Exclusive Interview With Pierre Chan
Pierre Chan, Berlin’s new Creative Director, answers a few questions about who he is, what he did before he got here, and how he thinks about the work.
How did you get into advertising?
As a naive teen, I had aspirations of becoming a constitutional lawyer. So, after three years of studying political science, I took a crack at the LSAT (that’s the test to see if you’re too stupid to be a lawyer). Well, I’m not currently battling the government on the misuse of section 33 in the Charter of Rights & Freedoms, so you can take a wild guess how I did on the LSAT.
When I realized my Bachelor of Arts was not gonna make me employable, and since being an Influencer wasn’t a thing back then, I decided to circle back to my interest in advertising—something I was very curious about in high school. Before I even applied to university, I had spent weeks using a search engine called Ask Jeeves (because Google wasn’t invented yet) to find: “Schools for people who want to come up with ideas for ads.” But it kept spitting out options for marketing programs, which involved zero creativity in their curriculum. So I abandoned my Ask Jeeves results and went into political science. Fast forward to a failed LSAT and 4 years' worth of student loans later, I decided to revisit my search for “Schools for people who want to come up with ideas for ads.” This time, I stumbled upon a blog called ihaveanidea.org (now defunct) that had an amazing Q&A section led by Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin, who were killing it as Co-CCO’s at Ogilvy back then. I asked about advertising schools, and they posted a list of the 10 best portfolio-building schools in North America. So, I picked the one in San Francisco, and that kickstarted my career in advertising.
You’ve been doing this for 20 years now. Hard to believe. What has your career trajectory been like so far?
Like my LSAT result, my career has had many failures that led to amazing things. I was an intern at DDB Vancouver, but they didn’t hire me. I sent my student book to over 20 agencies in Vancouver and Toronto, but no one was interested. Eventually, I got a full-time job as a copywriter and hopped around to a few different agencies, but then I got laid off.
Shortly after that, I received two job offers. One for an agency in Vancouver and the other in Edmonton. This was probably the most significant crossroads in my career. Instead of staying in Vancouver, I chose the agency in Edmonton—an indie shop called Calder Bateman. I spent almost five years there, doing some of the best work of my career with the most talented, low-ego people I’ve ever worked with. We punched above our Edmonton weight class and won numerous Marketing, Applied Arts and ADCC awards. We even got recognition from Communication Arts, the Clio Awards and One Show.
After getting on the radar of a few agencies, I took a job with Cossette Vancouver, where I spent the next six and a half years—first as a Senior Copywriter, then ACD and then CD. From there, I spent some time at One23West, went in-house to lead the creative department for the Vancouver Canucks, and then back to Cossette as their Group Creative Director.
Now, joining the team at Berlin feels like a full-circle moment. All the failures, that evolved into success, have led me back to another indie Edmonton agency with an amazingly talented, low-ego team punching above its weight class.
We always want to make great creative work, but there’s no magic button you can push to make it happen. How do you increase the probability of producing amazing work for a project?
There are a lot of different ways, but here are four of my faves:
1) Uncover a truth—something you can say about the product, brand, category, culture or audience that is very honest, and perhaps something the client is afraid to say.
2) Find the tension. Without opposing forces, it’s boring.
3) Commit to an interesting POV. It’s not worth hearing if you’re just saying what others are already saying. And don’t half-ass it when you say it.
4) Don’t stop on good. Most people know the saying “Good is the enemy of great.” The tough thing is knowing when you’ve gotten to “great.” The best chance at that is to aim for quantity without thinking of quality. The quality will come organically when you stop thinking too hard about it.
How can clients play a role in helping the agency do good work for them?
Put all the cards on the table. Be ruthlessly honest with the agency about any problems with the brand, product, service, industry or audience. Then, after all the cards are on the table, understand that the agency and client are on the same team, solving the same problem, but are experts with different roles.
It’s not too dissimilar to taking your car to a mechanic. I know my car very well. And I likely know the problem that needs fixing. I might even have a theory on how to fix it from my own research and past experience with my car. But at the end of the day, if I trust my mechanic as an expert, I’ll let them fix my car in the way they think best solves the problem. Otherwise, it’s time for me to find another mechanic.
What successes do you want to see for your team?
I want to see them experience all the best “firsts” from a career in advertising.
The first time they crack an amazing idea that they can’t stop talking about. The first time a client buys that idea. The first time that idea becomes an ad out in the world. The first time they experience a total stranger talking about how much they love that ad. The first time they win a national award, then an international one. The first time they get a promotion. The first time that happens all over again. And eventually, the first time they decide to accept a big opportunity at another organization.
As a Creative Director, my greatest joy is seeing them experience their biggest joys for the first time. That’s the success I want to see most.
You like to say we are all working together on the problem. Can you explain that?
When I was a bratty junior copywriter, I thought it was Creatives vs Accounts because it seemed like the Account team often watered down creative ideas.
As I got a little older and wiser, I understood that the Account team was on the same side as the Creative team. We were trying to solve the same problem, even though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye. So, my view changed to Creatives + Accounts vs the Client.
But after years of spending more time working closely with clients and understanding their unique perspectives, I developed a deep appreciation for their trust in us and the business realities they deal with every day. Now, I always look at it as Creatives + Accounts + the Client vs the Problem. This is how you get great work. It’s a partnership against the problem. And unless all of us are rowing in the same direction, the problem won’t truly get solved. It would’ve been nice if I had figured that out sooner.
