“If Your Work Shows You’re Good, the Rest Doesn’t Matter”
You don’t expect a leader at VIRTUE, the creative agency powered by VICE, to be ‘basic’. And Chrissy Smith, group creative director, innovation, admits that when she was growing up on a farm in Denmark, she wasn’t quite what her parents expected of a ‘nice girl’.
She’s never quite conformed to the career path of your standard advertising creative either. Having trained in various disciplines from ideation to graphic design, brand strategy to coding and fashion design, Chrissy is also able to approach brands’ problems from more perspectives than the average creative.
Barring her ‘gap year’ at a small Copenhagen agency, Chrissy has been at VIRTUE since 2019, and after a stint working in New York, she’s now working on global accounts from a London base.
Following this move and her work on Wikipedia’s bold new out-of-home campaign, LBB’s Alex Reeves caught up with Chrissy.
LBB> What was your upbringing like, and how do you think it's impacted on the sort of creative – and creative leader – that you've become?
Chrissy> I grew up in a practical, supportive family on a farm in Denmark. My dad is a machine engineer and my mum works in HR, so I definitely believe my problem solving and psychological human understanding comes from them. They’ve always pushed me to do my very best, and today they’re the ones I’m trying my best to impress.
I didn’t always follow their sets of rules and expectations around what a ‘nice girl’ should be doing or wearing, so it’s taken us all a while to come to terms with me looking very different to them. But I believe that them being strict on me has made me the perfectionist I am today.
I would say I’m a soft leader with clear direction and high expectations.
LBB> What were the most momentous points in your early career?
Chrissy> I didn’t make it into the ‘one-and-only-if-you-wanna-be-successful’ ad school we have in Copenhagen, so I’ve had to find my own way. Because of this, I’ve gained lots of different skills within the field including ideation, graphic design, brand strategy, coding and fashion design. This broad experience made my personal brand quite distinctive, particularly in my early career because I was able to express myself and my ideas, and also understand the business problem. I moved to London in 2016 when I got into SCA, and that school has played a major part in where I am today.
LBB> What are you most proud of creating in your whole career?
Chrissy> I’m proud of the work we did on ‘Backup Ukraine’. That campaign won more than 150 awards including a Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, but I’m most proud of the impact it had on those within Ukraine who were empowered to digitally capture their cultural heritage.
LBB> What drew you to VIRTUE and the group creative director role early in 2024?
Chrissy> I had a ‘gap-year’ (lol) where I moved back from London to Copenhagen to be part of a small female-owned and led creative agency. It was a great experience but I missed the big clients and opportunities that only exist outside of Denmark. So, when VIRTUE reached out to me and said it missed me, there was no doubt the feelings were mutual.
LBB> How has VIRTUE lived up to your expectations? Or has it surprised you?
Chrissy> VIRTUE is a great place to grow as a leader. I’ve learnt from a range of different people around the world and the flexibility of being able to work remotely and travel the world fits me perfectly. There are so many amazing people here and I feel very supported in both my personal and work life. Big thank you.
LBB> Which industry debates do you get most animated on? Or bored of?
Chrissy> I'm fiercely passionate about female representation and body positivity and took a stance at Cannes a few years back by collecting an award wearing something quite revealing. I thought that if the CEO of Instagram was sitting in the crowd, then he could reconsider the whole banning of female nipples on the platform.
I also love that age or years of experience don’t matter too much when it comes to what role I have in an agency. It definitely wasn’t like that when I started. The first thing I was told when I showed my first portfolio (back when I was 18 in Copenhagen) was that I was a bad investment because I was a young woman. I remember clearly the person saying to me, ‘by the time you’re 30, you’ll have kids and won’t be working anymore so good luck’… That has definitely made me fight to prove him wrong. Yes, it was a he.
To me, if your work shows you’re good, the rest doesn’t matter.
LBB> Tell us about the creative ideas driving the Wikipedia campaign that's just rolled out. What does it demonstrate about the kind of creativity that VIRTUE thrives on?
Chrissy> The brief to ourselves was zooming out and observing the state of the world when it comes to information and news. ‘Who and what can we trust?’. ‘What’s even real anymore?’. Sadly, it feels as if misinformation is taking over, and with the election happening in the US, everything feels super polarised and biased. So, we asked ourselves the question, ‘how can we show that Wikipedia is the most trustworthy source of information?’. And the answer is simple – ‘Knowledge Is Human’.
The work features trucks driving around the US with digital billboards that show articles that are contextually relevant. Each article demonstrates the model of Wikipedia – how millions of editors come together to make each and every article up to date, fact checked and neutral. Every editor is doing this for free because they care about information being correct. No matter the topic.
It very much shows how we as an agency aren’t afraid to challenge the medium and do something unexpected, even for a big OG client like Wikipedia. And, similar to ‘Backup Ukraine’, it’s a reminder to observe the happenings in the real world and make that your brief. VIRTUE is extremely good at this.
LBB> Where do you draw energy from that helps you to do better work?
Chrissy> Being curious and questioning everything. I know it sounds a bit ‘delulu’, but honestly, my daily dose of TikTok mixed with experiencing the world and different people with different perspectives is what keeps me energetic. If I’m not curious to learn new things, I’ll get bored.
And from a personal perspective, my hobby is my visual appearance and my personal brand. It may sound superficial but because I care a lot about that, I draw inspiration from big entertainment platforms, micro tattoo communities, historical symbols, and experimenting with tech and art.
