John Butler is the executive creative director and a founding partner of BSSP. In the business for longer than some of his employees have been alive, he has, at one time or another, walked the halls of McCann Erickson, J. Walter Thompson, Chiat\Day and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. While working at Chiat, John met his partner of eighteen years, Mike Shine; the pair moved out West for senior positions at Goodby, where they met partner Greg Stern, and in 1993 opened Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners. John is a former One Club president and currently resides in San Rafael, California with his wife and two children.
11.10.09
Convincing People To Buy What They Don't Want or Need
If you have a degree in what field is it? Associates degree from RIT in photographic illustration and a BFA in advertising and design from Pratt Institute.
If you could choose one person to work with (outside your own agency), who would it be? Harlan Ellison. In my opinion, America’s greatest living writer. Don’t believe me? Read Angry Candy.
Who was the client for your first advertising project? An Actifed commercial starring former astronaut Wally Schirra. They hated all my ideas; I couldn’t sell them a damned thing.
If you were to change professions, what would you choose to do? Not entirely sure, but I’d have to be in charge. I’m just that way. I’d probably always write, though.
What do you consider to be the greatest headline of all time? “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” it’s a Walt Kelly Pogo quote that was used as an Earth Day poster in the early ’70s and it’s more relevant today than ever before.
From where do your best ideas originate? “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” —Albert Einstein.
How do you overcome a creative block? Write. Or read. But mostly write.
If you could choose any product to create an ad for, what would it be? Ads for male enhancement/performance; they annoy me. Why are they allowed to run at all hours of the day? My five-year-old knows what a boner is now. Thanks pharmaceutical companies! I’d probably like a shot at making them better. I think it would be a big opportunity. (Get it? BIG opportunity? Clever right? Of course it is, I’m in advertising.)
Do you have creative outlets other than advertising? I blow my children’s college fund collecting illustration and comic book art from my past. I have dozens of original covers from books and comics that I loved as a kid, framed all over my home. That was the deal when I met my wife: I own the walls, she owns everything else. We have an ugly couch.
What’s your approach to balancing work and life? I’m lousy at that. But my kids have helped me through it. Now I actually have something constructive to do when I’m not at work doing the really important work of convincing people to buy products they don’t actually need or want.
What product/gadget can you not live without? Does a shotgun count as a gadget? If not, although I hate to admit it, I couldn’t live without my Mac. I could live without my phone, my GPS, my iPod, my camera and my Playstation, but not my computer. (My wife would probably disagree about the Playstation.)
What’s your favorite quote? I unknowingly gave my favorite quotes as the answers to a few of these questions, so I guess I’d have to say the two I mentioned are among my favorites. My next favorite would be “She wanted nothing. And I delivered.” —Fu Manchu (the band, not the Sax Rohmer pulp character).
Do you have any advice for people just entering the profession? It’s easier than ever before to look at other advertising and design from all over the world; it’s all at our fingertips with a click of a mouse. Try not to look too long or too hard. Try to find inspiration from outside of this business. And when you put together your book, try not to use photo swipe from an ad that we did once. That’s just bad form.
What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started your career? That someone was going to come along and invent something called “the Internet.”’