Ad veteran Carl Johnson runs a marketing agency in New York that all others are watching. Within 12 months, they work with CocaCola and the New York Times. That doesn’t stop them: Anomaly is down to the last four agencies pitching for the BMW USA business. IF sat with Carl to talk about why he returned to the agency world and why the major brands are attracted to this new model of agency.
Tell us about the Anomaly. Having taken a break from the agency world, why did you come back and start this?
Before I left New York for the glorious beaches of Sydney and after working non stop for 20 years starting, selling, buying and merging agencies, it was harder and harder to be passionate about what I was doing every day. Then after 9/11 and with the luxury of enough money from my own London agency sale to Omnicom I decided it no longer added up to a worthwhile way of life.
Living downtown and anxiously listening to my boys cough, worrying whether they were going to be emotionally affected and then going to work to discuss cost cutting to ‘deliver the margin’ wasn’t why I worked so hard.
I sacrificed a lot with my partners to grow a great agency in London producing award winning work for clients like Nike, Playstation and Virgin which Omnicom bought and that gave me choices most people don’t have – I made mine.
My wife, four young sons and myself then had two of the best years of our lives with me performing the role of full time soccer coach to the family!
I could have done that forever. Well, I thought I could. However after a time I realized, much to my own surprise, that I still wasn’t finished with this business. The ambition in me still was burning. But to get me off the beach it had to be the most personally fulfilling thing I could do: A start-up – because then you could build it precisely as you thought it should be done… with partners you like and respect as you spend all day every day with them…with gigantic ambition in an industry overdue for change.
This all adds up to the ultimate personal luxury-the requirement for integrity and authenticity.
Delivering that through Anomaly is what’s good enough to get you off the beach.
You say Anomaly is not an ad agency – surely that’s what all the agencies are saying these days. What sets you apart from the rest?
Two big things:
1. A true multi disciplined team including design, technology, licensing, NPD, media as well as advertising all under one profit centre. This prevents recommendations being corrupted by the almighty dollar as we have no vested interest in what the answer is for a client.
As they say, ‘To a man with a hammer every problem is a nail’.
2. A different business model: value pricing and the ownership of intellectual property. We don’t sell time. Ever. We believe in the power and value of ideas.
You’re down to the final four agencies in the pitch for BMW’s USA business. Ad industry critics are surprised – what makes a prospective client think you can contend for such a large account?
How many people does it take to have a great idea? The true premium, the real competitive edge you can give your clients is on the quality of thinking, the bigness of ideas, not the amount of resources needed. Additionally I’d say it was far easier to scale than to reconfigure an ‘agency group’ overcoming their financial, process and cultural issues.
Tell us about your Anomaly’s interest in developing intellectual property? Surely this seems a little distracting – how does this fit in within your business strategy?
It’s not distracting! It’s an essential part of our plan. We don’t want a huge client list with hundreds of people. We want to be as entrepreneurial as possible, to learn, to give people here the opportunity to develop their own ideas, to collaborate with talented individuals and companies. we’re prepared to invest time, energy and money in creating and owning those ideas.
You’re a Brit based in New York but what’s your reaction to the recent news that Amsterdam is the center of European creativity, leaving London behind.
I couldn’t care where great work comes from as long as it comes.
Thank You
Disclosure: Anomaly is a sponsor of IF. Sponsorship does not influence editorial decisions.
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