4. Always tell the truth
iMedia: Do you have a personal mantra or golden rule of advertising?
Bogusky: No, I don't think it's a personal mantra, because you're discovering the brand and discovering what needs to be changed about pop culture, so the brand and the offering you're working on becomes an obvious choice for the culture. That's our way of going about things. We don't want to find some trend and then do advertising that basically lies about the product to attach it to the trend in the hope that it will sell. If it's Burger King, and we want to help guys who are being inundated with the notion of metrosexuality, understand that it's OK to have a killer burger -- that's a great path. And that's going to help our client become an offer that's culturally relevant. I don't want to do CP+B work; I want to do the right work for the client.
5. Look ahead but not too far
iMedia: What excites you about the future?
Bogusky: What's always kept me in it is that it's ever-changing. I get asked a lot to predict where things are going in media; for some reason, people think we have an idea. There are so many pieces moving at the same time. I can look at the sponge business and make some assumptions, but the media business is so complex that it's all chaos theory. We try to think about what's going to be possible 15 minutes from now. That's worked pretty well for us.
6. Do what you like, not what you want
iMedia: If you were a young person excited about the business, how would you prepare yourself to do great work?
Bogusky: At first, you have to just get started and learn more about what it is that you really like about the business. Sometimes you talk to young people and they think they want to be an art director, but you realize they're more of a writer. You talk to an art director and you see that the only time their eyes begin to sparkle is when they talk about the toys they make. And you realize: that's a toymaker. And yet, there's probably a lot of pressure at school and at home to do something because you're good at it. Yeah, you're good at that, but your eyes light up when you talk about this.
You have to discover that for yourself, and you can discover it at any place. Be open-minded and just slide toward those things that give you joy.
Susan Kuchinskas is a freelance writer who has written for Adweek, Business 2.0, M-Business and internetnews.com.