Jimmy Smith: Entertainment value

From watching Bewitched to a career that has taken in Wieden+Kennedy, TBWA\Chiat\Day and Burrell Communications, Jimmy Smith has long believed advertising should entertain, not interrupt. 

Here, the Amusement Park Entertainment Chairman, CEO and Chief Creative Officer speaks to Jamie Madge about culture, conviction and creative talent.

How did you first get into advertising, and when did you begin to feel confident in your own creative voice?

I was introduced to advertising by Darrin Stephens from the TV show Bewitched. He was a mortal and she was a witch. Darrin was also a creative director. That show planted the seed. The majority of the ads sucked. So I felt that if this basketball thing didn’t work out, I could just pivot into advertising.

That’s a pretty magical route into advertising. Before you actually entered the industry, what did you imagine the job would be like?

It kinda really is like Bewitched. I’ve been in meetings where I’d come up with ideas just before a client meeting and sell them! But, unlike Darrin, I just hadn’t been turned back into a human after being turned into a horse by my mother-in-law. 

I was introduced to advertising by Darrin Stephens from the TV show Bewitched.

Also, like Bewitched, coming up with ideas is a magical process. It’s not science. I always like to think of ideas as a gift from YESHUA MESSIAH.

You were shaped by people like Lewis Williams, Dan Wieden, John Jay, Jim Riswold and Lee Clow. What did you learn from watching genuinely original thinkers at work?

Lewis taught me the ABCs of advertising. Y’know, the fundamentals. Dan taught me to hate advertising. In other words, people hate advertising, so why would you make something people aren’t going to enjoy? As a creative director, Ris only liked his ideas. He’s my hero, but it’s true. So, he taught me to appreciate ideas that aren’t my own. 

Lee Clow helped me to navigate the ‘Nincompoop Forest’ and to always be brave. While Jo Muse’s mantra was, “Think the unthinkable. Do the undoable. And above all, make the mutha fuckers sweat.”

Lewis Williams taught you the “ABCs of advertising” and helped demystify the industry. Do you think advertising sometimes makes itself sound more complicated than it really is?

One of the first things Lew said when I joined legendary Burrell Communications was, “They try to make it sound like rocket science. But it ain’t rocket science. Always remember that, Jimmy Mack.”

Above: Nike’s Freestyle saw Jimmy Smith turn basketball into a platform for performance, storytelling and culture.

Your best-known work often sits at the intersection of sport, music, entertainment and culture. What do great brands understand about culture that weaker brands miss?

When you look up the definition of culture on my Mac, it says the following:

1. The arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

2. The customs, arts, social institutions and achievements of a particular nation, people or other social group.

3. Biology: the cultivation of bacteria, tissue cells, etc. in an artificial medium containing nutrients. The cells proliferate readily in culture.

So, great brands understand that definitions one and two are the key. Weaker brands think that definition three is pivotal.

Work like Nike Freestyle, Nike Battlegrounds and Gatorade Replay did not just advertise sport, they turned sport into a stage for storytelling. What first drew you to that space creatively?

It wasn’t something that I was drawn to. It was the environment in which I grew up. I lived and went to an all-white school district. I couldn’t play on the team and not start! So, I had to be good at basketball in order not to embarrass myself in front of my Black friends who went to my church. My mom was an educator at an all-Black school, so at a young age I was introduced to the culture of cool.

And my cousins introduced me to Parliament-Funkadelic, Bootsy Collins, The Jackson 5, and, by extension, MJ, and Black films such as Shaft, Super Fly, Uptown Saturday Night and Cooley High. So, advertising just got what was and is in me, along with a healthy dose of white culture! HA HA HA.

Gatorade Replay became a landmark example of branded entertainment before that phrase became an industry cliché. Did you feel at the time that you were changing the shape of what advertising could be?

Absolutely. I had a badass team of creatives, not to mention Lee Clow, and we started with the premise that Gatorade could be more than just a sports drink and coloured sweat. It was a brand that could move culture via sports and entertainment. That thinking gave birth to a sports and entertainment network called missionG.com.

This was before Netflix, Apple TV, Disney+, Hulu, etc. We had all types of shows on this streaming platform that revolved around the spirit of G, including Replay.

You’ve often spoken about advertising needing to entertain rather than interrupt. Do you think brands have fully understood that shift, or are they still often dressing ads up as entertainment?

The vast majority of brands still don’t get it. People hate advertising. You have to give them something that’s worth their while. Messages that don’t feel like ads. The CMOs that are responsible for the brands’ advertising don’t even watch the ads they pay to have made.

It’s like they’re having out-of-body experiences. They step outside their bodies and make things they wouldn’t watch, thinking that other humans will. Crazy!

Above: Jimmy Smith with Dan Wieden, whose influence runs through Smith’s career.

With Amusement Park Entertainment, you built a company around the idea that brands could co-create and co-own entertainment properties, not just commission campaigns. What did the traditional agency model no longer allow you to do, and do you think the industry still undervalues its own intellectual property?

The traditional advertising model is not based on doing what’s best for the client and brand. It’s based on greed by the holding companies. When anything is based on greed, it’s hard for a client to get the best work possible from its agency, particularly agencies that are owned by holding companies.

In that environment, a feature film idea, a streaming show, a concert, a tech idea, etc., etc., etc. is unlikely to make it out the door to the client, because agencies don’t make their money off powerful, innovative ideas. They make the vast majority of their money from selling media and everything else but the creative idea. It’s like Stranger Things. It’s upside down.

A lot of your work feels built around the question of whether an idea can travel across media, audiences, formats and culture. How do you know when an idea has that kind of elasticity?

You never know 100%. But one major hint for me is if I get a lot of pushback. I investigate. Like, “Why am I getting so much pushback? Is it warranted? What are they afraid of? Hmmm, I need to dig into this further!”

Oftentimes, the pushback is coming from the fact that, “It hasn’t been done before.” Your job is to vet that idea and understand if the reason you’re getting pushback is because no one’s seen it before, or if, “Nah. That idea does suck!” You have to be brutally honest. Not to mention brave enough to have ten toes down on an idea that scares the shit out of everybody.

You’ve led big creative departments and built your own company. What have you learned about creating environments where ambitious ideas can survive?

You have to surround yourself with people who are true believers. If you’re not a true believer in the power of what you’re capable of, the power of ideas and creativity, you’ll wilt under pressure, and you’ll end up like Charlie Brown with a bag of rocks.

You’ve talked about the industry being too narrow in where it looks for talent. What qualities do you look for in a creative person that might not show up on a traditional CV or portfolio?

I don’t want to see a portfolio. I want to see what he or she has done on their own, outside of advertising. Show me poetry, short films, your stand-up comedy routine on open mic night, that new tech platform you built, your clothing line, your music. Where’s the graphic novel you wrote? That’s what I want to see and/or hear.