Setting the Scene

By Toby Barlow

I’m a bit obsessed with the idea of “scenes,” i.e.: creative communities that explode onto the scene, reinforcing one another with their brillance. The London music scene that produced Bowie, T. Rex, and Roxy Music. The Paris arts scene that gave us Henry Miller and Anais Nin. The Korean film scene that gave us Bong Jun-Ho and Park Chan-Wook. 

I was lucky to land in a scene when I first began in this business, the San Francisco ad scene of the ‘90s was a wild, energetic environment where the work amazed us and we’d constantly bump into brilliant talent over lunch at Grumpy’s, Hunan, or House of NanKing.

That scene, like Los Angeles and Portland at the same time, existed in defiance of New York. We were different and, while we might not have been better, we felt like we were better. I think that’s part of what makes a scene thrive - a common enemy, a chip on the shoulder.

These days, being based in Detroit can sometimes feel like the opposite of a scene. An anti-scene. The decision by major brands here to hire agencies from far off places like Austin, North Carolina, and New York has the local community feeling bruised.

The origin of this antipathy is easy to see. Detroit shops largely make auto advertising, a genre that hasn’t historically been a beacon of creative wonder, and, of course, it’s easier to blame the agencies than those who brief, review and approve the work. 

We literally heard that a major Detroit company who was starting an account review said to their consultant, “Just don’t bring me a Detroit agency.”

But the funny thing about scenes is that a lot of times they emerge out of these anti-scenes, they come from being the place no “sane” person wants to go. Nothing was less cool than DC in the Reagan era, and yet that’s when and where Dave Grohl, Henry Rollins, and Dischord records got started. I once talked to an artist who’d been a part of Warhol’s Factory in the 60’s and he said, “Back then, if you told your parents you were moving to New York City, they thought you wanted to die.”

So, while winning an Ad Age Small Agency of the Year award is a very great honor, it’s even more satisfying to do it out of Detroit. And to do it with a roster of unusual clients. A bit of auto, sure, but also some Netflix, a little Amazon, some Google, plus fun stuff like McClure’s Pickles, The Detroit Opera, and The Toledo Museum of Art.  Keeping the roster interesting has proved to be a great way to keep the work interesting. It’s been, I hope, an inspiring demonstration of what this market can do.

And that chip on the shoulder? Yeah, it’s still there every single morning when I wake up, just as chipper as ever.