Matt Sawyers
Creative Director, Mascola Advertising
Matt is a teacher. He teaches tennis. He teaches a course on Copy and Ad Layout at the University of Hartford. And he has taught everyone at Mascola a thing or two about strategy, creative, and how they cannot live without one another. He learned that from his many years working with brands like Milton Bradley, General Electric, Konica, Smirnoff and Cannondale. Put simply, Matt has his finger on the pulse of every brand that comes through our doors.
A conversation with Matt
How did you get into this business?
I was a journalist and I discovered that I wasn’t making enough money to order clams casino when I went out to eat. And I love clams casino because you get the clams and the bacon and the garlic and the bread and butter with it. With advertising, you get to write creatively, and you get to have clams casino.
Why do you stay in this business?
Because I get to learn about dozens of industries and all the people in all those businesses and industries. It’s a window to the world, where the perspective changes constantly. It can be difficult and demanding, but rarely dull.
Are there any industries that you’re interested in? Or you just like learning about everything?
I like learning about everything. I like the fact that we work on The Big E, this massive country fair that brings a million pieces of American lives into one place during a three-week period. It’s an amazing experience. Boating is its own world. Skiing is its own world. Every single client represents a different world: different consumers, different ways of thinking.
Do you have a specific method for coming up with ideas and solutions for different clients or do you just wing it?
Well, the creative work we do is partly about process – assembling data and getting informed about the truth of a client’s business and their brand. But when you render creative work, it’s intuitive and subjective. Focusing too much on the process can put the creative in a straightjacket.
That being said, I always go back to this book by James Webb Young. It’s called A Technique for Producing Ideas, and it’s a basic 4-step process embraced by Bill Burnbach as a way to get to the soul of good creative work.
Finish the sentence. A good brand is…
Clear and truthful about itself. Brands get confused when there are so many factors influencing what they should “be”. If a brand isn’t honest and the advertising work that supports it isn’t truthful in some way, it’s going to fall down. When Pontiac tried to sell Pontiacs to women as good, reliable cars it fell apart because it’s just not true.
What is a great client?
A great client is one that empowers the agency, stands by the agency, stands up to the agency, stands with the agency, but is a partner in the process who doesn’t lose sight of the goal and isn’t afraid to fight the good fight for work that deserves to see the light of day.
So, if you could tell a client only one thing, what would it be?
Thinking is great, but don’t spend too much time doing it. Thinking has its limitations. If clients can use some intuition in terms of how to work with an agency to develop creative work, then you have the chance to make the brand stand for something more than just what makes sense intellectually. It has a life of its own.
What is the worst writing assignment you’ve ever had?
I once wrote copy for a company that makes automatic bathroom deodorizers. That was tough. On the flip side, I’ve developed a few games for Milton Bradley, and wrote mystery stories for a jigsaw puzzle company. So it all evens out.
What games did you help develop for Milton Bradley?
Scattegories, Taboo, one called True Colors – those are the three main ones.
What do you love more, strategy or creative?
You might as well ask whether you prefer love or sex. You can have either, but most people will agree that great things happen when they truly belong to one another.