Lee Clow has been making this thing called “advertising” for more than 40 years. He started at Chiat Day in Los Angeles when there were 10 people and 2 accounts and has been there ever since. He prefers to think of what we he does as Media Arts.

Words, pictures, telling stories on behalf of brands.

Whether it’s the famous “1984”commercial for Apple”s Macintosh, or the crazy Energizer Bunny that keeps going and going. Refreshing the world with Pepsi, or celebrating the world of sport for Adidas with the Impossible is Nothing campaign. The love you feel for dogs in Pedigree’s Dogs Rule campaign to asking What’s G for Gatorade, it’s all work people want to watch.

And perhaps there’s no better example of Lee’s impact in the industry than his 30+year partnership with Steve Jobs. They created the now famous work for the rebirth of Apple in 1997. It used walls, pages and films that recognized those who “Think different.” And, during the past 15 years he helped orchestrate Apple’s move into music with iPod & iTunes with the celebrated silhouettes campaign, into phones with the category re-defining iPhone and then creating the ‘campaign of the decade’ Mac vs PC, before forging a whole new category with iPad.

Lee continues to find the business fun and challenging. He believes we are at the beginning of the most exciting time the “advertising” business has ever seen. While lots of people are talking about the challenge of the multi-media future, he believes it is the biggest opportunity for creative minds since the first Creative Revolution of the 1960s.

Lee believes that “today everything can be considered media. The Internet has changed the way people interact with brands. If you like a brand, you can seek it out. If you don’t like a brand, you can criticize it publicly. So everything a brand does must tell its story in a disruptive and artful way. Then people will decide whether they like your brand or will ignore it.”

Since he began with ChiatDay and its humble beginnings at a hotel in downtown Los Angeles, the agency has grown to be one of the ten largest global networks and is without dispute one of the most innovative and awarded agency networks in the world.

Lee Clow is a member of the One Club Hall of Fame, the Art Directors Hall of Fame, and the Museum of Modern Art’s Advertising Hall of Fame, and has been honored by the Clios with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

“It’s very much part of my success in life that I’ve loved and been loved.”

In This Episode:

• Growing up adopted post WWII
• Identifying his passion for art early on
• The meaning of “applied art”
• How the advertising agency shifted to mavericks leading the way
• Looking for the things he could become obsessive about
• Why he was drawn to advertising
• How the idea originated for the Apple Genius Bar
• Finding the romance in advertising, looking for the emotional center of a brand
• From form to formless – having a disruptive nature
• Working closely with Steve Jobs and why “impute” mattered
• Why he’s most proud of the relationships along the journey
• Behind the scenes of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign
• Needing resiliency to overcome the downside of the advertising business
• Finding ideas in listening