Dear Agencies: Hire the Oddballs

TL;DR

In an uncertain economic climate, agency leaders are worried about the talent stack they have today and the future one they need tomorrow. That engenders a tendency to hire the “safe” candidates. But it’s the confidently peculiar ones – odd, quirky, eccentric, intriguing – that often create the innovative and award-winning work.

It's practically axiomatic that people's diverse points of view, backgrounds, cultures and interests are instrumental to creating original work. But sometimes that work needs to be influenced by peculiarity as well.

In the late 1960s, arguably the heyday of the ad industry, advertising icon David Ogilvy wrote a five-point memo to his office managers worldwide, noting "the characteristics which suggest to [him] that a person has the potential for rapid promotion."

They were: The person is ambitious. The person works harder than their peers—and enjoys it. The person has a brilliant brain—inventive and unorthodox. The person has an engaging personality. The person demonstrates respect for the creative function.

These tenets are as true today as they were in 1968. But it's time to update Ogilvy's list. So, I humbly suggest we add one more: The person is confidently peculiar.What do I mean by this? And why does it matter?

A peculiar person is unordinary, extraordinary, strange, odd, intriguing, different and quirky. This matters because as an agency consultancy, we at Platinum Balloon are often hired to help with hiring. The game of talent-based musical chairs has heated up considerably since the pandemic, and agency leaders are worried about the talent stack they have today and the future one they need tomorrow. In an uncertain economic climate, they have a tendency to hire the “safe” candidates. But it’s the confidently peculiar ones that often create the innovative and award-winning work.  

If you are at an agency right now reading this, look around the office or take notice of the boxed faces on your screen. How many of your cohorts are sort of odd? Who among them are bona fide unconventional? Who takes being quirky with utmost pride? I think these are the characters that make working in this industry feel so good. I know I like to surround myself with unique thinkers who question and think differently. People who not only are not afraid to march to their own drummer, but consider their differences a career accoutrement. Like Apple founder Steve Jobs opined, "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

School, the purpose agency I founded in 2013, had a well-known internship program. Every four months, we brought in a new crop of eight to 10 fresh-faced creatives, designers, strategists and developers eager to follow every single one of Ogilvy's points. They came in the de rigueur uniform of the ad worker: Williamsburg hip, New York chic, Austin honky-tonk, Coachella hippie or L.A. every day.

But a few were clearly outside the norm. Some were even outside the outside of the norm. And while all were individualistic and unique, these few oddballs embraced their quirks endearingly and enthusiastically. So much so that those around them followed suit. And that's a great thing.

Whereas we expect our agency's collective thinking to be "inventive and unorthodox," it's when we get a little crazy that great things get done. It's practically axiomatic that people's diverse points of view, backgrounds, cultures and interests are instrumental to creating original work. But sometimes that work needs to be influenced by peculiarity as well.

The interns at School were in their mid-20s. Some were in their early 30s. We had a 40-year-old intern. He's now a creative director at a massive agency in New York. All of them were primed for the future of our industry. And all of them appreciated the power of the peculiar to drive the idea.

It's not a matter of being strange or goofy; being peculiar means looking at the world in an unabashedly individualistic way and celebrating it by sharing that viewpoint with others.

An important qualifier for this is the "confident" part in confidently peculiar. These personalities are able to make their peculiarity work for them, thereby allowing themselves different ways to express it. Without that sense of security in their weirdness, these personalities would otherwise hide or obfuscate their iconoclasm. But given the chance and space to embrace and even enhance their oddity, these characters are able to inject it into any particular creative pursuit of their choosing.

Moreover, confidently peculiar people are authentic, and that particular aspect is a requirement to ideas that catch fire in culture. This authenticity is endearing. And it's often infectious. The quirky folks make our teams better, more trusting of "weird" ideas and more open to breaking some rules.

So here's to the peculiar ones. The oddballs. The wacky and weird. Here's to them for making us more creative, more open to discomfort and more attuned to the possibility of breakthrough. If you have one or two or three of those on your team, keep them busy. If you don't, go out and find yourself a couple of confidently peculiar characters and put them on the path to rapid promotion. Ogilvy would concur, and your clients will, too.