I was very inspired by Warren Berger's recent article in CA (Design Annual 50) about New York agency SS+K. Here’s why:
It’s a very cool, and unexpected evolution of CCO Marty Cooke. Here’s a guy who is featured in the D&AD’s Copywriter’s Bible, who joins a new agency and begins to have his doubts about it:
“I felt like I’d gone off the grid,” he says. Cook was used to doing a lot of high-profile commercials nad print ads, but that wasn’t the goal at SS+K. “This was not the place to come and build your TV reel,” Cooke says.
But he’s since been involved in amazing work like texting posters for Credo and NewsBreaker Live for msnbc.com. That’s not just putting more work in your book. That’s pushing boundaries of what an ad agency is capable of.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, they embrace their DC roots. So many of us in advertising look down on political advertising as pedantic. Haughtily, we ask “What would happen if a political candidate had the guts to hire Goodby?” But SS+K finds the best of what works with DC-style advertising and runs with it.
Because of that, they clearly offer something different. So many agencies seem to be me-too agencies. “We do print, TV, online, and offer strategic marketing solutions with breakthrough creative blah blah blah.” But SS+K can put their stake in the ground and say, “We get political, and we can rally brands around a politically-charged cause and help them make money.”
