Happy New Year: David Rolfe

2012 has been a year of great change for David Rolfe, who moved to BBDO New York in the spring to become Director of Integrated Production at the agency. LBB caught up with Rolfe for a festive review of the past 12 months and to find out why social has been the standout star-of-the-year.

 

LBB> What was in your letter to Santa this year?

 

DR> I don't write letters to Santa. But we have on-again-off-again twitter battles, debating global religion and the notion of a universal deity. Santa may be a good guy but he can stoop pretty low in easily less than 140 characters. I also send him FedExes - because that's our client - containing mixtapes, with some of the coolest music out there 10 years ago.

 

LBB> Naughty or Nice?

 

DR> I try to do naughty very nicely. 

 

LBB> What’s been the best project you’ve been involved in this year and why?

 

DR> Probably our American Red Cross ‘Storytellers’ project. We worked with hundreds of Red Cross constituents and in the most non-solicitous manner sent them a cardboard box with a donated digital camera and some docu-making basics and a brief follow-up to ask if they wanted to share their experience. We learned that the experience of documenting one’s own story, having undergone dramatic life-adversity and with gratitude for the Red Cross and its indiscriminate aid, was itself cathartic. Gratitude poured forth, but it also indirectly verified that self-expression is itself a stage in healing. We had hundreds of hours of the purest expression I've ever seen. Daughters as directors. Self-filming as diary making. A family gathered around a camera.

 

LBB> Aside from anything you’ve worked on, what’s been you’re favourite piece of advertising of the year and why?

 

DR> I think social is pretty much the new hero. We vaunted the consumer a few years ago so it’s old news. But I think the big wins may be more imperceptible. So I'm not sure. But there's a tweet somewhere that would probably win for me.

 

LBB> Favourite book, film and album of 2012?

 

DR> ‘Start-up Nation’ and the ‘Art of Fielding’. I didn't see enough films - felt like ‘TV’ has been the big winner lately.

 

LBB> Personal highlight of 2012?

 

DR> Federer taking Wimbledon and moving to New York, in that order.

 

LBB>   … and what’s been the worst thing about 2012?

 

DR> CT.

 

LBB> Most exciting development of the last 12 months? 

 

DR> Some uncertainty in marketing and advertising persists, yet it’s exhilarating. Agencies must strive to give value and clients ought to trust in the might and of big picture thinking - both in terms of execution-singularity and its by-products.

 

LBB> Any New Year’s Resolutions?

 

DR> Hold on to my racquet.

 

LBB> Predictions for 2013?

 

DR> Some tumult. Better sense of 'results' from the experimental, which will reveal both good and bad (for the experimental). Probably deeper exploration of compensation models, in agencies. More and more understanding (with absorption) of the radically new context of where and how we consume media.