this rivalry between the financial centers, the fashion groups, the graffiti groups, the MC’s, the rappers, and the urban culture; and it’s very strong in the advertising communication industry as well.

England’s certainly more irreverent. They’ve got a cheeky sense of humor- and the word “cheeky” is used a lot more in the U.K than it is in the states. The Brits aren’t as afraid of litigation, political correctness; every ad we do doesn’t have to have every single race in it that’s on the face of the planet.

But that’s not to say that British advertising is insensitive to race and cultural issues. It’s a very multicultural city; there are 300 languages spoken in London alone.

I think it can be a little more sexual; a little more edgy in its humor, its imagery. The humor is just a little more subtle. And those are the differences I saw here. I like the New York advertising scene: it’s quite switched-on, culturally.

It’s very brave. People aren’t afraid to think big here. I think that’s part of the American DNA; that “can-do” spirit, the not-being-afraid to move forward with exciting, big ideas. On occasion….

MT: How big?

FH: Well, the big agencies here, they’re not afraid to push their ideas out. You know, anything from Subservient Chicken down to Microsoft launching Windows, originally, by bathing it in different projected lights.

Anything seems possible, if the budget and the will is there to do it. I like that sense of horizon, which allows me to think in such broad terms.

MT:Take me through the process of taking a big idea from the drawing board and making it a reality. How many different people, steps, and materials are involved?

FH: There’s broadly 10 steps. I won’t go through them 1-10, but essentially it’s broken down into these areas:

At the beginning, we meet for a brief with the client. Usually the client has a brief written out, or we encourage them to fill out our brief, which is a little different. We’re looking at business issues, what they want to achieve, their advertising, their strategy, their planning, what kind of media they want to use.

What kind of resources do we have? Do they have a website already? Is there a celebrity involved? Do they want a sample? You know, what their goals are, how we measure those goals, and should we reach them- that’s the briefing part.

From there, we get into a kind of inspirational area which is part research and development. We look at the competitive set, we look at other people’s strategies and where we can find a space to communicate them- somewhere it won’t be full of competitive clutter.

We try to get excited, because the main thing is to get your imagination turned on. Often, clients give you a brief that’s like a tax return. There’s a lot of text and statistics. It’s my job as creative director to translate that into something that creative minds are going to really open up to, find exciting, flourish, and develop ideas.

Research and development just checks on what (the client’s) done before. Does this client like exciting advertising, or do they like television ads, for example? Then we have to figure out ways to make them feel comfortable in non-traditional terms. From there, we then do brainstorms.

We have very free-form brainstorms here, but like any other company we have the whiteboard up. We encourage everyone in the company to work on it, not just the creative side. So everyone from the secretary to the CEO will have the brief and will be listened to, as much as anyone else, for ideas and insights.

From there, we have solo brainstorming sessions, where people just go away and do what they need to do. Then we come together and reality-check all the ideas against the brief. So if the brief says, “We’ll never use the color blue”, and if one of the ideas uses the color blue, it’s out. Example. Bad example. Dreadful example.

We just make sure it’s tied together, it’s feasible, it’s affordable from a resource point of view, and that the tonality of the idea fits whatever the brand’s trying to achieve.

And then, we create presentation decks, which can be a keynote, a PowerPoint, theater, or it could be just sketches, or it could be a Word document. However we just feel right at the time, and we gauge what particular clients like to either see or read or hear or feel or understand.

MT: Do you stand by your quote: “Companies that don’t risk anything risk much more.” Do you think that’s true across the industry, or do you think it’s mostly young companies like Cunning that aren’t afraid to take risks?

FH: I think it’s true not only for companies, but it’s true for people as well. If your reason for being- as a company or as a person- is just to coast and not to take risks, make some money and that’s your lot, then you’re not really reaching your potential.

And I think that’s a great shame. Especially when I see companies that have wonderful legacies and really intelligent people working for them, and yet there is some kind of “community think” group which holds back ideas that could be a little more interesting or brave.

MT:Sorry: “community think”. Would you capitalize those words; I mean: is that an actual group or a phrase?

FH: I guess I meant “groupthink”. I often see this in corporates. There’ll be 15 people involved in any decision. Often, decisions aren’t made, or if they’re made, they’re made far too late.

I think that in the smaller companies, you have one or two visionaries, and someone who can actually sign a checkbook and make decisions. They have to be more nimble, and that’s certainly more work.

Companies that have that mindset, think of them as the “Apples” of the world…Netflix… people that are creating categories and establishing new rules. I think marketing and communications can be looked at the same way, and I find that exciting.

MT: New markets are being created now, with products that are completely groundbreaking. So I agree. Recall the “mustachioed Marlboro man” that you would see in ‘70s magazine ads in Playboy. Do you think he’s still out there? Is there a type of behemoth company that goes for that image versus a fresher approach?

FH: There is indeed, and I won’t name names, but I can see them from this window. They’re a very well-established company- one of the biggest in the world- and in the top 5. They have an incredible amount of money.

They have large global corporate clients, and their advertising is essentially information-based, product-short, with a bit of copy. And that’s all these clients want. And that’s what they pay this company for.

So those kinds of companies still exist, and they still serve a function, and they still are healthy businesses. They’ll probably always be around, which is great for us because we can nip in through the gaps and talk to clients who would like to change with the times and talk the language of their audience.

I think they’ll exist side-by-side in the way radio still exists with television and television still exists with the internet. One new paradigm of thinking doesn’t necessarily mean it deletes the paradigm before it; does that make sense?

MT:Absolutely! Let’s go into specifics. What was the first idea you brought to the table, and was it accepted?

FH: Oh, gosh… at Cunning, specifically, I put together hundreds of ideas beforehand when I was in a band, and I used to promote bands and DJ’s and all sorts of things.

I was into “guerilla marketing” before I even knew it was guerilla marketing. We just wanted to be famous and had no money!

So, specifically at Cunning- yeah, I remember the first brief I worked on, and I was very green. But it was very exciting; it was for a magazine called “Bizarre”, which had weird stuff in it. Very different magazine.

…Kind of gross stuff; a little sexy. Very “out-there” pictures and thoughts and things.

MT: This was back in the U.K?

FH: Yeah, this was back in the U.K. They liked icky stuff, so my very first idea was incredibly icky and gross. It involved a large billboard with large Perspex letters spelling out the word “Bizarre”, and the Perspex letters were like boxes against the billboard.

I wanted to fill the entire billboard- the letters and the entire Perspex box behind it- with different-colored maggots, because they come in all kinds of colors like green, red, blue. From a distance, it would look just like the word “Bizarre”, like you would see in a magazine title. But when you got closer, you’d realize it was a living billboard.

And of course, maggots hatch into flies…It was very, very disgusting, but I thought it would get a lot of news coverage and make people go, “Oh, my God!” and talk about it in bars and so on. That was an original idea I remember amongst many others.

Then I costed it all up- I knew how much a pint of maggots went for, and the billboard space that went with it- all that kind of stuff. It was just so out there, but it certainly got me a phone call. I went down for an interview, and I got the job.

That (the maggot plan) didn’t actually happen-

MT: Maybe for the best?

FH: Yeah, maybe for the best. You can have that one. The idea that did happen was for a channel (in the U.K) called Channel 5, and they bought the rights to air the classic Lassie series. They wanted some sort of PR stunt to celebrate this and get it in the papers. The idea was very simple: we brought Lassie over from the States as if she was Madonna.

So we had a private jet, security detail, a sexy publicist with her and she went to all the hotels, and went jogging in Hyde Park.

She did all the sorts of things that major celebrities do in London: go to the Waldorf, the Ivy Club. We took Lassie around, and it was successful. It got PR coverage and coverage from news on TV.

We eventually got a phone call from the Houses of Parliament. This guy was furious because he thought we’d brought the dog from the States. At the time, there was a big row about passports for pets.

Britain’s very careful about animals coming in the country because we don’t have rabies, whereas continental Europe does. We don’t want it anywhere near our country, so they (foreign pets) are quarantined for six months. It’s a really involved process.

This story was happening in the news at the same time Lassie was coming over, so we made a segway for the two stories. We told this member of Parliament, “relax, because this dog wasn’t really from America. We sort of snuck her in from down the road in London and made the whole thing up”.

We only hired the jet for, like, half an hour. It was only as much as we could afford to hire it and have it stand around, take a picture and open the door. And that was it- don’t believe everything you read!

MT: Is there a certain style or media in which you prefer to work? Or do you like to mix everything up?

FH: I do, you know. Cunning is a group where we talk about being “solution-neutral”, meaning we believe there’s no one channel that answers a creative brief from a client. Our logo is all different because we like to say every single brief we get, we approach completely fresh.

We’re media-agnostic, so we don’t sell a media channel to a client because we make money on it. Now if you go to Madison Avenue, they’ll tell you otherwise, but they are lying.

They’ll try to sell a client the channel that makes them the most money. So if they specialize in TV production, they will sell TV ads. If they sell outdoor media space, then that will be the top of their deck.

Cunning doesn’t make any money from any media channel in particular. It makes no difference to us if we do a clothing line; or we do something online; or we do a billboard, or an event; viral or Twitter campaign with social media; publicity stunt; or even just a basic ad. We look at the solution that is perfect for the specific media issue at hand.

But what do I like the most? I like very simple ideas that you can just look at and “get” immediately. Some very complex, multi-channel, strategically-led, deep concepts are really intellectually pleasing to work on. But personally, I like to be able to look at a guerrilla ad or a piece of print and have it make me smile.

I want to learn something from it. I want it, in some way or another, be of some use to me whether it gives me something funny and new to say to my friends, or whether the actual media itself has some utility to it. For example, it’s like a coffee-cup holder, that has utility: stops your fingers getting burnt.

What I hate is irrelevant adverts shouting at me in a dictatorial manner, which is how 90% of advertising works. They just buy as much space as they can afford, repeat a message to anyone who’s in the area. I don’t want to know about Ugg shoes or anything else that’s not specific to my needs and desires. People call it “urban spam”, and I think with good reason.

I think there’s a lot less of it here in New York, because it’s easier to tune out. You’re not stuck behind the wheel of your car, forced to stare out at a billboard. But when I went to L.A, I was. I felt confused, because there was no value given by these enormous ads.

I would go much further than that. I wouldn’t even say “no value”. I would say it’s damaging. Information does one thing, and that’s use attention. It uses up your time; it uses up your thinking and clutters your mind.

It’s often said that the average New Yorker gets 3,000 messages a day to filter. That’s commercial sales messages like billboards, logos, e-mails. This is my life! I find it offensive that it’s cluttered with all this nonsense I don’t want to hear. It makes me quite angry.

I really dislike advertising, and I think that informs my work. I hope…to create stuff that, even if it isn’t particularly relevant to you, you can still enjoy it. If it’s a pleasant experience, a useful experience, or a learning experience, I feel much happier there than I do just grabbing attention.

I used to do a lot of that with PR stunts, and I feel like I’ve moved on. I’ve put adverts on people’s foreheads, you know what I mean? (He’s referring to the 2008 Air New Zealand campaign).

 

MT: Maybe that’s part of growing up…

FH: Yeah, of course it is, and I don’t regret any of it. But I feel now that I want to create things that have social utility. It doesn’t have to be boring, but I want my work to be a little more useful to people than just shouting messages at them from a billboard or radio or TV ad.

MT: And it shows. Marketing reaches out into every media, as you said. Where can it possibly spread now?

FH: I think I had an interview question once that asked, “What happens when non-traditional becomes traditional?” It’s like saying, “What happens when you’ve used every instrument?”

There are millions! There’s an infinite level of iteration and combination that you can use. We’ll never run out of space or ideas simply because some twenty-odd months ago Youtube didn’t even exist; something like that.

MT: Wow, you’re right. How old is the internet, like, twenty years old?

FH: If that! In ’98, we had the internet for the company, but it was barely anything. Then the dot-com boom happened in England around 1999-2000, but it didn’t reach video for being too bandwidth-hungry.

Since bandwidth has grown, technologies and therefore commercial messages have grown with it. Subservient chicken and things like that.

As new technology’s invented, obviously there will be new ways to sell to people. Look at the iPhone, and look how apps work with free downloads and sponsored content and product placement, etc, etc, etc.

MT:Is there a pattern that you’ve gotten into?

FH: No. If I find myself getting into a pattern, I consciously try to break them. I think it’s not healthy, mentally or for your imagination, to get too stuck in its ways. If one thing’s successful, that’s great and just let it be. Find something else. There are always people copying ideas, so you have to keep creating to move forward.

MT: It’s almost strange to have marketing programs in colleges, because the profession is shifting to be made “by the people, for the people”. Things that seemed obvious and set five years ago have completely turned on their heads. Would you put more stock in skill or a college degree?

FH: What happens if students don’t get their grades to go to university, and still want to follow a career in advertising? Should they despair?

Personally speaking-and I guess I’m very different than a lot of people who’ll interview at ad agencies- I know if I want to hire somebody by testing them with a creative brief.

If their imagination is unique, inquisitive, sharp, fast, and exciting, that’s all they really need. Everything else can be learned. Everything else can be bluffed, actually. I know because I’ve done it myself.

You learn enough marketing jargon- which I reject if I can- but for a while, I had to learn the professional language in order for marketing directors to say, “Oh, this guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s just said ‘integrated 360-degree thinking’” or some bull(sh*t) like that. But really, that’s not what all this is about.

It’s about good ideas- very good ideas- that are far and few between, and so are precious. I’d take someone like that over someone with a degree any day of the week.

But, I’m far from the corporate norm. If you want a job at a big corporate company as a creative director, like at a cable channel, then yes. You’ve got to be qualified as much as you possibly can be because you’re up against very fierce competition.

I think qualification can only really give you an edge, but if you don’t have soul from a creative point of view, it won’t help you at all.

Well, different strategies. Planning strategies, of course, that’s a different conversation. For me, it’s your personality and your mind that counts. I rarely look at people’s resumes, and it hasn’t really failed me yet.

MT: Finally, will you mention SeksiSpamButtons?

FH: Ah, yes, that’s looking into the future of what I want to do, as is Twipple.info. The idea of creating interesting ideas and combining it with business and branding, and also social causes: I think those 3 areas can flourish together.

Without making it sound too grand, I think they can potentially make the world a better place.

I see how much money marketing people waste on terrible print ads, dreadful sampling campaigns, and useless TV commercials that look like exactly like every other TV commercial. The sheer amount of cash is obscene.

If you took that money and still created commercial communications, it’d still be efficient but could also have a big eye towards social areas. That would be a really important step for this industry.

I know there are Corporate Social Responsibility setups and it’s a big part of almost every corporate, but if every marketing department joined with every CSR department, there could be a much brighter future for this industry.