The Way I See It: David Lubars

shots issue 132 is just about to hit people's desks and this issue's cover star, BBDO North America chief creative officer David Lubars, heads a star line-up that includes recent UK Music Video Awards-winners and French directing stars Megaforce, the co-founder and creative director of onedotzero Shane Walter, a host of South African creative legends and much more besides. Here we take a sneak peek at some of Lubars' musings. 

- I would describe myself as a private person. I’m very proud of the agency and our work – I have no shyness about promoting that whatsoever. But I don’t put up pictures of my dog on Facebook, whereas some people just can’t stop talking about themselves on the internet or on reality TV – every horrible wart.

- I grew up in Brooklyn, NY. It was a mixture of Irish, black, Italian and Jewish – kind of a mutt neighbourhood. It was very cool in a lot of ways, although the 70s were probably the worst time in New York in terms of everything disintegrating. But it did make us street smart.

- My father was an excellent writer. He was in magazines, PR and, at one point, advertising. He did a brilliant campaign for Listerine in the 70s. It was when [rival brand] Scope said Listerine tasted like medicine. His campaign retort was: “Listerine. The taste you hate twice a day.” A brilliant judo move, pulling the problem towards you.

- I love music and have about 26,000 songs on my iPod. I don’t categorise by genre. Duke Ellington said, ‘there are two kinds of music: good music and the other kind’. I try to listen to the good.

- I was short when I was growing up. It’s an uncomfortable thing, being smaller than everyone – including the girls. Then, during a ten-month span in high school I literally grew a foot and became 6’2’’. For a while I went around finding whichever kid I thought had been an asshole, to sort him out.

- I can’t remember the first advertisement I ever wrote, but I can assure you it was terrible. It took me a couple of years to find any kind of footing. I remember other young creatives of the era whom I respected were well ahead of me – in simplicity, in quality of ideas. I worked extremely hard to catch up with them.  

- I love the fact that the BMW films we did at Fallon are part of the permanent exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, but actually the intent was to sell cars – it was art in the service of capitalism. My partner at AMV London, Farah Ramzan Golant, puts it this way: In advertising, a client asks a question and we answer it. Whereas pure art poses and answers its own question.

- Mad Men is supposedly based on BBDO but I think it’s an amalgam. I watch this show and a lot of it is painfully close to the truth and a lot is just silly. I reckon someone involved in creating Mad Men obviously doesn’t like McCann because it takes a lot of shots at them, but it’s very complimentary to BBDO.

- I dislike people whose most important client is themselves. They’ve built their own brand but have never done anything great. The legitimately great creative person is well known for his or her work.

- The few enemies I’ve had are business associates who did something I found to be unethical or unforgiveable. As I say, there are only a few, but I hold grudges forever.

The new issue of shots, issue 132, is out now. To subscribe please click here.