Our Favorite Stories:

• Hotboxing the next blockbuster idea: starting a career at the tail end of the "Mad Men" era in digital healthcare advertising. Working with Rich Norman, Todd learned how Allegra got its name. "An articulation, not of the problem statement, but of the relief".
• "Many times in my career, humans were reduced to numbers or broad statistics... not individualized and not humanized, and while that was the political ethos and mandate, that did not feel right to me."
• If you are an 'Intrapraneur', you will be met with resistance. If you aren't... it may mean you were there at the right place / right time, or you aren't doing something right... and the latter is more pervasive.
• Half the job description was written: "When you join, you'll write the other half" - I learned the hard way that they didn't know what success meant. Funding innovation efforts upfront because it gives you that "seed" money, to create an internal venture. You don't want to have to go back and beg for each dollar. You want to phase it out in tranches and show something in return for that."
• Positive spike in American outlook of Pharmaceuticals since the outbreak of COVID-19 according to The Harris Poll, 2020.

Big Moments from Doing the Work:

• Learning from trial and error: "I am a student of failure... in innovation you have to embrace it. It's only failure if you don't learn from it."
• Organizational shift from being Top-down to Bottom-up: borrowing good ideas from regional teams and scaling them at the enterprise level – the idea of an internal organ transfer vs an external transplant: the latter is prone to rejection.
• On having a Global leadership role: "when someone came from corporate... people would usually show me something that was a source of cultural pride."
  • Whisked from airport to see protected artifacts in Prague
  • A night at the Museum of the Resistance in Warsaw
  • Ethnographic research: following the day in a life of key doctors in office and at home (US, Germany, France, & Italy)
  • Meeting a doctor at his home in Madrid. No furniture, only artwork. "I'm a doctor. I'm supposed to have artwork." Who we are supposed to be vs who he is.
  • The power of wearing the White Coat: "it's like a cape and he projects this appearance because he believes it." - he lost a battle to the wind, by way of a plane crash, and since then he committed to his career where his patients can harness the wind itself.

Career Advice We'll Live With:

• Identify functional, emotional, and social needs (of the customer) as the first step in every process.
• Ishikawa (fishbone) diagram - documenting the multiple causes (i.e., stakeholders, methodologies, or technologies) for a singular event (i.e., bugs, consumer experiences, product defects)
• Jobs to be Done model by Clayton Christensen - Todd held his tongue for our sake, but we know he really (REALLY) wanted to share the "Hire a Milkshake" anecdote :)

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Happy New Year, we hope you've had a fantastic holiday filled with much deserved rest, good food, and even better company.

We're starting 2025 with strong with TBWA veteran-turned-indy CCO Chuck Monn.

Among many things, he takes us into the mind of an award-winning creative director who touched cultural pillars like the Olympics, Visa, and Apple. He leaves brands more memorable than he found them, and has shaped iconic work like 'Mac vs PC' and 'Shot on iPhone'.

Our top 5 moments:

"You're not making ads, you're making communication that helps you understand how an iPhone works."

"The way it started having a life of its own, and expanding to mean how people see the world through Apple products, was such a powerful reminder of the importance of platforms and brands. Building something that people can play with and make bigger."

"These people would fly out to where their billboard was... there was one woman who had never been on a plane before who flew out to be in front of her billboard in Times Square... it was a heart-warming, lovely connection between the brand and the people who make it."

"Between Chiat and MAL, I was between those two places for 25 years... after 15 years working on Apple, I just needed a break. I have two kids... I just needed for the first time to just be dad. That was really important."

"My first job in Chiat I took off for like 7 hours because I was working on a pitch at 3 in the morning and started at Chiat at 9 the next day.

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Our Favorite Stories

• Alec's journey as the "Photoshop kid" at Grey Entertainment, helping build the Batman movie's first website.
• His reflections on surviving the Web 1.0 era and the exciting chaos of startups in 1990s New York.
• Using virtual reality for healthcare. Talk about ahead of the curve! Alec tells us about a 1993 college paper he wrote at Columbia on VR as a treatment for schizophrenia.

Big Moments from Doing the Work

• Alec's transition from startups to healthcare advertising, driven by his desire for stability after his daughter’s birth.
• Leading engagement strategy at Area 23 and Neon, crafting human-centered storytelling for pharmaceutical clients.
• Exploring the potential of AI tools like MidJourney and Leonardo.ai for creating impactful healthcare narratives.

Career Advice We’ll Live With

• Embrace storytelling non-linearly; start with the compelling "hook" and let context follow.
• Use new technologies as creative extensions, not replacements, to enhance ideation and storytelling efficiency.
• Stay curious and connected: Participate in communities (like MidJourney’s Discord) and actively seek inspiration from creators and innovators.
• Balance passion with teaching—spread your enthusiasm to inspire and uplift others in your field.

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