John Kovacevich is creative director and founder of the agency SOS. He has worked at Goodby Silverstein & Partners, FCB, Duncan Channon and others. He has created campaigns for everything from cars to cat food, pants to pretzels, hamburgers to HR software.
LBB> The advertising/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
John> As a child of the 70s, I watched a lot of commercials in my youth, but it was one book that made me want to enter the industry: “Ogilvy on Advertising”.
I bought it when I was in high school, when it first came out, and devoured it. The lessons of David Ogilvy in those pages still resonate with me.
A few years later, when I was in college and looking to do my first internship, there was actually only one agency on the list: Ogilvy & Mather. (That’s where I learned an important lesson about agency life: clients come and go. But that’s a story for another time. 😀)
LBB> The creative work that I keep returning to…
John> Have you ever fallen in love with a song you heard in an advertisement?
One of my absolute favorites is the piano track on the Häagen-Dazs anthem spot from 2004.
The commercial was made by Goodby Silverstein & Partners (years before I worked there). It was directed by Matthias Zentner. The music was composed by Christoph Blaser and Steffan Kahles and it was produced by Largoland Musicproduction.
It’s a beautiful place. And it may be the most beautiful piece of commercial music ever written. I loved it long before I worked in advertising… and many years before I dreamed of working with the people who made it.
When I started at GS&P, I asked about it and they said that the song was so popular when it was released that the agency got a lot of calls from people wanting to play the song at their wedding.
While I was there, I tracked down a longer, two-minute version of the song. And one of my favorite things to do was to have it on repeat through my headphones when I was writing my own anthem spots. (None of them came close to this one, but the track inspired many a writing session.)
That tradition continues to this day. Whenever it’s time to write an anthem spot, I say, “I think I’ll listen to my old friend,” and put it on. It’s still great.
LBB> My first professional project …
John> My first professional project is still one of my absolute favorites. (And not just because the future Princess Meghan Markle was involved.)
It was at Goodby Silverstein & Partners for Tostitos. I probably wrote a million different concepts and scripts before we sold.Considerations”, those little inner monologues we all have when we stand in the supermarket and think about what to buy.
Looking back, I’m especially grateful for the mentorship of the ACDs on this project: Marc Sobier and Hart Rusen. (I really knew NOTHING about commercial production before I got the job at GS&P, and they were endlessly patient, encouraging, and kind.)
Plus, the spots were directed by the wonderful Speck/Gordon! It was a pretty great “first ride”… and I naively thought all future projects would be just as great. (Spoiler: they weren’t.)
LBB> The work that still makes me jealous…
John> I know his influence in the advertising industry is now everywhere, but I remember how incredibly THRILLED I was when I first saw Dumb Ways to Die at Cannes Lions in 2013.
It was, and still is, the perfect combination of humor, animation, and music. It was incredibly catchy (even after many rewatches) and created characters that became valuable intellectual property. Plus, I still can’t really believe the agency sold a three-minute song to promote safety on trains.
“Work that feeds into culture” is such a tired cliche, but this work truly deserved all the flowers it received.
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
John> I’ve done a lot of work I’m proud of, but it was an “internal” project at Goodby Silverstein & Partners that probably did more to build my reputation (and 15 years later, I still get asked about it).
It was a weekly show we did for the agency called “Morning Announcements.” It was kind of a parody of the agency’s culture and news in the style of a daily show or a weekend update. (We wrote an oral history of which a few years ago for the 10th anniversary.)
It was a side project that put me on the radar of others at the agency and opened up opportunities for work and clients I never would have gotten otherwise. I learned a lot about production, how to make jokes and make an audience happy, and the value of content that creates community and builds culture.
Plus, it was just… fun. A chance to be funny and entertaining and not worry so much about “the rules” of content creation.
LBB> The project I was most recently involved in and which excited me the most…
John> We had the opportunity to support Element(AL) Wines in the launch of the first aluminum wine bottle of its kind.
Aluminium has many wonderful environmental benefits, but the task was not to “sell the eco-friendliness”, but to make these elegant silver bottles a must-have accessory. We helped them a launch campaign this has more to do with fashion than with the vineyards – no traditional wine campaign for no traditional wine.
And it was so much fun to see it come to life on connected TV, social media, spectacular outdoor advertising and in print in cult magazines like Vogue and Elle.
