5 Minutes with… Jason Apaliski

Jason> I like to think that we do things differently to anyone else. Is that true or not? I'm not sure because I've only ever worked here for 16 years. But the people that are here and the people that are driving the culture around trying to do ambitious work is what keeps me coming back the most. The collection of individuals that are here are hungry, ambitious and want to do great work. 

On a personal level, I have been given opportunities time and time and time again. This agency continues to present itself with opportunities, which I love. Starting as a senior creative and then working up the ranks, from creating the work, driving individual teams, leading groups, leading the entire department, and now to have an opportunity to set forth how we can operate creatively as an agency as a whole is intriguing. I've been met with opportunities and challenges and that keeps me coming back. Finally, when PJ [Pereira] and Andrew [O’Dell] started this place, with Rob and myself, they had this audacious goal of being one of the greatest creative agencies in the world. Sounds crazy, but I love big, ambitious, crazy goals. It's something to shoot for and that hooked me from day one. 

I don't think we're there yet. I think we've done a lot of great work, we've had some great hits over the years, but I think to be considered one of the greatest, you have to be consistent, you have to do it time and time again. With that goal still dangling out in front of me, I am not resting until we have achieved that status.  

Jason> I've had the opportunity to see a lot of different people lead here and have taken bits and pieces from each of them and infused it into my own. I have a unique perspective on what has worked, what has not worked, when we've been at our best, when we've been at our worst, and what that means for today. The consistency of some of our executive folks here gives us a unique insight into what has made this place special time and time again, so we can hold on to that, and infuse that for the next generation. I'm excited about trying to find the next Rob, the next me. Who is that person within the walls of this agency that I can hand that baton to? That defines how I'd like to lead here. It's not about me, it's about everyone else and giving people the space and the opportunities to succeed or fail - but have us be there to pick them up along the way. 

It's something that started with PJ a long time ago. When I first started in this industry, PJ actually hired Robert and myself out of ad school. I remember, we were working really late at night trying to crack a brief. We were young, hungry and just wanted to do the best thing and PJ walks by, stops and asks how it's going. In that moment, he could have just said, 'cool, great, let me know how it goes'. But he spent like another 45 minutes with us just sketching stuff out, throwing paper across the room. He took the time to sit with us, two guys that were a couple of months in. That was so impressionable upon me, and I think it has really influenced the way that I've approached the team in general here, creatively, but also the larger agency as a whole. You gotta take the time to bring up the people around you. I look back on that as a moment when it clicked for me in terms of what it means to be a leader. It's not just setting a vision, but it's actually being a helping hand. 

Jason> It's challenging and rewarding. Sitting at the level I am now, the challenge is trying to not get in the weeds too much and trusting the people around you - giving them that space to fail and succeed. But at the same time, I think as an agency we have always been mindful of trying to put people in the room to make the things happen that need to happen. So rather than running a ladder up and down and getting approvals and then kicking it back down, we just put the people in the same space. It's not to micromanage, it's just to give you the answers, give you the guidance, give you the thoughts at the same time. We move fast. We're a pretty nimble, quick agency. I think that is because we're not precious about who's in charge, or who's leading what. We’re more precious about the idea and trying to get to that nugget. It can be challenging sometimes in the fact that I want to be in those places to help guide. 

I also have other responsibilities as an executive leader here. I'm starting to find that balance of vision-setting versus guidance. The advantage that we have is that we're a midsize independent, so I am not necessarily beholden to a large holding company overhead. We have a partner in Serviceplan, but for all intents and purposes we're independent, so we can drive it the way that we like, and we are ultimately accountable for our own decisions. It gives us the latitude to flex when needed.

Jason> We talked a lot about what we feel we do really well, and I think it is that - finding that big ambition for clients and our partners, using that as a way to drive the business and drive the work that will lead to good business results. We love this mantra, mostly because it serves well for our clients. It's a way for us to think big and long term, and then find solutions that can get us there along the way. If you have a big long-term ambition and goal, it actually makes it much easier to decide what you need to do today, tomorrow, with the next campaign, the next year. 

On the flip side, it's great internally. The ambition for us? Greatest creative agency in the world. So, what are the steps we're taking to get there? What is your ambition as an individual here? What do you want out of your time here? It gets people thinking about not just what's right in front of them, but where they want to go. That can be a really powerful driving force for people.

Jason> Over the course of the last few months, we've done a few things that I feel are great examples of the type of thinking that we like to put out in the world. It's great because it's a gamut of things. We did something that's a little bit more scrappy and entertainment-led for Bisquick with the Fargo box. We were responding in real time to the last episode of Fargo and it being titled Bisquick and the unexpected sort of starring role that the product had and then turning that into a little moment for that rabid community. I love that nimble, quick, culturally relevant thinking. 

Then on another side is something more thought provoking. For us, embracing what AI is and what the potential of it is, especially having Silverside as a company that sits next to us, is super exciting. The work that we did with Hypnovels, reimagining a tried and true format of books and saying, what can we add to this experience for both the viewer and the author to re-engage audiences into novels? Visualising what those are, almost having something up as you're hearing these audiobooks, is a really fascinating piece of work. It is a good example of how you can harness artificial intelligence to enrich an experience. 

The last one takes the form of something that has been around forever - television or video or however we'd like to call it these days. That was Manscaped and 'The Boys' (which LBB did an in-depth behind the scenes feature on). It makes me smile every time someone brings it up or I see it because I still can't believe it's out in the world, that we had clients that were so ambitious to create something so memorable and so provocative, but so insightful. I'm very proud of that work because of what it is, back to what TV can be - fun and insightful.  

Jason> The expected answer would probably be ‘The Beauty Inside’. It was something that had never been done. It picked up Grands Prix, Emmys, and it was definitely a defining moment in the agency. But I don't know if it's the single most defining one. It's an important piece. 

For me, if I really dig back and think, I would go back to our first year that we were here. Lego was one of our very first clients that we had. We had an opportunity to work on the 30th anniversary of the Minifigure, and we did a campaign called ‘Go Miniman Go’. It was an animated jaunt through time in the world of Lego, celebrating the Minifigure for 30 years, but then opening it up to the audience. 

This is a long time ago. At the time, making something like a blog and inviting user generated content hadn't been done. We created a new destination for these Lego fans, and highlighted all the amazing work that they had been doing over 30 years. We had a brand new entertainment partnership with Gizmodo where we enlisted stop motion animation Lego creators to create films that celebrated a moment for them over the past 30 years. It was really special because it was storytelling, it was digital, it was social, it was bringing in the consumer, it was a bringing together of technology, entertainment and advertising in a way that I think is foundational to the way we think. And on top of that, it led to our first awards. We got two Gold Pencils at the One Show that year. 

At the time, I think we were the first agency to win Gold in their first year. That work really set the bar for the type of thinking and the type of work that this agency is capable of and we should be striving for. It's a little under the radar, but it was a very pivotal moment in terms of the work and the recognition that we got, which set the stage for a lot of the great things that came after that. 

Jason> I wound up working in advertising because I had a mid-college life crisis. I originally went to college to be an art teacher. But I was doing all my studies and kind of freaked out. So, I started dabbling in graphic design. I thought it was blasphemous. A computer - for art? But I dove into it. 

I left college with a shitty portfolio, so I went to The Creative Circus where I was in the design track, because at the time, to be honest, I hated advertising. The way it was presented to me was as an eight-and-a-half by 11 piece of paper with a funny headline and witty visual. That just seemed so limiting. But I started working within ads, we started experimenting and coming up with all this other stuff, and I got excited. After grad school, I started interviewing around San Francisco, meeting with ad agencies, design agencies. And then I met PJ. He really opened up my eyes to what advertising could be and it got me super excited. So, by accident, but by design in some ways!