Many Hands Make Lion-worthy Work

Tool of North America is aptly named – it truly is the Swiss army knife of production companies, covering everything from experiential to live-action and employing anyone and everyone (including dreamers and inventors) to spot the trends before they happen and create innovative advertising with storytelling at its core, resulting in both critical acclaim and commercial success. 

If you were to visit the Tool of North America website, you would see that it describes the production company as comprising ‘artists, directors, designers, producers, technologists, creative directors, dreamers and inventors’. That’s a lot of people and a lot of disciplines, and, to be honest, when I first walked into the interview at their Santa Monica office, it did feel a bit like they were all there in front of me.

I sat facing three people (Chris Neff, director of digital and experiential/EP, Oliver Fuselier, managing partner for live-action and Julia Sourikoff, head of VR and 360), with another two on Skype – one in Amsterdam (Dustin Callif, managing partner, digital) and one in San Francisco (Mike Lobikis, head of sales) – and that’s without mentioning my later chat with Tool founder, Erich Joiner.

It turns out Tool really is almost all things to all people, and needs a crowd to explain all of who and what the company really is.

Working with a full toolbox

Joiner founded Tool in 1995, when the agency creative decided he wanted to spend less time talking about making things and more time actually making them. Tool was initially a traditional, albeit very successful, production company, with a number of very good directors, including Joiner himself. But as a forward-thinker, he decided the company needed to embrace its digital future and, in early 2009, Dustin Callif joined Tool to help make that thought a reality. “When I came on board,” says Callif, “my focus and vision was to refine the talent and the roster.

I believe, philosophically, that all things come from the storytelling aspect [of an idea] so I really wanted to make sure we had a very robust, smart, creative stable of not only directors but also innovators, creatives and artists.”

A lot of cognitive research that’s happened in the academic community backs up the power of VR to change hearts and minds in a positive way.

Elevating reality to a higher form

So how does Tool define itself and its output with so many strings to its bow? “The unique proposition about Tool,” explains Fuselier, “is that we have that digital group but we also have a fully integrated live-action group, a VR and 360-filming department and an experiential department, and each of those areas is creating innovative advertising with storytelling at its core.” The team say they strive, within their work, to stay ahead of what is culturally relevant and create things that people want to talk about outside of the advertising arena. “It doesn’t happen on every project,” says Neff, “but that is what we aim for.”

They’ve hit their target more often than not. Work such as a 360-degree film for BMW, starring model-du-jour Gigi Hadid, in which you try to spot Hadid’s car among a fleet of lookalike BMWs, was a huge success. The Apple spot, Dillan’s Voice (below) which featured an autistic teenage boy who uses Apple products to help him communicate, was equally well-received. And most notably, their work for #OptOutside, last year’s campaign for outdoor brand REI, made alongside agency Venables Bell & Partners, helped it pick up innumerable awards, including a D&AD Impact award and no fewer than 12 Cannes Lions, including a Titanium Lion. This success helped Tool win 2016 Cannes Lions Production Company of the Year.

“One of the things that we try to do,” says Fuselier, “is see what the trends are that could impact on the advertising industry. Like when we did our South Park Oculus experience. That was us saying that we know VR looks like something interesting and we want to experiment with it, and that was nearly three years ago. It helped us launch our VR group.”

Sourikoff joined the company earlier this year to increase Tool’s proficiency in the VR space and says she enjoys the work’s multi-disciplinary approach. “It’s been a great collaboration with the directors in terms of creating stories and visions and helping support what the user experiences [will be] and thinking through the human-centred design,” says Sourikoff. “A lot of cognitive and psychological research that’s happened in the academic community really backs up the power of VR to change hearts and minds in a positive way [and] as soon as that starts informing more branded entertainment and content, I really see those [VR experiences] being elevated to a much higher art form.”

Rethink your place in the landscape

The fact that Tool embraces such a wide spectrum of creative approaches has been, according to Lobikis, a boon to the company’s ability to attract and manage talent. “Having our hands in all these different mediums,” he says “has been really interesting to our directors. We’re able to sign a lot more interesting talent because we have such a broad creative offering.”

Tool is one of the companies at the forefront of a new wave of one-stop-shops, which are able to work as efficiently whether it’s with or without an agency on board. Is that the future of the business, to be all things to all people? “I was out with some agencies in Amsterdam tonight,” says Callif, “and they were talking about how everything was changing so rapidly and some were worried about whether their agency might eventually close down in the next few years because the whole model has shifted towards doing project-based work, which fits with the production company model.”

Maybe it’s time for everyone to rethink their model, how they’re actually communicating and working within the landscape of this industry.

As well as exciting digital projects in the pipeline, including a piece of VR work for Adidas and a documentary for Ford, Tool is also soon to release a piece of consumer-facing tech that it has developed itself, further broadening its creative output to its own IP products. “We really take ourselves very seriously about doing creative, innovative work,” says Fuselier, “wherever that leads us. Obviously we don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, including our agency partners; we’re not an agency and nor do we want to be [but] it is a brave new world out there.

“It’s sad to hear that people think their place of work might be closing, but maybe it’s time for everyone to rethink their model, how they’re actually communicating and how they’re working within the landscape of this industry.”

It seems that as far as Tool is concerned, that thought process has already taken place.