The Work That Made Me: Stefan Smith
Stefan Smith is a creative leader with a passion for the big idea, getting it live and building a team of empowered creatives along the way. For (well) over a decade, he has put his creative and copywriting skills to work telling the stories of some of the biggest brands in the world. After spending five years leading the INFINITI USA account for projects ranging from social to e-commerce, Stefan joined Funday where his unabashed love of puns is truly appreciated.
LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Stefan> Concerned Children’s Advertisers in Canada in the ‘90s were something else. There’s at least five classic ads that probably just about everyone of a certain generation knows by heart - but the one that probably sticks with me most is 'Don’t You Put It In Your Mouth'. I have questions. I want to see that round one presentation deck. What was the idea before it was watered down by revisions? The finished version is absolutely wild as it is.
LBB> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Stefan> To be honest, I never wanted to get into the industry. More than anything, I wanted to be a musician, a writer or a professor. But when none of that really worked out, I sort of just stumbled into advertising. I could always write decently, so I started looking for communications jobs and somehow lucked out on an internship as a copywriter. Once I was in, though, I was in. Absolutely hooked on it.
That being said, I think you could trace the interest and passion for writing back to something: 'The Sun Also Rises' by Ernest Hemingway. It changed my life for the better, and probably the worse too. The book captivated me - and lead me down a deep (and admittedly cliché) rabbit hole of Hemingway, the Beats, Bukowksi, etc. and established my love of literature and writing. Without that, who knows? I probably wouldn’t have ever ended up even looking for communications jobs.
LBB> The creative work (film/album/game/ad/album/book/poem etc) that I keep revisiting…
Stefan> I don’t rewatch much television or movies ('The Sopranos' is an exception, for some reason). I very rarely re-read anything. There’s simply too much more to experience and not enough time. Music, however, is something altogether different. It gets better the more it becomes a part of your life. As you grow, you hear different things in it. More importantly, as you grow, you hear the same things in it.
Music can be a time machine. I could pick hundreds of different tracks or albums that I’ve come back to over and over, but for the sake of choosing one, I’ll pick the song 'It’s Hard To Know' by Hot Water Music. I’ve got lyrics from it tattooed on my chest, after all.
I’ve been listening to Hot Water Music for over 20 years. They were just one of those bands that spoke to me immediately - and somehow continues to every single day. There’s something so honest and pure about it. My instinct is usually to find art I can wallow in - but Hot Water Music has always provided a more positive alternative. Something optimistic, but not delusional. It’s positive despite (and probably even to spite!) everything.
LBB> My first professional project…
Stefan> My first professional project was writing some copy inside an app that had been designed for a Brita Water Filters sweepstakes.
The prize? Tickets to see the Dave Matthews Band. I’m not altogether sure why any of these things came together. It’s a bit of a Madlib. Why did we need an app for a contest? Why DMB? Who knows. At the time, it made the most sense to me. I wrote that UX copy like it was the next great American novel, and presumably, someone saw Dave Matthews perform. Not sure if that’s a win/win.
LBB> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Stefan> Sephora’s 'Let’s Beauty Together'. But here’s the thing - poor Sephora is just taking the hit for what too many campaigns have done: verbing a noun (I get the irony of that statement).
I remember seeing creative from this campaign in the mall and I stopped in my tracks and entered into a long monologue for my girlfriend about verbing nouns (sorry, Colleen!).
I hate it.
I’m not a big grammar guy or anything either. I honestly couldn’t tell you what a dangling modifier is. And I don’t care. That was a sentence fragment and I’m okay with that. But seriously, this verbing a noun thing has gone too far. The statements become so empty and meaningless.
Please stop doing it.
LBB> The piece of work (ad/music video/ platform…) that still makes me jealous…
Stefan> As long as I can remember, I’ve been obsessed with time. With what persists. What recedes from memory into nothingness. I dreamed of immortality - but not for myself (I’m definitely not interested in living forever), but of creating something permanent. Even just based all of on my own work that I forgot to save and has completely disappeared, advertising probably wasn’t the best path to achieving that goal. But rarely some work does become immortal. And that’s what I’m jealous of.
That sort of work comes out creating culture, not just reacting to it and trying to fit a commercial message into it. For me, the classic example is Molson’s 'I Am Canadian: The Rant.' It’s don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s a part of Canadian national identity for people of a certain age.
It was the perfect spot.
The idea. The writing. The execution. It tapped into something deeply true for Canadians and still resonates today. It feels like this sort of work is less and less common now. Things move to fast, maybe. There’s just so much media. So many niches. Everything is a trend - but little lasts. Challenge accepted, I guess.
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
Stefan> I’d been working hard and knocking on the door of ACD for a while - and then opportunity to prove myself finally arrived. I was moved over to the INFINITI car account and given a chance to bring a different approach to the work.
INFINITI 'Q60 Speedbot' was my first project as a bonafide creative lead - and I still think it’s a pretty great idea. We partnered with MotorTrend to get access to 0-60 acceleration times of hundreds of cars and then created a Facebook Messenger experience where people could input a car and get a response about how the INFINITI Q60 would do in a race against it.
The audacity of doing that - all that data, a response for every single car and all those cars that we sometimes even lost against! - was really something.
As a gearhead myself, it was really fun to create something that felt so authentic and interesting. And in the context of this question, the project was a success and did wonders for my continued growth in my career. It proved a point and I ended up leading the INFINITI account for the next five years.
LBB> The work that I’m proudest of…
Stefan> I was lucky enough to work on the 'Sweeper' project with the United Nations Mine Action Service. The idea was really, really good, The execution was too. I remember feeling very proud of the scripts and then experiencing an unexpectedly powerful moment in the record: the v/o artist I’d found told me at the end of the session that he’d had a friend be killed by a mine abroad. He thanked me for the work I was doing! Me?! My copy was worth a thank you? It was bizarre.
All that’s to say: this project was not only one of my most awarded and appreciated, but it also let me make the world a little bit better.
LBB> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Stefan> We were working with Sunglass Hut and a brief hit my desk: figure out a clever and fun name for what the brand would call Sunglasses Hut retail sales associates. You know, the 'sandwich artist' of sunglasses.
Thing is, I worked a ton of retail as a kid. Movie theatres, grocery stores, book stores, Starbucks (for under a week - the 5AM start time didn’t agree with me) and then record stores. The record stores were great. But the rest, not so good.
I remember being a 17 year old kid and rolling my eyes so deep back into my brain being onboarded with all the brutal corporate propaganda. You’re paying me next to nothing, and I’m supposed to call customers up to the till with, “Can I help the next book lover in line?”
Brutal.
Anyways, fast forward to this Sunglasses Hut brief. The tables have turned. Now I’m the corporate jerk thinking he’s so clever branding these kids’ jobs. BFF - Best Frame Finder, anyone?
I remember writing 'Sunny Buddy' and thinking I’d nailed it. I have no idea what they ended up choosing, but if they did pick something I wrote - let me use this opportunity to apologise to any and all Sunglasses Hut employees. I did you dirty. I’m sorry.
LBB> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Stefan> We recently launched a campaign for Microsoft Shopping that I was really excited about. It was a total blank slate. We got to work on everything from the positioning to that first campaign - and I was thrilled with what we came up with.
I accidentally stumbled upon the line during positioning, and we all instantly knew it was the thing. Fortunately, the client agreed and we were off to the races, creating a campaign centred around the line and an iconic visual: a hand coming up out of your laptop and giving you a high five for a good buy. It was smart, fun and simple. Just how I like it.
