My Creative Hero: Ambrose Bierce
Tom Johnson is vice president and integrated creative director at Lewis, a full-service marketing agency that develops internationally-acclaimed branding, creative and digital advertising campaigns, based on their own business intelligence and data science, to deliver provable results with measurable ROI.
For more than two decades, Tom has helped to develop countless strategically-driven creative campaigns across a number of industries, including tourism, retail, healthcare, finance, and food and beverage.
LBB> Who would you say is your creative hero?
Tom> I believe that to create great work, you must first consume great work. For me, that’s often movies and books, but my list of creative influences is pretty long and varied.
My very first, and probably most transformative, creative revelation came from an unconventional place for an ad creative … reading Ambrose Bierce, a post-Civil War era writer. Bierce’s amazing, impactful work taught me what kinds of amazing things can happen when you defy conventions and expectations.
To seasoned pros in advertising, this might sound like a given. But I was probably south of twelve years old when I had that realisation, and it changed my creative thought process forever!
LBB> How long has this person been important to you and what are your first memories of meeting them or coming across their work?
Tom> I was an avid reader as a kid, always devouring whatever books my parents brought home from yard sales. They didn't spend a lot of time screening the books inside those boxes, which eventually resulted in me having a BUNCH of questions after reading 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' at a very young age.
Out of one of those boxes came a collection of short stories by Ambrose Bierce. That included 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' - a short story that melted my young brain.
LBB> If it’s someone you personally know, how did you get to know them and how has your relationship evolved over the years? If you don’t know this person, how did you go about finding to learn more about them and their work?
Tom> I had to hunt down more of Bierce's work at our local public library since my elementary school didn’t carry any of it. It was in that library where I learned he lived in my home state of Indiana and that he had mysteriously disappeared sometime around 1913. Both of these details only fuelled my obsession with his work.
LBB> Why is the person such an inspiration to you?
Tom> When you're young, the books you tend to read tend to have a simple, predictable formula. Protagonist faces challenge. Protagonist overcomes challenge. Happy ending.
'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' seemingly achieves all three. But with the final sentence of the short story, the predictable formula I had been trained to expect was blown up. I was shocked. I immediately reread it, knowing for sure I had misinterpreted something. But no, right there in that final line, Ambrose Bierce taught me that all of the rules I had assumed every writer must abide by simply didn't exist.
And since then, I've tried to be on the lookout for other imaginary rules that could be ignored to reach new, creative places.
LBB> How does this person influence you in your approach to your creative work?
Tom> I'm not a copywriter by trade; I started my journey in advertising as an art director. But with or without words, all creatives are storytellers. And Bierce's writing taught me to look at things differently. To explore storylines that refuse to adhere to expectations—maybe even try to change them.
For instance, if you asked somebody to describe love, you'd likely get an answer that includes words and phrases like, “butterflies in your stomach,” “warmth,” “connection,” and “passion.” But if you look it up in Bierce's 'The Devil's Dictionary', you'd get: “A temporary insanity curable by marriage.” Now, that is certainly cynical, but it’s drastically different than the vast majority of answers you’d get.
And love it or hate it, it would certainly stand out in a sea of 'common' answers. That’s exactly what we're striving for in advertising: to stand out.
LBB> What piece or pieces of this person’s work do you keep coming back to and why?
Tom> 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' and 'The Devil's Dictionary' are quintessential Bierce. They’re both responsible for a seismic shift in the way I see creativity. I try to revisit them at least once a year.
