Harvey Marco On The Spot

Marco, 39, Saatchi & Saatchi's new ecd and second-in-command to CCO Steve Rabosky, wasn't always into advertising. As a Star Wars-generation teen growing up in Laguna Beach, Marco figured his arty inclinations would lead him to design creatures for George Lucas. Instead, he became an art director at shops such as Hal Riney, Ammirati & Puris and Fallon. He was hired as cd at Saatchi in July 2003, where he works on Toyota and has been instrumental in its "Moving forward" mantra and the current spate of truck spots using ad-genre parodies to emphasize the emotional effect. Q. What was your candid opinion of Saatchi before you got here?A. Before Steve [Rabosky] got here, I didn't really have an opinion of it. Nothing stood out. I had talked to Steve earlier when he was at Chiat\Day and I kept in touch with him when he was at Lowe. When he got here, there was definitely a huge shift in the direction of the work.Is working for Steve what you expected?Yeah. I've worked for quite a few people from the Chiat school of advertising. [Former Fallon president and CCO David] Lubars and Steve go back a long ways. They're friends. Ironically, those people have taught me the most in my career. Every ecd has his own style; some you like more than others. I happen to really like Steve's laid-back style. Nobody ever goes into a panic state. Lubars is like that too—a different type of animal, but very much in tune with the pulse of the agency.What are your goals for effecting change here at Saatchi? I want to see us [not just] come up with great ideas, but execute them; make them happen. And that's something you can't just bank on the creative department to do. It takes an agency to do that.You were working on multiple accounts at Fallon, but what's it like to be at an agency with essentially one client? Busy. The thing that I love about working on this piece of business is that unlike other automakers, they make 17 different models of cars. That's like 17 different products; 17 different types of people you need to talk to. So there is so much diversity in one brand. Coming into this we all had that reservation—we're coming to work for Toyota. Then you realize, it's not just about cars and trucks. "Moving forward," for example—that line is really a cultural thought. It's about who they are as a brand and how they operate internally on their end, and about people and how they are moving forward from a consumer point of view. That thought is very deep.What's the first ad you remember?The first ad that ever excited me ... was the "1984" Apple computer ad. It excited me about the possibility of what you could do in advertising before I was even interested in advertising—that something like a television commercial could be entertaining.The new Toyota spots are very funny. What inspires your sense of humor?I'm inspired by popular culture and what's going on in the world. I'm inspired by music, by film and literature. I think those things going on out there are not advertising entities, but they are communications entities. Those change people's mindsets. Take the Tacoma stuff we did [positioning the car as a cure for "adrenalitis"]. That was really born out of us, as advertisers, saying, "OK, what are these guys, this market, what are they bombarded with when they watch TV?" We know we're doing TV spots. They are bombarded with pharmaceutical advertising, all sorts of crap. Why don't we play in that genre? Why don't we misdirect them and take them down that path, and then get that truck in there? Then we thought, "Shit, we can blow it out and do the whole campaign that way." What are the most important things you learned at other agencies?My time at Ammirati & Puris was where I grew up. Ralph Ammirati was the chief creative. I worked on everything: RCA. Thompson Consumer Electronics, Aetna Life and Casualty. Worked on a little bit of Club Med and UPS. Did a lot of Nikon there. Ralph was truly the first person to put his trust and faith in me. I became a better creative person. Nobody has had a more profound influence on my career than that man.What inspired you to get into advertising? I was at Art Center [College of Design] and thought, "I don't want to be somebody's bitch, just doing their drawings, doing their illustrations." ... Now, sometimes that sounds really good! To me it was the excitement about working within all different aspects of the creative industry. To work with filmmakers, illustrators who are more talented than me, sound designers and engineers.What's the last ad that made you think, I wish I'd done that?I love that Honda "Hate" spot, the animated spot that Garrison Keillor narrates. Wieden in the U.K. did it. They came at it from such a unique angle and executed it so well—those bastards! They did "Cog," and then they one-upped themselves with "Hate." It is so optimistic and fun.What is the most overrated campaign?This is going to hurt a bit. You have a product like the iPod. ... As if Apple didn't do enough to make technology accessible, they come out with this thing, the iPod. It's probably one of the most incredible inventions of the last 20 years. It's amazing. I just feel like [TBWA\C\D] missed it by that much. Because it seems like it means so much more than those ads do. And I'm not saying I could have come up with something better, but I would have killed myself trying.

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Harvey Marco On The Spot

Gregory Solman

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Gregory Solman