Jay Thompson
VP of Stuff
ihaveanidea

Recently winning the 2005 Clio Agency of the Year, it is even more painfully obvious for most people in the ad business that Crispin Porter + Bogusky is probably still the hottest agency in the United States (and have been for a few years). But with half the agency moved across the hall into another space, they now have an even bigger view of all the sailboats docked in Biscayne Bay to drive you really nuts the next time your neck-of-the-woods gets a dose of winter reality.

This brief profile with some pictures taken at the agency aims to give you a better idea of what it’s really like to work at Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

Perhaps when you have an agency full of doers you really have a marketing factory?

Valuing talent and imagination more than measurability, and often self-selecting clients who are not in fear of loosing their jobs, this Agency of the Year darling has created an unselfish culture and an atmosphere where creatives are constantly helping each other come up with discipline-neutral, original thinking that has birthed some of the freshest share-stealing ideas the ad industry has ever seen.

At Crispin Porter + Bogusky they think advertising is anything that makes their clients famous. And they believe that’s their job too. Crazy isn’t it? They come up with creative content to make that happen – an idea. At which point they think of ways to distribute that creative idea. It might be an online film, a street event, a book or something you can’t even imagine yet.

They’re the kind of folks who feel your company voice mail, the uniform, the new product, the website, and all the stuff that orbits traditional advertising is how brands are built these days. And they’re the kind of people that are deeply committed to spending the effort required to be great, in order to enable them to deliver breakthrough work for some exceptional clients.

In the early years The Miami Herald, the Lipton Tennis Tournament and the Florida Marlins were the agency’s first accounts. Now CP+B's client list that has grown to include clients like BMW's MINI line, IKEA, Bacardi, Coca-Cola, Burger King, Bell Sports and Virgin Atlantic Airways. Although 'Truth', the an anti-smoking effort targeted to teens and pre-teens that began in Florida in 1997, and its explosive success that brought the agency to national attention is often how most people remember them.

As an employee, when you begin work at CP+B you are assigned a sensei who will make sure you are as successful as you can be during your time at the agency. This sensei will be from an entirely different department than yours. And if you’re the kind of person who hates meetings, your sensei will tell you that by simply saying the word “pineapple” the person holding the meeting will immediately wrap things up so you can get back to shaping your next great idea. Cool eh?

One thing you’ll notice about all the work that comes out of CP+B is how amazingly conceptual it is. There is always an acute insight. Beyond an absolute belief that the consumer is smart, CP+B has embraced nontraditional methods of marketing and the idea that brands can outsmart their competition by being “thought leaders”, these concepts always exists at the core of their work. This combined with the enormous amount of strategic work the agency develops ahead of a campaign, with the planning and media departments intimately involved, has fostered their phenomenal success. It’s really that simple.

Oh, and one more thing.

It sure as hell seems like a lot of fun to work there.

Chuck has an idea.	Busy CP+B bees.	The meeting rooms are pretty cool.
Typical offices at the CP+B factory.	A production dept, not producing much at the moment.	Skating from meeting to meeting.
Sure, Bogusky is famous for being the sexiest CD in the planet but when he's not wearing his ihaveanidea shirt he's just a normal looking guy.	The Mini race car boardroom table up close and personal.	The Mini boardroom table as seen from above. These guys know how to have fun.
Mhmmmmm food.	The big cheeses talk business.	The tender and spicy hall.
Alex Bogusky's office.	Another shot of the typical office setup at CP+B.	Realizing he will never work for an agency as cool as CP+B, ihaveanidea's account planning VP of Stuff, Jay Thompson, immediately walked out, got a boat and took to the high seas never to be seen again.