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Joyce King Thomas BJ '78

When Joyce King Thomas, BJ '78, wrote a MasterCard commercial nearly a decade ago with the simple tagline "Priceless," she never could have guessed that it would turn into a global phenomenon. Now running in more than 100 countries, the MasterCard "Priceless" campaign has invaded popular culture, showing up everywhere from Late Night with David Letterman to The Simpson's to the Brazilian presidential election. The campaign reversed MasterCard's 15-year share decline and has resulted in double-digit growth in nearly every quarter since then. "Priceless" is just one of many successful campaigns Thomas has worked on in nearly 30 years in the business.

Now the chief creative officer of McCann Erickson's flagship New York office, Thomas is only one of four female chief creative officers in the 33 largest American advertising agencies. She has worked for several of the country's largest agencies, on some of America's best known brands: Wendy's, Marriott, Chase Manhattan Bank, Jell-O and Frito Lay, among them. Here, Thomas relates about life as a creative chief, her memories of the Missouri School of Journalism and the future of advertising.

Links

Dec. 6, 2005 Thomas to Speak at Fall Commencement Ceremonies McCann Erickson

Media Files

Commencement Ceremony MP3 File Commencement Ceremony Podcast Feed Text of Commencement Address by Joyce King Thomas, BJ '78

You became creative chief at McCann Erickson in October 2004. How has your job changed since then?
There's a big difference. I was an executive creative director running a few businesses before. Now I oversee about 30 accounts and the 150 creative people who work on those accounts.

What is most challenging about your new responsibilities?
When you become a manager, you have to handle a lot more than your own work. You have to juggle staff issues, client issues. And, in your spare time you have to make sure the agency has an overall direction, and that the direction is forward.

What is a typical day like as a creative chief?
I come in at about 8:30 a.m. to try to get a bit of work done before the rest of the creative department comes in. I generally have meetings starting at 9 a.m. and they go straight through until 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., maybe later. In the morning, for example, a team and a producer might come in with rough cuts of a commercial. Then I might look at a rough storyboard for a new MasterCard spot. Later I might have a creative briefing where we bring in about 10 people and talk about a new product Wendy's is introducing. We might talk about a few ideas to sell the product. Then I might have a meeting about a new account that we think we can win or a review in which we've been asked to participate. It's all different phases of the process of making ads all day long, all mixed up.

Do you feel removed from the creative process with so much responsibility?
I do, a little bit. But I'm still acting as day-to-day creative director on MasterCard and Wendy's, so that keeps me close to the work. I don't get to go on as many shoots as I used to, which I miss. But I have an open door policy, so people come in and show me ideas all day. That keeps me close to the work. I'd be pretty miserable if all I did was administrative work all day.

You are the creative force behind the "Priceless" MasterCard campaign that has had enormous success for almost a decade now. What makes that campaign so successful?
I think that everyone can relate to it. Another reason it's successful is because it's the ultimate interactive campaign. You don't just watch it; you're actually trying to guess what's going to be priceless. You are engaged, involved and more of a participant than just a viewer. I also think it has worked because it is connected really well to the product. It's not just "another moment brought to you by MasterCard." It's actually how you can use your card to buy things that lead you to something money can't buy.

Are there other campaigns that you consider your favorites?
A few years ago, we worked on a campaign to introduce Lucent Technologies. The company was spinning off from AT&T and had a bit of an inferiority complex. We had to find a way to give that company a personality. We actually met with a lot of people at the company including some of the scientists at Bell Labs. We met a lot of amazing thinkers, including a Nobel prize-winning scientist, and what struck us was that they were just brilliant people who would speak to you in a down-to-earth way. So we decided to create a campaign as if one of those brilliant scientists was typing a classified ad telling the world that the talented, award-winning people of Lucent were now available to you. It was quite a successful campaign for them and was distinctive at the time.

What is it like to give a big "pitch," like the one to the Army account that McCann Erickson just won?
It's a humongous undertaking to pitch an account like the U.S. Army because you have to learn a lot incredibly quickly. You can't look at it from the outside. You have to come from the inside out. That means a lot of research, so that you have a real understanding of the product and the people most apt to use it. You end up with a lot of teams working night and day. And towards the end, it's truly around the clock.

You have made several career moves in advertising. How have they prepared you to be at the top of the field?
It really wasn't a straight line to the job I wanted. First, the J-School prepared me for figuring out the "news" of advertising. Advertising is just communicating about a product in the most simple and memorable way possible. I worked at a recruitment advertising agency in St. Louis first. It was not a very glamorous job at all. I would take dictation; I would re-write ads; I would write brochures. Then I worked at a tiny agency in Oklahoma. Then to another job. And another. Whenever I wasn't perfectly happy, I kept looking for another job until I had the job I wanted. And, I kept working on my portfolio.

What did you learn at the J-School that prepared you for your career?
Honestly, I think I got a little bit of everything. The news classes forced me to sit down and just write. The professors gave you the facts, pointed you at a typewriter, and expected you to make it coherent in 20 minutes. That's something I still try to do. I try to just put the story down, from the beginning to the end, even if it's terrible, and then improve it from there. I remember the magazine classes and design classes were inspiring. As a teaching assistant in advertising, I graded other students' ads, and that taught me to evaluate work quickly-using my gut. It was the only way to get through the huge stack of ads I had to grade.

What are your best memories of the J-School?
Frank Dobyns, the head of advertising, was smart and warm and funny. I got to know some great people at the J-School. Mitch Burke, who founded and then sold a very successful entertainment company, was a good friend. Another friend, Cal Fussman, became a writer for Sports Illustrated and Esquire. The annual AEF (Advertising Educational Foundation) competition was also a wonderful experience. A group of four of us competed within the School, then regionally, and then placed third nationally.

What advice would you give to current students?
I think the main thing is just keep moving. Don't expect a promotion. Don't expect a job that you have to become a better job. Just keep moving yourself forward. It's not that difficult to find what you want. But you have to be in charge of your career and your life. It just doesn't end up in your lap.

Former WPP Group worldwide creative director Neil French made headlines in late 2005 when he publicly claimed that women don't deserve top advertising jobs. What do you say to critics who share similar views of women in advertising?
That thinking is dinosaur thinking. It's irrelevant, and people who think like that are making themselves irrelevant. I would say that women have more than 50 percent of the purchasing power now, though that wasn't always the case. So you better make sure you have people who can talk to women in a relevant, empathetic way.

What is the biggest misconception about the advertising business?
Advertising can't make people buy what they don't want to buy. Advertising just builds an argument or frames a case. You either build a strong case or you don't. It is communication, not manipulation.

How do you see advertising changing in the years to come?
The changes that are happening right now are significant. Broadcast television is splintering with TiVo and DVR. There are millions of destinations on the Web. Reaching people is going to be more complicated than ever. Consumers are going to be able to opt out of advertising, especially broadcast, so advertising is going to have to be even more engaging and compelling to reach them at the right place at the right time. That's the biggest change, and it's on the mind of every advertiser.