Design Feast Series: Quotes

“Our intentions are good.

There. That’s it. Our big, sweeping, trademarkable agency philosophy. Go ahead and throw a ™ on it.

WHAT? Your intentions are good? Who the hell cares about your intentions? I want your work to be good. Your thinking. Your people. Here’s a crazy one—I want your results to be good. I’d even take your client dinners to be good. But your intentions?

Ah, patience, Grasshopper. Sure our work is great and we have tremendous passion, yadda yadda yadda, but it honestly all starts with a couple of simple intentions. Namely, 1. Do right by our clients. 2. Do right by our people.

Something incredible happens when you actively work to do right by people. You become utterly unafraid. Unafraid to have messy conversations. Unafraid to advocate unpopular stances. Unafraid to upend applecarts. Unafraid to hit reset buttons. Unafraid to simply be open and willing.

This fearlessness also leads to disagreement. Lively debate. Occasionally, even awkward silence. Because we will poke and prod and question in pursuit of doing something meaningful in the marketplace. If either the Emperor or that precious, board-approved marketing plan appears to us to be strolling down the avenue naked, we’re going to let you know. With respect, of course. We find there’s a reason why clients will actually listen and consider an opposing point of view or an entirely new direction: because our intentions are good.

We’re unafraid to be honest with ourselves, too. We all know all too well that agencies are adept at pulling the wool, adding spin, sugar-coating and just plain avoiding truth.

So we actively nurture a culture where honesty and respect thrive. We guide careers and help people grow. We simultaneously foster both collaboration and debate. Intelligence wins the day here. Egos are cut down at the knees. We value transparency: At our agency you’ll find almost no solid walls. And we happen to have a finely calibrated asshole detector, so none of those types slip through. If we had to explain the method behind all this madness, it would be this: We believe Integrity is actually a competitive business advantage. There’s a reason why we’re able to attract and retain the most talented people in the business: because our intentions are good.

The question is, Can you get to great, meaningful work without doing right by your clients, or your people? The answer is once. Maybe twice. But then you would most certainly have to go out to find some new employees to lure into your web and a new client to sell a bill of goods to.

And that’s exactly how we don’t do it. Because, well, you know. Our intentions are good.”

Venables Bell, Advertising Agency