David Lubars: Mess and Magic in Advertising

Charlie Melcher 

Hi, I’m Charlie Melcher, founder of the Future of StoryTelling. Welcome to the FoST podcast. One of my great joys from this show is getting to sit down and talk with the best and brightest storytellers from across a broad range of disciplines. But it’s not every day that I have the opportunity to interview one of the greatest of all time. That’s why I’m particularly excited about today’s conversation with David Lubars. Chief Creative Officer BBDO Worldwide, David is an advertising legend. If there’s a marketing award out there, you can bet that he’s won it and probably more than once. Under his leadership, BBDO has been ranked as the world’s most awarded Creative Agency Network for 14 consecutive years, won network of the year at Cannes a record setting seven times and was named Cannes network of the decade for 2010 to 2020. David has personally won over 600 Cannes Lions, 201 show pencils, and seven Emmys. He was recently inducted into the One Club Creative Hall of Fame and honored with the Clio Lifetime Achievement Award, and has also been named one of the top 10 Creative Directors of all time by Forbes. Today, David has over 20 years of insights from BBDO to share. He’s a real treasure trove of knowledge, experience and excellence. I can’t wait to discuss with him how he and his world class agency think about the craft of storytelling, staying ahead of the curve. And what makes BBDO the best of the best. Please join me in extending a warm welcome to David Lubars.

Charlie Melcher 

David, it is such an honor to have you on the Future of StoryTelling Podcast. Welcome.

David Lubars 

Thank you. Great to be here.

Charlie Melcher 

So I thought to just start I would ask you if you consider yourself a storyteller.

David Lubars 

Well, I consider myself only a storyteller. That’s the core nugget of what we do. Because that’s how people through history understand things. You know, I was I think was Jean Luc Godard said, sometimes reality is too complex stories give it form, complex, layered to teared ideas form. And we’ve done a lot of thinking about it, we we’ve kind of identified four pillars. A great story has unforgettable characters, a compelling plot. It’s a populist entertainment. And maybe there’s some social commentary on it, even if it’s funny. So those four things if you look back, you know, the Bible. You know, Hemingway novels, the Godfather, have that.

Charlie Melcher 

Do you ever have people suggest that your type of storytelling, because it has a commercial motivation to help support a brand or a company is somehow not as legitimate as more traditional forms like film or television or novels?

David Lubars 

It’s an interesting question. Somebody they always ask, a lot of times in interviews is what you do art. And I guess my answer is, I think, in art, the artist asks the question and answers the question. What we do, the client asked the question, and we answer the question using artistic tools, but it’s, it’s commercial artists. It’s not pure art. It’s a completely different form.

Charlie Melcher 

What is the right form for the type of storytelling you do? You’ve traditionally worked in advertising, right, which would have originally been 30 second commercials. How do you think about form today?

David Lubars 

Yeah, you’re right. It used to be television, and radio and print. Now, it’s all kinds of things that every day, there’s something new, and every day something else goes away. And it’s a constantly evolving, chaotic, messy world now. It makes it exciting, and, you know, cool to wake up and go in and see what’s going on today. That wasn’t happening yesterday.

Charlie Melcher 

I first became aware of your work through the BMW films. Those were radical in their day and incredibly successful. I think I read there, they’re actually in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. Can you tell me a little bit about that experience? Where did those ideas come from? How did you make that happen? It’s not the normal advertising.

David Lubars 

Well, it was created out of need. The team and I were challenged with an audience who was not really watching TV, they were traveling, they had children, they were looking at other mediums. So we know that they spent a lot of time online, even in the primitive days of, you know, 2001-02. And they–that’s how they also looked at cars. So the idea was, why don’t we go there, let’s go where they are, as opposed to trying to get them where they aren’t. If you’re going to ask somebody to voluntarily look at something, as opposed to having it imposed upon them as TV did in the day, it’s got to be a whole different type of communication. One that is a magnet that draws you voluntarily. But it was there was no streaming and download in those films. It was like pushing an elephant through a garden hose. But we figured out how to do it. In fact, the original idea was to have it be an hour long single film, but that couldn’t be done as far as downloading. So the idea became better because of the limitations by having chapters.

Charlie Melcher 

And you were working with some of the best directors in the world. In a way you were functioning like a Hollywood studio, just with a different form factor, you know, shorter.

David Lubars 

Yeah, well, David Fincher of Anonymous, produced the first batch, and then he got all those directors. And then the second batch was Tony Scott, and RSA. So you’re talking, you know, the best kind of people and, and it became sort of a cool thing for directors and actors to do once a sort of caught fire.

Charlie Melcher 

I heard you say, in some of the research I was doing, that you are in a service business, and that there’s dignity in that. And I’d love to ask you to talk more about that. I think a lot of people and particularly people who are at the level that you’re at, David , with literally being one of the best in the history of what you do might resist the idea that you’re in a service business, or might push back at that somehow or their ego might get involved and feel like they are not working for clients clients or working for them. I’ve actually heard people say things like that, but but you have a tremendous humility about it. And I loved that that statement of there being a dignity in it.

David Lubars 

Yeah. And honor, I see us as kind of being like, like a fine tailor, or a hotelier, you know, and there is dignity in it in service industry and, and you have to have the service DNA or you don’t. You have to be on call 24/7. There’s always a problem somewhere in the world, or something that needs to be addressed. And that’s why I like to have the kind of creative people in the kind of interesting minds here because you want to have all the colors on your palette. So you can you can surf correctly, if you only know how to do two things, those are the two things you always try to imprint upon a client, and it may not be what they feel comfortable wearing. So if I think you should wear a product that you want to wear Brooks Brothers, we’ll make the best award-winning as Brooks Brothers thing ever. And that’s what I mean by service, like, we’re going to find the thing that makes you feel great about your company and yourself. It can be done in a way that’s famous and effervescent, and award winning and magical. You just got to put in the rigor. And again, I think that’s having the service team.

Charlie Melcher 

And that’s another one of those constraints, right that you talk about. It’s, it’s the constraints of the client, it’s the constraints of the needs of the person you’re collaborating with.

David Lubars 

Well, and I would say again, that’s what differentiates between quote unquote, pure art and the art we do the best creative people in the best agency, people love tight parameters, type parameters, and then you can bounce around within them and to something, as I say, magical.

Charlie Melcher 

You talked about appreciating having great creative people around you great talent around you. And I would imagine that your job these days, that’s a lot of it is being able to attract that talent and keep them happy and get the best work out of them. How do you do that?

David Lubars 

That’s the most important part of probably my job: recruiting, keeping, nurturing, growing, great talent. And the way we offer it is when you come here, you get to see how good you are. We try to clear the obstacles and create a pathway for you to run through and be your best self. A lot of times when I’m interviewing people, I’ll say what do you think we can offer you that you’re not getting at your job today? Because you have a really great job. I try to only recruit people who are happy where they are instead of malcontents. So what do you think we can give you you’re like, and then if I can answer yes to that we really have something to talk about. And so people come in motivated that way and again, most cases they they get to be at another level here.

Charlie Melcher 

Give me an example of something that someone would say to you that you could provide that they were missing in their previous job.

David Lubars 

Oh, you know, I want to paint on a bigger canvas, you know, a more public canvas. We can give you that, you know. Or there’s a certain kind of thing I want to do that you’re–that you do well that I don’t have the opportunity to do here. Okay. I want to learn to be a manager and lead. Okay. So there’s, there’s all kinds of reasons people want to come. And as I say, if I can say yes, to coming in with a good understanding.

Charlie Melcher 

It’s funny, I was thinking about preparing for this conversation and how we’re about the same age, David, but our lives have had such different paths, right? Do you– you are at the top of your field at at BBDO. You know, one of the most awarded networks of agencies in the history of your field, how many people work there around the world?

David Lubars 

15,000, maybe.

Charlie Melcher 

Right, I have 15 people that I work with. For 30 years, I’ve had basically a 15 person company. So I’m so curious about the perspective, from the sitting at the top of the best of the biggest, what would you say are some of the challenges of size?

David Lubars 

So the challenge is, is not acting big and stupid. All of the leadership around the world comes from bowtique backgrounds, including me. So we understand fast, nimble, efficient to work with a little scratch to it, getting your hands into the sledge, you know, try not to have a layered corporate, you know, mess. And so, the whole thing is, I always say we’re a global boutique. So we’re all kind of boutique mentality, boutique type of creative, but yet with the breadth, and depth, and a deep bench that a good network has, so that combination is kind of rare. You know, here’s how I know if we’re bad and good. If I say, you know, seven or eight times in a week, that’s what a big stupid agency would do. We’re having a bad week. If I say it once or twice, we have a good way. So people around here know when I say that, like, oh, yeah, you know, shake that off. And let’s, let’s think more nimbly.

Charlie Melcher 

And thinking nimbly to you means not the obvious? Or taking risks? Like, what does that really mean?

David Lubars 

No, I don’t like risks. Who wants to take a risk? You know? I believe it’s risky to not be noticed. And it’s risky to be invisible, or it’s risky to not have your brand loved. So we try to have that happen. But those aren’t risks. That’s how to capitalize on the money a client is spending, and make sure it really is a value as opposed to, I don’t know, right off. So it’s, it’s being efficient, fast. It’s kind of like you’re a patrol boat, out front of the, of the giant aircraft carrier, you know, patrolling the waters, and seeing what’s coming and making sure everything’s good. That’s really what a good agency does for a client, as opposed to being another aircraft carrier where they’re clanging into each other.

Charlie Melcher 

I certainly feel maybe I’m just projecting, but I think that’s one of the things that I’ve so appreciated being in a small company all these years is being able to have that direct intimate relationship with the with the client and and get your hands in the creative all the time.

David Lubars 

Yeah, well, that’s our culture, too. I mean, you’d find that very familiar.

Charlie Melcher 

Next year is your 20th anniversary at BBDO. That’s amazing. I mean, in a world that turns so quickly, to have that kind of tenure and longevity, I’m wondering if you can reflect on almost 20 years at BBDO. And any sort of big lessons or takeaways you’ve had from that incredible run.

David Lubars 

And actually, it’s more than 20. Because as a young manager, I did five years at BBDO West in Los Angeles. And it’s because of the value set which is the belief in this type of smart, effervescent, magic, revealing work that lifts brands. It’s a really nice place with great people, you know, I’m sure if you get three people in a room to some kind of politics, but it’s a low-politic team that’s for each other, and that just wants to make great things. Why wouldn’t you want to be at a place like that?

Charlie Melcher 

You want said that one should always be learning, but one should also always be unlearning. And I loved that quote, and I would like to ask you to explain what you meant by it.

David Lubars 

I think about that every day. You want to get new things, but sometimes she gets stuck in the concrete. It hardens around your ankles, and then the world leaves you behind. Because you’re stuck in the old tropes and the old ways and the old in-the-box types of ways to execute and think. So you’ve got to not only pick up new things, but drop other stuff. I always say my job is to stir the cement. Don’t let it harden. And that’s sloppy and messy. But that way it can flow the way the world needs you to. And you keep moving with it and don’t get stuck behind. So that’s kind of what I mean, like to just drop the old unusable things, and find new things.

Charlie Melcher 

And again, that must be an important part to your secret of success over so many years, because the world’s changed a lot, but you’ve been able to change with it.

David Lubars 

You know, my legendary predecessors in the industry from you know, the 60s. I wonder if they would like the business today, because they were outrageously creative and deserve to be legends, but they understood what the horizon line was. TV, print, radio, you know– sun, mountain, river. It wasn’t easy, but what they had to do is just put great, amazing creativity into those boxes. Now, the world is very confused. It’s a foggy, dark mess. And, you know, we did a thing, I don’t know, 10 years ago, or 12 years ago for this thing called Vines. That was the big winner at Cannes that year– Vines doesn’t even exist anymore. So things come, they go, you got to discard, grab onto new, are you grabbing onto the right new? Or is that something that’s a waste of time, and you should have been looking over here. So somebody like me who’s kind of ADD, again, I like 20 balls in the air, and being challenged and being confused on what’s going on. But it takes a different type of personality to thrive in today’s advertising world than it did them. On the other hand, the big idea is, as I said earlier, a timeless thing. So some of those big ideas from that day from those days would be great today, but just executed so differently.

Charlie Melcher 

Well, how does this make you feel about all these new technologies and their potential to tell stories that are more impactful?

David Lubars 

Again, I’m always open to everything. But it’s hard for me to say like– you’re talking about AI? I don’t know yet. And people shouldn’t know yet. You have to see how it’s gonna go and how it reveals itself. Just like 40 years ago, when computers came in, everybody had the same freakout. I just say, relax, let’s let the answers reveal themselves. And we’ll see how it we’ll see what happens, you know. But again, as I say, a big idea will be important, no matter what.

Charlie Melcher 

So let’s speak specifically about AI. Are you using it now? Does BBDO have different ways that it’s employing AI?

David Lubars 

Yeah. It’s really useful in a lot of ways. And it’s, by the way, it’s a great information gather. The guy used to work for me wrote a book. He’s a professor now. And he wrote a book about marketing and asked me to write the foreword. So I wrote the foreword. This is last year, and I spent an hour googling facts to back up my premise of what the foreword would be. So today, it would take two minutes, because I would put the premise in and AI would find all this stuff that I had to Google and dig up. So, that was awesome. Now, as far as coming up with big ideas, it remains to be seen: can AI understand the heart? I mean, that’s really what I do. It all comes from heart. And again, will AI understand the for those four pillars of storytelling? Maybe. Will it do it well? I don’t know.

Charlie Melcher 

I mean, I remember when people said that creativity was the thing that would not be replaced by computers. And now it seems certainly that AI is a digital tool that is very least augmenting creativity in a major way, if not, someday going to be able to replace it. I think we’re so close to this moment of being able to have AI generated characters, novels that don’t end and continue to evolve and are responsive to your interests. And I mean, there’s just a world of new things that are just beginning to materialize through AI that solve some age old problems. So you said a moment ago that it all comes from the heart. And that perhaps that’s at the basis of, of great storytelling, right, is that it moves us emotionally. It reminds us of something that is organic to being human. How do you look for inspiration for your storytelling? Where do you find it

David Lubars 

Everywhere. Like, I don’t go look for it. It’s just, I just feel submerged in it. And everything can be turned into some type of insight or in some type of interesting outside the box way to look at things. I mean, there’s other things you can do, like I was recently doing another interview where I was– I do different guitar tunings. Now, because you have to reteach yourself how to do the voicings, and it opens up new creative pathways in your brain because it’s, it’s like a weird combination of math and intuition to play on these things, you know? So there’s all kinds of things I’m constantly reading and you know, the usual the usual answers, but I just find everything, even an ugly building can like turn into something.

Charlie Melcher 

How are you feeling about advertising as an industry right now? A lot of changes taking place, competition from everywhere for people’s attention. Are you still as bullish on advertising? Or do you still in love with this field?

David Lubars 

Well, first of all, you have to be in love with it. And the industry, I think, is in a place of it’s, it’s, as I say, messy, messy, confused, foggy. So again, either you like that, or you don’t. You can have a lot of success and advertising if you look at it as a constantly shifting changing thing. You have to like that. If you’re looking for parameters and lock, things bolted down? Not the field for you.

Charlie Melcher 

What is advertising, really?

David Lubars 

A great brand has an inherent magic that people will respond to and and feel love for if you reveal it. So to me, that’s advertising: revealing the magic, and the beauty of a brand or product. And by the way, the only thing that works in advertising is the truth. Somebody sent me some ad from the 40s, where it says, stay slim and happy and it’s signed off, amphetamine. So okay, so that was not the truth, you know, and someone brands have a great truth. And you reveal it that’s very, that’s advertising.

Charlie Melcher 

Joseph Campbell, in his famous hero’s journey, talks about the role of the mentor, that the hero is off on this adventure. And there’s a mentor that helps them along the way. I experience from a lot of the companies that we get to deal with, that they think that they are they in their product, they in their company are the hero of the stories that they want to tell. And they don’t realize that actually their customer is their hero. And if they’re lucky, that their product or service is the magical gift. It’s they play the role, maybe more of the mentor and helping the customer on their journey. Do you agree with that?

David Lubars 

I totally agree that the customer is the hero, and the product and brand help enhance the hero in us.

Charlie Melcher 

So really, companies, when they’re at their best, are enabling their customers to be successful, to be more themselves to be happier to overcome the defeat the the obstacle and come back to a transformed world and self.

David Lubars 

Well, I mean, using a lot of hyperbole there. But isn’t, isn’t that what any product does, it makes it better for you. But it’s about you. Our customers understand why they come to BBDO. So they believe in creativity as a economic multiplier. They understand. I think they all understand that the customer is comes first. So that’s not to say everything we do is easy, because deciding what the right creativity is, is where the all the discussions in the in the back and forth go. But I think all our clients see their their customers as the hero. Yeah.

Charlie Melcher 

David, you get at this point, I imagine, the opportunity to speak in front of young up and coming talent, or you’re out there recruiting them for that matter. What is something that you share? How do you inspire the next generation?

David Lubars 

Because when you hit on a big idea, that’s simple, and true, and magical, and doesn’t need any more explanation than just a few words, and then that little few words can turn into 15 years of amazing work around the world–there’s there’s no feeling like it, it’s it’s it’s very special. So the opportunity to be part of something like that is, I think, attractive to people.

Charlie Melcher 

And you have to constantly remind your own team to find that simple truth to sort of pare back, because I’ve heard you say that a few times that it is sort of at the core of the best work is that there’s this big idea that’s when you hear it it’s a lightning bolt or or, or a light that goes off and how do you encourage people or how do you direct people to pare down and find the simple big idea?

David Lubars 

Well, we don’t have to encourage them because that’s what they come here to do. It’s really about doing it. And again, a lot of this is gut and taste, you know, and this should be no shame in saying it. There’s no shortcuts here. It’s like a naked, crawl over broken glass to find it and get it. And when you do, like the hairs, and you just know it. That’s what you live for when you work in this in this industry.

Charlie Melcher 

Have you ever been wrong with your gut on that? Where you think is–?

David Lubars 

Of course, yeah. Luckily, more right than wrong. But of course, everybody makes mistakes. But my first exposure to–I remember when I was a kid, I came to work on Apple. I’m giving away my age, they were introducing the Mac. And the the insight was, and it didn’t need any other explanation: the computer for the rest of us. It didn’t need any more explanation like you– so that wasn’t even on, I think it was maybe on a few of the ads, but it was– that was the inside of everything. So I realized, like, wow, and again, it goes on and on and–more things come out of it. And it’s just has a life of its own almost, you know, so. So that was, to me, always the goal. I could point to Snickers– “you’re not you when you’re hungry.” Doesn’t need explanation. That’s a 13 year old campaign now, and it’s a universal insight that’s in, I think it’s in 83 countries around the world now, where everybody acts like a jerk when they’re hungry. They’re not themselves. They’re cranky. They’re a diva. They’re this, they’re that. And no matter what culture, no matter what language, no matter what part of the world. That’s true. So Snickers is packed with peanuts, sorts you out when you’re really hungry.

Charlie Melcher 

It’s a great one. My dad used to carry a Snickers with them all the time.

David Lubars 

Mine too. That’s funny you say that.

Charlie Melcher 

What’s next for you?

David Lubars 

I don’t think what’s next for me is some type of like, “Oh, now we’ve changed, we need to do this.” It’s to stay ahead of the industry and keep consistently being great. The people I admire, like in music, are the ones who every year or every decade after decade, constantly come in with as opposed to living off the fumes of some hit from 2013. So what’s next for us is to consistently be fresh and new.

Charlie Melcher 

Given the track record you’ve had over these last many years, I have no doubt you will continue to do that. Thank you. This was great. I’m Charlie Melcher, and this has been the Future of StoryTelling podcast. Thanks for listening. Our community brings together top talent from advertising technology, entertainment, marketing, immersive media, and every industry where storytelling is key. If you’d like to become part of it, please consider subscribing to this show. You can also sign up for our free monthly newsletter FoST In Thought and learn more about our annual membership the FoST Explorers Club by going to fost.org. This month we’re also conducting our Community Survey. To learn more about you, our FoST family, and how to serve you better. Please visit the link in this episode’s description to make your voice heard. We’d really appreciate it. The FoST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our friends and production partners, Charts & Leisure. And I hope to see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Till then, please be safe, stay strong and story on.