Todd Coats, Chief Creative Officer
Bio
Todd loves variety. Over the past 20 years he's been a designer, art director, illustrator, animator, environmental designer, broadcast designer, producer, creative manager, brand manager, entertainment producer, creative director, chief creative officer, painter, writer, educator, motivator, strategist, funk musician, rapper, loving husband and father. His work has been recognized by The Addys, The Tellys, Graphis, AIGA Graphic Design USA, How, Creativity, ShowSouth, the AIGA North Carolina Design Show — and many more.Articles
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Open Letter to Design Graduates
Design education is a good thing. When my time came to fly the university nest, I remember thinking how I would set the world on fire. My naïveté initially worked to my advantage. I was cut some slack due to in experience. But I quickly learned that experience in inexperience would not build a career. Over the years of interviewing, teaching and mentoring young, eager talent I picked up a few simple, disputable truths that I sincerely hope can help you, a new graduate.
1. Write.
No one’s expecting you to be Tennyson or Tennessee Williams. Heck, not even Tennessee Ernie Ford! Simply be able to convert a complete thought to a well-written sentence. Writing is as much of a design process as creating a logo. It’s designing an emotional connection with words. This one skill has life-long benefits. We receive lots of resumes. It’s unbelievable how many have spelling and grammar errors. Even to the point of spelling our company’s name incorrectly. C’mon, you gotta get that right.
2. Soak up life.
Eat, drink, bathe in, touch, hear, squish between your toes and feel everything you can. This provides a repository for inspiration. I firmly believe original ideas come from original inspiration. Use your experiences to influence your work. It’ll have more heart, you’ll have more fun and be far more pleasant to be around.
3. Make everything and everyone better than you found them.
That goes for the planet, your colleagues, younger talent and most importantly, you. I believe that we should push others to do their best work, yet push ourselves even more. I also believe you should work with people better than you. You’ll do your best work and likely get rewarded with more good work. However, if you find yourself working for someone (or something) you don’t respect, leave. Your soul will thank you.
4. Concept always wins.
Good design is a memorable, smart solution. You get there with a bulletproof concept. If concept and “pretty” are in a cage match, concept will always win. Concept is the sticky part of an idea. It is NOT a Photoshop filter. Seek to strengthen the concept in everything you do. I promise you, no one will hand you an award-winning project. It’s up to you to really excel.
5. Focus on the right thing — achieving your client’s mission.
While we often forget, we wouldn’t be here without clients. Thank them often by always doing your best work. You’ll be repaid with the opportunity to do even more good work while earning their trust and partnership. It’s only with those qualities that your true brilliance shines. Live by this and I promise your reputation will thank you. -
Can advertising benefit from a hot, steaming cup of reality?
Global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers projects worldwide advertisement spending to exceed half-a-trillion dollars by 2010. No doubt the intent of every dollar will be to convince our hapless selves that life is better with Product X or Service Y. It’ll be magical. Surreal. And, mostly unbelievable*
Perhaps, for credibility, the next wave of advertising needs to be more real, less adorned. Perhaps even more memorable because it zags against the convention of typical advertising. It’s been eighteen years since the movie “Crazy People” introduced us to the idea of hyper truth in advertising. Do you remember the legendary Volvo headline from the movie?**
I bet youdo. But, can you name Volvo’s current tagline?
See what I mean?
I see a few ways to get more bang for our buck by embracing reality advertising.
1. Create more user-generated ads. Both Chevy and Doritos had high profile contests allowing consumers to create Super Bowl ads.
2. Present copy with a stunning degree of “truthiness.” Housework sucks. No cleaning product makes me dance around with a goofy smile while I dust or mop. Get real, people.
3. Create credible ads with unexpectedly low production values. Invest in creative concept but use production to match our lives; cell phone cameras, web cams and home video.
4. Present products in context of a consumer’s life, not the center of it. How many products do you come in contact with during the day? Do you stop, smile, and roll your eyes skyward with each one? Daytime consumer ads would have us to believe every person is blessed-out by cheesy goodness.
5. As provincial as it sounds, invest in the idea not the style.
These suggestions aren’t meant to be cost savings measures. Heck no! Run the ads as much as you can. The purpose of advertising is to compel us to act. Going against the grain of stereotypical ad will be refreshing and unconventional.
What if we reached for products and the label wasn’t face up?
What if we drank coffee without the can on the table?
What if we didn’t disguise other logos that were not ours?
What if people didn’t have rapture face when they tasted our product?
What if car ads weren’t on a closed track featuring professional drivers so we could try it at home?
C’mon Creatives! In this age of irony and user generated media let’s embrace reality in advertising.
*Edelmantrust barometer report that 76% of advertising is not believable.
**Volvo:Boxy, but safe.
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The ultimate in creative problem solving
A year ago we started an employee-led group called Capstrat Green. Our purpose was to collectively understand sustainability. Most important for our professional lives, we have to understand how to communicate sustainability. We hope to know the sacrifices individuals may need to make and the expected outcomes. Then, understand the balance needed between the two.
This living experiment learning has simple objectives.
• We seek to help our clients better understand how sustainability plays into Corporate Social Responsibility by being a living example.
• We want to inspire our colleagues to think creatively, yet pragmatically when it comes to solving complex problems.
In short, sustainability is the ultimate in step ahead thinking. We’re required to learn, explore, analyze, refine and implement solutions that will have a guaranteed impact on our company’s culture, our client’s business and the environment. After determining our objectives here’s how we set it up:
Establisha cross-functional core team and a management representative.
We have representatives from all areas of our company, including accounting. We determined early that measurement is key. The team leads our company to find creative ideas that can be practically implemented. It’s worth noting, this is not planned as a Capstrat cost savings initiative. It’s reasonable to assume that conserving environmental resources may also have an impact on our spending. However, we are looking for the biggest impact we can make with the smallest sacrifice. Again, we want to create sustainable solutions to learn from and use to inspire others.
Solicit sustainable ideas from colleagues. The criteria are fairly simple.
Ideas must be implemented within reason. The team reviews ideas for:
• Expected impact versus cost to implement
• Ease to implement and adopt
• Results that can be documented
•Originality
Distribute rewards and recognition as appropriate to drive behavioral change.
The mission is to drive creative thinking with a purpose. Admittedly, that’s easy in a culture like Capstrat’s. Our passion for the world around us is hard to contain. The Green Team helps us balance all of the fantastic suggestions.
It’s easy to get bogged down trying to solve our environmental problems. But we have to do it. We caused it, we need to advocate solutions. Capstrat looks at sustainability as balancing all of the moving parts to understand all sides of the issue. Then using innovative thinking to design a solution that works fairly for all concerned. Finally documenting the results for future learning. It’s easy, try it. -
It’s official. My dog hears the apocalypse coming.
Mariah Carey just scored her eighteenth number-one single on the Hot 100. With that accomplishment she overtakes Elvis Presley for second place of most number-one songs in the rock era. Carey is now slightly behind the Beatles who have twenty number-one singles.
Mind you Elvis died at 42 and the Beatles broke up at ages 27-30. Mariah at age 38 still has plenty of time in her career to completely ruin music as we know it. Okay, I’m not a fan but I respect her.
Mariah is technically a great vocalist. It takes super human talent to imitate a car alarm, but come on! The Beatles and Elvis Presley changed music forever. I wonder how they would be marketed if they were still around today?
Today, entertainers are all about the total brand package. Music is merely the soundtrack to the clothing, perfume, book, movie and sponsorship deals. A super successful franchise like Mariah Carey employs a team of publicists, marketers, agents and managers to keep her star twinkling bright even without…(ahem)…Glitter.
Makes me think Col. Parker was way ahead of his time.
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Blockbusted
It was announced today that troubled movie renter Blockbuster offered to buy troubled gadget seller Circuit City.
Never mind that analysts are scratching their heads on the economics, I’m intrigued that this signals a rapidly approaching new era of on-demand cocooning. This is just another sign of change that Blockbuster started twenty years ago.
I grew up in Raleigh with only a handful of big movie houses. One was The Cardinal Theatre. With two huge screens, great concessions and midnight showings every weekend, it was always packed. Sometime around the early 1990s, The Cardinal Theatre was replaced with…wait for it…a Blockbuster. It’s sadly ironic isn’t it? After all Faith Popcorn told us cocooning was the new wave back in the 90s.
My, how things progress. “The deal is a sign that Blockbuster doesn't have confidence in the retail video rental business anymore, says Shahid Khan, a partner at IBB Consulting. The movie rental store business is officially dead.”The Blockbuster that replaced The Cardinal was closed a few years ago when the chain began facing online competition.
If designed correctly, the merger could result in a new customer experience for both companies. The new “CityBlock” or “CircuitBuster” has a chance to reinvent itself in a way that satisfies the entertainment buff in everyone. I just hope they understand that today’s retail environment HAS to be about the experience. Customers have easy online alternatives.
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“…strictly social parody.”
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a copyright nerd. As a creative guy I see that legal protection as a way to ensure our profession continues to grow, challenge and remain fairly compensated. Don’t get me wrong, there are vast gray areas and litigation shenanigans that drag to sludgy lows. But on the whole I respect that an artist has clear rights.
Case in point. Peace-friendly American Apparel was recently slapped with a $10 million lawsuit from director Woody Allen. The suit claims Allen’s reputation has been damaged by billboards using his image (the famous photo dressed as a Hasidic Jew from Annie Hall) without his permission.
According to the report, the suit alleges that the billboard falsely implied Allen sponsored, endorsed or was associated with American Apparel, and accuses the company of “blatant misappropriation and commercial use of Allen’s image.” The company, known for “provocative photography,” claims it was used as “strictly social parody.”
Fair enough. Parody is one of the ways a copyrighted work may be used legally without permission. Problem is American Apparel SELLS stuff. Their use of parody is clearly for commercial gain. If not, there wouldn’t be a logo on the billboards. I believe American Apparel is a great company. Unfortunately, this is a misstep that strikes at their socially-conscious image.
What level of parody do you think is legal for commercial use?
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What’s the cost of sustainability?
I’m sitting at an intersection on March 31, the last day of the economy’s 2008 first quarter rollercoaster ride. On one corner is a Crown station selling regular unleaded gas for $3.23 a gallon, on another corner is Mobil selling a gallon for $3.24, still on another corner is BP with a gallon going for $3.27. I realize a few pennies per gallon are nothing huge but when all three stations are within spitting distance and equal convenience, I wondered what makes the cost difference?
I did a little research and found that Baltimore-based Crown Central Petroleum (the cheapest of the corner), owned refineries and convenience stores but fell on hard times and put all assets up for sale. A small oil company in North Carolina bought all Crown’s local properties.
Okay get this, I also found that very same small North Carolina oil company owns and operates both the Crown AND the BP station. The only difference between the highest (BP) and the lowest (Crown) is brand perception. Given their industry, I immediately see a corollary to sustainability communications.
Toronto-based socially responsible investing research firm Jantzi Research ranks 23 oil and gas companies on their social and environmental performance.
UK-based BP topped the list of high performers. No US-based oil company ranked higher than 12th. The report states, “…top performers are dominated by European and Canadian companies, while all eight of the US companies evaluated for this report received below-average scores." ExxonMobil, the world’s richest company, securely holds down position 18.
ExxonMobil's environmental record has been a consistent target of critics, not only from outside organizations such as GreenPeace but also from institutional investors who disagree with its stance on global warming. On February 13, 2007, ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged that the planet was warming while carbon dioxide levels were increasing, but in the same speech said, "I'm no expert on biofuels. I don't know much about farming and I don't know much about moonshine. ... There is really nothing ExxonMobil can bring to that whole biofuels issue. We don't see a direct role for ourselves with today's technology."
A few days earlier on February 11, BP announced that they would spend $8 billion over ten years to research alternative methods of fuel, including natural gas, hydrogen, solar and wind.
So, BP (remember, that’s Beyond Petroleum) gets high marks for trying to be a solution to global warming. Given my little market research corner, do you think the higher gas costs are a brand premium, an investment in alternative energy or oil tycoon pocket padder?
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Capstrat Green
About a year ago we started Capstrat Green, an employee-led group that helps us collectively understand sustainability. By doing this we’ll know the sacrifices individuals may need to make, the expected outcomes and understand the balance needed to make both work.
We approach Capstrat Green as a living experiment to provide both external and internal learning.
• We help our clients better understand how sustainability plays into Corporate Social Responsibility by being a living example. We learn to communicate sustainability efforts with credibility.
• We inspire our colleagues to think creatively, yet pragmatically to solve problems. We get paid to do this every day. This program helps keep us in top form.
In short, sustainability is the ultimate in “step ahead” thinking. We’re required to learn, explore, analyze, refine and implement solutions that have a guaranteed impact on our company’s culture, our client’s business and the environment.
Our core team leads our company to find creative ideas that can be practically implemented.
It’s worth noting, this is not planned as a Capstrat cost savings initiative. It’s reasonable to assume that conserving environmental resources may also have an impact on our spending. However, we are looking for the biggest impact we can make with the smallest sacrifice. The team solicits sustainable solutions to learn from and inspire others.
Criteria
Ideas must be implemented within reason. The team reviews ideas for:
• expected environmental impact versus cost to implement
• ease to implement and adopt
• results that can be documented
•originality
The team promotes Capstrat Green throughout the company to drive behavioral change. More importantly, the team shall drive creative thinking with a purpose that balances all the moving parts to understand all sides of an issue. Then they promote innovative thinking to design a solution that works fairly for all concerned.
As more companies want to understand their impact on the world, I imagine we’ll see more internal teams pop up like Capstrat Green.
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Conservation Instructo-Art
We created this collection of helpful hangtags to remind you about saving energy.They can be clipped and hung where they’ll do the most good. Download a printable version here.
While the messages are very real, Colin and I had a little fun inventing measures and schematics. The inspiration came from deliciously cheesy Instructo-Art. You know, where everything is graphed for you? I’m obsessed with graphs!
Even if you don’t clip and place them in the bathroom, above the clothes hamper, or dangle them from your rear-view mirror, they’re a fun reminder for all of us to be smarter with resources.
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Capstrat culture
Our environment creates a culture of winning team spirit fun.I say we have a Capstrat Peep Joust on March 20th.Here's a poster.
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