Sunday, September 7, 2008

Quote of The Week, Palmer – 9/7/08

It’s a great time to get into advertising because people are in a panic, and they’re open to new ideas.

-Benjamin Palmer, CEO, Barbarian Group

Benjamin Palmer and his partner, Rick Webb came to speak at our Friday Forum last week. It started out slow, but when the guys got into some of the web stuff they've done (including Subservient Chicken, and CNN t-shirts) it was clear that there was this electricity in the air, the kind that happens when you know everyone around you is feeling inspired. It's those magic moments that you wish were constantly happening, when you see and/or hear something that motivates and stimulates you. A lesson from a teacher, a lecture from a speaker, something in a book or video, anything that makes you want to bust out of the doors and create something cool. It felt like a more tangible version of the word 'possibilities.'

When Benjamin said the quote above, I wrote it down feverishly. Because although I already knew it in the back of my mind, I had never heard it put quite so bluntly. I never realized how true it really was.


It's become sort of a cliché in the industry because everyone always says it, but people really are scared. As far as advertising goes, especially with technology and innovation moving at the pace it is, they're open to literally anything they can use. Clients, agencies, Creative Directors, whoever. Everyone wants to know what the next big thing is. What the next crazy way the web can be shaped and molded to sell something to someone. Or what the next crazy way something off the web can be shaped and molded to sell something to someone.

People just want to know what's possible. And whether it comes from some 35-year-old flash developer/VP or some punk 24-year-old ad school student with a head full of what hasn't been done before, if it's cool, people want it.


dubs. out.

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