The Tuesday Rant: Come On, Stop Saying Denver’s An Ad Town

By / August 6, 2008 /

Volume 4 In a Series By Felix

Time for a reality check. Denver is not an ad town; well, not yet anyway. You may think this is a hotbed of creative activity. You may believe that the rest of the ad world looks to Denver for the next big idea. But until Crispin Porter + Bogusky arrived on the scene recently, Denver has struggled to even be a blip on the advertising radar. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an ad town. At the moment, it’s not even close.

As I was reading through the many comments on an interesting Denver Egotist post about interactive, I came across several heated conversations involving someone called David Stone. There were a few other folks involved, too, but David was the common factor. Here’s a direct quote from Mr. Stone giving advice to another writer in town:

“Once you believe it’s an advertising town, you’ll be fine. Because the people you want to work with, know it’s an advertising town.”

What? Really? So if we take David at his word, all you have to do is screw your eyes up real tight, wish to the big wishing star that Denver is this cool advertising town (well, city) like New York, London, San Fran, Sydney, Chicago, hell, even Minneapolis, and then whoosh; the great big ad genie turns Denver into a furious hive of advertising activity.

When you open your eyes, there will be big-name agencies everywhere with dozens of international clients. When people ask where you work you can say Denver with a smile, knowing they’ll reply “Wow, Denver. That’s so cool. I work in New York but I’d love to come to Denver where the big boys play.” Advertising Age will start doing features on Denver, the ad capital of the world.

Ogilvy, BBH, Mother, TBWA, Fallon, they’ll all rush to open offices here, just like CP+B did. And not just because they want to go mountain-biking, kayaking, skiing and snowboarding (you cynic, how could you think that?). No, they’ll come here because this is the greatest advertising city on Earth to work in. And they’ll bring with them those giants of industry, like Budweiser, Nike, Audi, GE, Disney, maybe even Google. Not just for the boring work, mind you. It won’t all be junk mail, bill stuffers and direct sale websites. No, they’ll actually do the big thinking right here in the mile high city.

Headhunters will start to spring up from the woodwork, poaching teams from one huge agency and delivering them to the next on a golden platter. Advertising teams will appear. Yes, teams; those things Bill Bernbach helped to create. Strong Copywriter/Art Director teams like Tom Carty and Walter Campbell; not five designers and one copywriter who’s told to stop writing things that mess up the pretty pictures.

And I’ll go one step further – if you do get laid off because of major downsizing (which will be a rare occurrence, as the big agencies don’t pin all of their hopes on one account, like McClain Finlon or the now defunct Thomas & Perkins), don’t worry. This is an ad town, throw a rock and you’ll find another great advertising gig where it lands. You’ll probably get more money, too.

It’s a great dream, isn’t it? But that’s all it is. A dream. Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are so many reasons why Denver is not an ad town right now. If you have evidence that Denver is actually an ad town, let’s hear it. And see it.

Of course, you’ll have to back it up with your definition of an ad town, which is probably different than mine. If it’s more like, “well an ad town is a town where there are more than ten ad agencies and they do work for some clients we’ve actually heard of” then yes, by those terms, congratulations… Denver is indeed an ad town.

But those of us with the ability to lift our heads out of the sand know that as it stands right now, that’s not the truth. Not even close. Does that mean it will never be an ad town? Not at all. Crispin Porter + Bogusky is here and that’s a start. And blogs like this one seek to eliminate the crap (of which there is plenty) and ceremoniously slap the back of the good. No, strike that. Not the good… the great. Because as we all know, good is the enemy of great.

Does it mean that Denver doesn’t do good work? Hell no. I’m seeing some great work come out of Denver, although not nearly as much as I’d like. Does that mean you should be ashamed to work in Denver? Again, no way. If an agency like CP+B made their home here in Colorado, that says something. However, just because a whale moved here, it doesn’t mean we’re one of the big players. Come on people, put your ego on the back burner, stop making a mountain out of a molehill. Who are you trying to kid?

At the end of the day, you can’t just go around trying to convince everyone that Denver is an ad town and turn that fiction into hard fact. I think Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs said it best: “If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he’ll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don’t necessarily make it fucking so!”