When J. Walter Thompson’s Non-Executive Chairman Bob Jeffrey got his start in advertising, it was normal for agencies to present a single TV spot to prospective clients in order to prove their credentials. For example, at Chiat/Day, where he worked early in his career, they showed the “1984” Apple spot.
However, today’s top creative directors probably wouldn’t be showing off TV work.
“It would be a cool idea that somehow got communicated or executed in either an existing channel, a non-traditional channel, or actually a channel that we created,” says Jeffrey in an interview with Beet.TV. At the end of last year, he stepped down as JWT’s worldwide CEO after 11 years in the job.
And while data has upended the process of conceptualizing and executing campaigns in many respects, sometimes providing an overwhelming amount of research and insights to make sense of, Jeffrey sees it as an enabler of creativity.
“It actually gives creative people more to work with,” he says.
This segment is part of Beet.TV’s “Media Revolutionaries,” a 50-part series of interviews with key innovators and leaders in the media, technology and advertising industries, sponsored by Xaxis and Microsoft. Xaxis is a unit of WPP.
Jeffrey was interviewed for Beet.TV by David J. Moore, Chairman of Xaxis and President of WPP Digital.
