Ari Weiss on Launching His Own Agency: “Experience Is Everything and Everything Is an Experience”
Ari Weiss announced earlier this year that he was stepping down from his role as DDB's global chief creative officer. His next step was to launch his own independent agency, Quality Experience, which was officially announced last week.
Quality Experience is anything but a one-man band; Ari has surrounded himself at the agency with some of American advertising's most respected leaders. Colleen Leddy joined as partner and CSO after more than a decade at Droga5. Cristina Reina, partner and CCO, was formerly global executive creative director and head of art at McCann North America. Dan Gonda, partner and CEO, spent more than 10 years at Droga5, most recently as its CEO.
Quality Experience is built on the core belief that 'Experience is everything and everything is an experience'.
“We’re not talking just experiential marketing; at Quality Experience, we believe all aspects of advertising should be looked at as experiences," said Ari in the agency's launch press release. "It raises the stakes in everything we do. It drives us to look at every interaction with a brand as an opportunity. This requires a simple idea that can flex and connect, adding value across thousands of touchpoints."
To dig a little deeper into his plans and pick his brains on the wave of high-profile creative leaders founding or joining independent shops, LBB's Addison Capper chatted with Ari.
LBB> Congratulations on the launch of Quality Experience! Can you give us a bit of backstory as to when the possibility of launching your own agency began niggling at you?
Ari> The dream really started in 1997 when I was an intern at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. Each morning I would start my day by getting Rich [Silverstein] a coffee and a blueberry muffin from the deli down the street. Armed with my coffee and muffin, I would walk through the agency wide-eyed and in total disbelief that a culture like this could exist; that it was possible to find a profession that could be this much fun. I wanted to be a part of a profession like that. I wanted to create a culture like that. I just needed 25-plus years of experience first.
LBB> It's quite the crack team you've surrounded yourself with at the agency! How did it all come to be? And why did it feel right to get each of these people involved from the get-go?
Ari> These things are always a bit serendipitous. I had worked with Cristina years ago when she was at DDB New York. Cristina is great at everything I’m terrible at, which is exactly what you’re looking for when starting an agency. She is hands down the best designer I’ve worked with, but the scary part is she’s even better conceptually. Campaigns like AdLam and Holograms For Freedom are the kind of ideas creatives only dream of being able to dream up.
Next up was Colleen. We had worked together back at BBH in New York. She was the first planner that really opened my eyes to what a great comms architecture could do to a creative idea. We worked together on an Axe Campaign called ‘Susan Glenn’. Before launching the campaign, we flooded the internet with memes and social content that confessed people’s love for Susan Glenn (a fictitious person made up for the campaign). Then when we launched the campaign and people searched Susan Glenn, they thought that was a name people used that was synonymous with the girl that got away. Remember this was 2012, so these kinds of SEO ideas were still pretty rudimentary.
Then, of course, there’s Dan. When I first met with Colleen to see if she’d be interested, we had a lovely conversation, but she kept bringing up Dan. “When Dan and I did this,” and “When Dan and I did that,” and it immediately became apparent to me that they had a very special chemistry. When building teams like this, chemistry is everything. Colleen and Dan’s chemistry is a once in a career kind of chemistry. You don’t break up chemistry like that. And it didn’t hurt that Dan had one of the most impressive account leadership and CEO track records in the industry. His campaign for Newcastle Brown Ale is still one of my favourite campaigns ever.
LBB> You've gone from being the global CCO of a large network to heading up the creative for a much smaller indie agency of your own. I imagine this new endeavour will allow you to be more involved in the hands-on side of creativity. What are your thoughts on that? Was that a driving factor at all in your decision to launch an agency?
Ari> Of course. It always struck me as a bit odd that the best practitioners in our industry are limited in practice. I always made it a point to be involved in at least one campaign at a time as a global CCO, but I did miss being involved in the day to day. When you’re deeply involved with a brand, you can see things you can’t see when you’re just providing support. It allows you to really find unique opportunities to connect with audiences and that’s where the real breakthroughs happen. That’s where the real value is created.
LBB> Recent years have seen a real wave of great creative leaders joining indie agencies or founding their own shops. Do you feel like this is somewhat of a movement or a new era? Why?
Ari> I believe these things go in cycles. The big networks dominate creativity for a decade or so and then the indie agencies dominate creativity for a decade or so. It goes back and forth, back and forth. The big networks are going through contraction at the moment, so it’s harder to fund creativity. In economic boom times it’s the other way around.
LBB> What's your creative ambition for the agency?
Ari> My creative ambitions have never changed. I’ve always wanted to be the best. It’s an impossible place to land because what we do is so subjective. But it’s that ambition that motivates the impossible. Last year when I was at DDB, we wanted to be Network of the Year at Cannes. It seemed like an impossible task given Ogilvy’s P&L and network size was almost twice ours. But we focused and put together a spreadsheet that showed it was possible. It was just going to be really, really, really hard to accomplish. Then we did it. DDB was Cannes Network of The Year for the first time in the company’s 74-year history.
Same goes for starting a new agency. I am so inspired by agencies like Gut, Mischief, and Uncommon. They are setting the creative bar at the moment and they’re doing it with a density and consistency that is mind-bending. They are setting an incredibly high bar to leap over, but we’re going to try. We don’t know any other way.
LBB> Tell me about the agency name and how you feel it is representative of the advertising industry today.
Ari> I really do believe experience is everything and everything is an experience. Brands can create meaningful experiences with their audiences at any touchpoint the two have with one another. I also believe that there is a larger pile of crappy content out there than ever before. Brands have to work harder to connect with their audiences. But when they do, the reward can be greater than it’s ever been. We’re always going to have to pay to get in front of our audiences, but how much more efficient could we be if we create things our audience actually wants to seek out? Once again, that bar is really, really high. You stop competing with other advertising and start competing with Netflix and YouTubers and major motion pictures. You have to be that engaging. Hence, Quality Experience.
LBB> Overall, what would you love to achieve over the course of the rest of the year?
Ari> We have some very exciting things brewing. The kind of ideas with the kind of brands that couldn't have been dreamed up in existing agencies today. This is a unique moment in time. A moment some of the best people in the industry can swarm around a brand, and can go deeper, and push each other further than we’ve ever been pushed before. We’re hoping to redefine what’s possible in marketing in 2024 and beyond. Again a lofty, lofty goal, but if we don’t try we’ll never succeed.
