Interview with Rob Schwartz, CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY

Rob Schwartz of TBWA\Chiat\Day NY is one of my favorite people in the ad business today. To qualify for this kind of praise, you have to be smart and kind. Rob is both, and like all of my favorite people, he doesn’t bullshit. He’s down to earth and he makes time for people—qualities not always found in the CEO of a New York City ad agency. Rob is also a long time reader of Adpulp.com and one of our most generous supporters. Therefore, I am both thrilled and honored to share this recent interview in its entirety.

Q. Who and/or what do you admire in the ad biz today?

I think the best advertising today is coming from one place: The Lincoln Project. All of their work is relevant, surprising, emotional, and exceptionally powerful. And people are talking about it. Oh, and let’s not forget the volume. These guys do a Super Bowl ad each time the fodder emerges from Washington.

Q. How did you become interested in advertising as a career path?

I fell into advertising when I failed at everything else. I failed the LSAT. I failed at screenwriting. I failed at TV writing. I failed at playwriting, I failed at writing a novel. These “fails” lead me to a job in publishing at Simon & Schuster. A woman named Diane Lamonaco recognized whatever talent I had and recommended a class in Advertising Concepting at the School of Visual Arts taught by her friend Tony Romeo. Tony was a legendary art director at DDB. I fell in love with advertising that first night and haven’t looked back since.

Q. What do you do to connect with nature and clear your mind?

I walk my dog. She’s a wonderful Labrador Retriever named Pepper. She’s partial to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. She leads me there and that’s where I commune and connect.

Q. How is working in NYC different than working in LA?

It’s like night and day. I love LA. Loved working there. But in LA, you needed every resource in the building. It is not a city where collaboration is natural. It’s too spread out. Too much traffic.

NYC is more intimate and combustible. You want to meet someone, you make it happen. In real life. In minutes, not months.

I’m old school that way. I like to talk to people face-to-face. In bars, In coffee shops. In restaurants.

Q. Is the ad business better today than when you entered it? Why or why not?

I think the world always has room for a great idea, so I would say that today is better. Because if you can break through all of the noise and clutter today, you probably have an idea that’s really good.

Q. What’s the best museum in NYC?

The streets. Art, stories, and music are alive on each and every one. You simply must open your eyes and ears.

Q. What qualities do the best clients have?

Trust, collaboration, focus. The best clients trust the process. They collaborate and make the work better. And they focus on making great work happen – especially within their organizations. People often forget that it’s the clients who must sell and push the work through their own companies when we at the agency are not in the room. That takes incredible focus. And guts. The best clients are brave, too.

Q. Chiat\Day is one of the few legendary agency brands alive and well today. Why is that?

Well, we give a shit. We care about the brand. It’s a combination of legacy and innovation. And we are obsessed with keeping our brand relevant. I also see us acting out what Ed McCabe, legendary copywriter and creative leader of Scali, McCabe Sloves once said: “We don’t have rules. We have standards.” We tend to keep the standards high.

Q. Do you feel a special responsibility to live up to Jay Chiat and Guy Day’s original thinking and doing?

Jay and Guy, along with Bill Tragos, Claude Bonnage, Uli Wiesendanger, and Paolo Ajroldi. All six were united in their quest and belief in breakthrough thinking. And high creative quality and integrity. On the Chiat strand of DNA, it’s “Good Enough Is Not Enough.” On the TBWA strand, it’s Disruption. Those of us who lead the agency today see ourselves as Re-Founders.

Q. What was it like to work with Lee Clow? How did he impact your career?

Working with Lee is probably akin to being a basketball player and saying you played with Michael Jordan. Or being a musician and saying you made some records with John Lennon. Lee is just someone who could always find the truth in something and then express it in a way that made you pay attention. And made you feel something.

He also liked things that were universal, simple, and well-designed. So creatively, he made me aware of the power of truth, simplicity, emotion – and art direction. And as a leader, he showed me that you need to give people a vision to follow. Believe in people.  And demand the best from them.

Q. Why do you wear a suit?

My suit came with my transition from creative to CEO. I had read a story about the legendary Hollywood mogul Lew Wasserman. When he came out to Los Angeles to build MCA he noticed that the executives and agents looked unprofessional. Clownish. He reasoned, that if the company was being entrusted with millions of dollars they should look the part. So, he invented the uniform. Black suit. White shirt. Black tie.

Along those lines, I believed that if a client was going to entrust us with their multi-million dollar budgets, at least one of us in the room should look responsible.

In practice, it became easier to dress for work. I was able to focus on other stuff. And as a bonus, if an emergency client meeting came up – and they have over the last few years – I would always be ready to take the meeting.

Q. You have an incredible podcast going…why do you enjoy this medium over say writing?

I always loved radio. Writing it. Listening to it. I also like to talk. One of my strategies in life is to “just keep talking until something good happens.” That’s what a podcast is. The secret is to let the guest talk.

Q. Who are your ad business mentors? What were their central lessons that you continue to practice today?

Well, obviously Lee. Also, Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman of TBWA, and Roz Greene, Copy Chief at Altschiller Reitzfeld and my first boss.

 Lee Clow’s Lessons:

• Go into the client with art, the process will dumb it down to commerce soon enough.
• Make it smart, make it beautiful, have fun
• Always buy Southern California real estate. It only goes in one direction—up.

Jean-Marie Dru’s Lessons:

• Be strategic in how you approach creative and be creative in how you approach strategy.
• Always be one meeting ahead of the client.
• Number the points in your memos.

Roz Greene’s Lessons:

• “Write things like a writer would,” she would say to me.
• No jargon. Don’t be too academic.
• Write something that will make someone’s day.

Q. Mets or Yankees?

Mets. They’re more human. And CitiField is one of the best stadiums to watch a baseball game. You’re close to the action. You can hear the crack of the bat on a ball and the thump of the mitts. The hot dogs are good too.

Q. Post-pandemic, what will the Manhattan adscape look like? Will TBWA\Chiat\Day\NY let people work from home?

I see the vibrancy, energy, and face-to-face collaboration coming back – albeit 3-4 days a week. No one will come to the office on Friday post-pandemic. People hardly came in Friday pre-pandemic.Work from home at Chiat? No problem. We’ve had folks working that way for years. Don’t forget, Chiat invented the “virtual office.”

Q. What’s been the greatest professional challenge and also the greatest joy that you’ve experienced while CEO of TBWA\Chiat\Day?

Good phrasing of that question. Because the greatest challenge has been the greatest joy and that’s taking an under-performing office, helping it realize itself, and then putting the people and processes in place to have it perform beyond its wildest dreams. Getting people to be better than they can imagine themselves being is difficult but incredibly rewarding.

Q. Is the ad business better today than when you entered it? Why or why not?

I think the world always has room for a great idea, so I would say that today is better. Because if you can break through all of the noise and clutter today, you probably have an idea that’s really good.

Q. Are you a pop culture junkie?

I don’t know if I’m a “pop culture junkie.” I pay attention. I grew up and still love tabloid newspapers like the New York Post and the Daily News. And of course, Twitter. So pop culture erupts in those venues. I continue to learn from all the folks in my feed. Too many for me to mention here. But I’m grateful for their wisdom and energy.

Q. Does organic social media actually work for brands? Or is it all just a sandbox with no point other than learning to play nice with others?

Rare is the brand that’s good at organic social media. Wendy’s is one. I also believe #ShotOnIphone is a wonderful platform to inspire people to use the product. Everything else? I dunno. Ignorable. Infinitely ignorable.

Q.  Do you long for the simplicity of print?

I love the simplicity of great OOH. So, yes. As far as print specifically, I miss a brand that can construct an argument but deliver it as a wonderful conversation. I love print like the International Paper “How To” series, Legas Delaney’s Timberland ads, and AMV’s Sainsbury’s ads.

Q. Is there a secret to longevity in the ad business?

I don’t know if these are secrets, but if you want to have a long career in advertising you need to have a few qualities. One, you need to be curious about clients and their business. Two, you need to care. Care about your clients. Care about the work. Care about your teammates. Three? You need energy. Up early. And able to work late. Also, don’t be a schmuck.

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Editor’s Note: An abbreviated version of this interview appeared on Adpulp.com last September. This complete version will also appear in ‘Ad Brains: Honest Conversations with Advertising’s Icons, Rulers, and Rebels’, an eBook that will be available for sale here and wherever fine business books are sold.