Into the Library with Jordan Doucette
'The Creative Library' is LBB’s exciting new launch. It’s been months - years, probably - in the making and we reckon our re-tooled archive will change the way you work, whether you’re a company looking to store and share your work, or a marketer or creative looking for new partners or inspiration for your latest project.
The latest stage of this launch involves you, our readers. If you have ever been credited on campaigns or music videos, you can now personalise your creative profile - find out more about why and how here.
To coincide with launching The Creative Library, we launched regular feature called ‘Into the Library’ where we catch up with the industry’s most influential directors and creatives to talk about their career highlights, past and present. Think of it as a reel showcase with a big dollop of personality. We interview directors and top creatives about their favourite commercials and music videos from their catalogues to find out how these works shaped them.
Sharing her work today is none other than Dentsu Creative Canada CCO Jordan Doucette. With a natural talent for communicating, storytelling and collaboration, her experience in the industry has spanned multiple agencies and roles, including chief creative officer at TAXI in her native Canada, Leo Burnett Chicago and FCB West (San Francisco), as well as a recent stint as partner and president at No Fixed Address.
To showcase some of the most significant pieces of her career - ones that inspire creativity and encourage the highest possible quality of work - Jordan sat down with LBB's Josh Neufeldt.
Kraft - Kraft Now Pay Later
I think 'Kraft Now Pay Later' is an amazing example of having a brand purpose be clearly articulated between client and agency.
At the time, we were looking for potential ways to activate brand purpose based on culture. On Mondays, we would look at what was happening in the world, put some stuff up on the wall, the creatives would think about it, and then on Friday we’d present it to our clients. So, when the US government was shutting down, we went to our client and asked if there was an opportunity for Kraft to do something. After all, with the brand purpose being about making dinnertime easy, and people on social media asking how they were going to feed their families, it just made sense to get involved. But, when we brought this forward, we got told: ‘Yeah, maybe’. The next morning, we got a call and Kraft said ‘OK, we want to do it. We want to open this pop up store... But if you don't get it up by Wednesday, we won’t want to do it anymore!'.
We hustled like crazy over the weekend, because there were so many unknowns. We had to consider things like, 'What happens if we can't find a location?', 'What happens if we stock it and then we run out of merchandise?', and 'What happens if people don't like the idea and we get stuck in the middle of Washington with this pop up shop?' We didn't know, as none of us had ever opened up a store before!
The other thing was, we had no idea how long the government would be shut down for. If it was shut down for a really long time, we wouldn’t be able to just pack up and leave - we knew we needed to commit to staying. However, Kraft indicated they were committed, and I think that's one of the magical parts of the project. None of us had all the answers, but by working within a team, we figured it out along the way. Yes, there was risk, but there was also a bigger opportunity, and that’s an important lesson. Often, you're not going to have all of the answers, and that's OK. Sure, it doesn't always feel comfortable, but it's about embracing that and realising it's part of the process, and not a sign that to quit and move on. For us, this was the craziest month of our lives, but it was so fun, super awesome, and, in the end, I think it turned out pretty amazing!
Kellogg's - Mission Tiger
This is from when I was at Leo Burnett Chicago, and had the amazing privilege of working on iconic brands like Frosted Flakes. Specifically, I remember this moment when we were doing some in-home research. There was this particular family, they had a little kid, they showed him a picture of Tony the Tiger and were like, 'Do you know who this is?'. The kid said, 'I don't know, a weird bear?'. It was an 'oh my gosh' moment. This iconic character that we've all grown up with - one that's part of North American childhoods - was about to go away if we didn't do a better job of acting like it was an icon. We had turned Tony the Tiger into a cereal salesman, versus letting him be the character he was created to be. So, we went back to his roots.
To do this, we visited the Kellogg’s building. Did you know that they have a library that has all of the work ever created on their brands? We went there to figure out why Tony was created, and what his role was. The result was 'Mission Tiger', which was all about helping people get to great. It was basically Tony the Tiger rallying to get more sports back up and running in schools across the US, which was a troublesome topic, given the fact that whenever a school ran out of money or funding, sports would get cut. But more than that, it also explored how things like community, playing, learning and failing help people get to greatness - all things we as a society had been losing!
Even today, this campaign is still running, which, for me, is the greatest mark of success. We came up with this idea, we really believed in it, and we gave Tony the Tiger his rightful place as an amazing authority on kid greatness.
Subway - Yesway
During my first week at Dentsu Creative (I started August 2022), I met Lisa Mazurkewich, our client on Subway. She came in to say, 'I just want to do breakthrough, amazing work, I want to have a platform that I can grow into, and I want to get the brand swagger back!'. Not only was I immediately like, ‘I love this woman!’, but it kicked us into gear as we spent a lot of time figuring out how to have the right team, the right briefs, and the right vision to do that.
I think that often client-agency relationships start to falter - it begins to feel like a vendor relationship. But with Subway, that was never the case. Right from the start we just united and formed a real partnership, which is super important. With a partnership, you really feel like you have accountability to them (and vice versa), and the work just gets better. That sheer passion you both have leads to success, and helps you get through even the hardest of days. I believed in Lisa and Subway, she believed in me, and we created ‘Yesway’, which is now doing super well in market.
One thing I love about it is the fact that it’s got all these iconic Canadian athletes, but also just regular people like this young girl who skateboards. I think it’s super cool, and am proud to feature more than just the people who you’d expect to see in any glossy advertising campaign. But, with that said, it was also super cool to work with such big names. Specifically, I remember being on set the day we were going to shoot Scottie Barnes. Everyone was like, 'Oh my gosh, when do we get to say how to Scottie Barnes?', but then got too nervous and retreated to some other room… Including me! It was his moment! He was just larger than life, and I never met him because I was too shy!
MINI Cooper - Let there be Xenon
This is a great example of how the magic is in the details. Initially, we had the idea for real headlights at the top of a building and we had written a line about great new headlights, but when our CCO at the time, Lance Martin, saw it, he immediately said: 'You can do better than that'. So, we kept pushing and eventually Ryan Wagman landed the line 'Let There Be Xenon', which took the idea to the next level. Then it got to finding the right lights. I’ll never forget how Troy McGuiness (my partner at the time) went and searched for lights for the top of the building. None of the ones he found were bright enough, so he searched the entire country to find the right ones. We knew we nailed it when we got a call from the aviation society asking us to take them down... because we were distracting the aeroplanes! That was a fun little PR moment!
All in all, it just goes to show that even if the work is seemingly small - like a billboard - it can still be a huge opportunity. Especially back then, when outdoor was a lot more in-your-face, there was a real art to doing it well. It's hard to craft your idea with so few words! And then, it's all about those little decisions you make along the way, like fighting for the brighter lights, and fighting harder for a better headline. In the end, when you see it, it's like advertising perfection. (Also yes, it was a real car on the billboard!)
SkipTheDishes - The Inflation Cookbook
As a concept, it sounds so simple, right? We're all being challenged by the cost of groceries in a truly meaningful, impactful way. It is an experience that every single Canadian is having - not just a sector of the population - and we're seeing the implications of that. People are skipping meals, feeding their kids but not themselves, eating every other day, or just eating really poorly, because often, unhealthy stuff is cheaper than healthy stuff. This last insight was what we focused on. We knew we couldn't solve the food price issue, but we could make people more informed. So, we asked ourselves, 'How do we help people feel more empowered?'.
This idea really started to gain momentum when we spoke to a professor of food and agriculture at Dalhousie University. He was talking to us about trends, and was like 'Right now, the price of pork is down, so you should load your freezer with pork, but in two weeks, don't buy pork, and while you're at it, don't buy dairy!'. Immediately, I wondered what going grocery shopping with the guy would be like. Imagine how cost effective it would be! Right then and there, we realised we could create a true service, helping people feel less lost when facing the problem of what they could buy for the money that they have.
That alone sounds simple, but once we committed to doing it based on real-time food prices, it became really hard. How were we going to get that data? How were we going to build the application? And how would we optimise it to work regardless of what city a person lived in? But, what I love about a creative mind is that all you see are possibilities. What was amazing to me, truly, was watching all of these different people come together to figure it out. We needed legal help, we needed data help, we needed tech help, and all these amazing people across the Dentsu network were like, 'I'll jump in and support that!'. It felt like the legs of a race. The legal would take it for a bit, and then the data guy would take it for a bit, and then the business leadership would take it for a bit, and then we were designing the interface, and so on. When that happens, it's just incredible. All these people with unique skill sets were working together to make this seemingly easy thing possible. It blew me away!
JEMS - F-ing Old
This one was driven by an insight we had sitting on the table: the fact that older people are having a lot of sex. Undoubtedly that is a good thing, but they are not using protection... which is not great for their health. However, bringing that up is hard. Of course people blush and giggle at first, but we realised that nobody really want to talk about it, including doctors. So, this demographic is sharing around STIs without knowing it. Imagine being 80, you already are a little bit fragile in your health, and then you get an STI that is not being taken care of. It's very dangerous!
From this, we realised that if people could just talk about it, it wouldn't be a problem. So we had to figure out how to do it without being embarrassing, talking down to them, or making them feel silly. (Plus, we want old people to have sex, because it's good for their health!). The result was us creating a candy company. It was driven by the insight that when you go to your grandparents' house, they're always like 'Have this candy!'. So, we turned that into an icebreaker. It's funny, charming and it uses empowering language to help ensure the conversation around safety happens.
After that, while looking for a client partner, we came across JEMS Condoms. The brand is women-led, and its whole mission is to break down taboos and make safe sex for all. So, when we met, it was magical. We were like 'We're in love, let's put this out in the world and get that conversation started!'. We worked with them for six months to make it a reality, and again, we faced a lot of unknowns. For example, we had no idea how to make a candy company. But Dare Foods is one of our clients, so we reached out to them and they gave us a tutorial on starting out. It was just a cool, fun experience, and I love the final design. It's beautiful, charming and lovely, and it's not intimidating. But most of all, I feel like it contributed to breaking down stereotypes in a meaningful way.
