Greg Stern

I went to see Greg Stern give a presentation called “My Inadvertent Career” at Eric Mower’s advertising form. He spoke about his time with Ogilvy and Mather and how he matured and became successful in advertising over the years.
Stern spoke about his time working abroad and encouraged each of us to take time to travel. When working for a big company, it is nice to be able to travel on their dime. Seeing the world and building a career helps to build relationships and contacts, and to gain experiences you otherwise would never have had.
When speaking about experiences, Stern spoke about how he matured as an advertiser. He showed a commercial for pizza that has garlic getting killed to get made into pizza. He said that at the time, he didn’t realize that this was such a bad ad. He thought it was funny. But, after maturing, getting experiences, and making mistakes, he found what a good ad looked like.
Stern discussed problems that all companies have. Because the problems he addressed are problems that can be seen across all companies, these issues have become central for advertisers need to address across the industry: Who are we competing against? What type of agency do we want to become? How do we stay relevant? What could we do better?
Stern spoke about the importance of collaboration. He said that people should not try to do things themselves. It is important to tap into other people’s talents. Having a diverse group of people with a wide range of ideas and talents creates an environment for rich ideas and strategies to be born.
At Stern’s company, BSSP, they are focused on developing integrated ideas that break through culture and drive business. The best kind of message is the message that people talk about. If people talk about it, then it is extraordinary. This is what prompted the idea for the Converse campaign. It involved people sending in videos for ads, showing what Converse meant to them. This is an example of user-generated content. It gets people talking, interested, and involved with the brand. It also makes for really effective advertising because it is not even “advertising.” It is not the brand’s idea of what the brand should mean; it is about the consumer. It makes the brand belong to the people, not the company. Advertisers should not focus on advertising, but engagement with the people. Doing this type of ad campaign with Converse was very brave, but worked well. It’s all about storytelling.