In 2018 during our first month at BBDO, my partner Jolie Guz and I were asked to take over the official @BBDONY agency Instagram account with our own interpretation of what “The Work, The Work, The Work” meant to us. So we created our own Spotify mixtape for each department, consisting of songs that embodied that unique grind they each faced. We also designed album covers for each mixtape, and worked with BBDO Studios to print a physical vinyl record for the photoshoot. Did we need to do that? No. Did we want to put in overtime to exploit the opportunity and get our own vinyl album made because we knew it would look great on our desks? Yeah of course.

Because that’s what “The Work, The Work, The Work” meant to us - always going above and beyond to not just satisfy the requirements of the ask - but to have fun doing it, and create something we could be proud of at the end of the day.

The previous year, my partner Tanner Thompson and I volunteered to lead the BBDO Summer Interns Project. I jumped at the opportunity, because it gave me complete creative control over how the entire intern class would present themselves as a whole to the agency for the first time. And being the compassionate, selfless, and considerate servant-leader that I am, I put aside my own personal interests and listened to the suggestions of every other intern.

And then I decided not to listen to any of them and instead base the entire project on a niche 1970’s set of vintage basketball cards I had collected as a kid. It’s exactly what the people didn’t know they wanted all along.

My partner and I held a photoshoot and personally designed unique trading cards for every single intern at the agency, that listed their own personal "stats” and information on the back. We then worked with BBDO Studios to actually print, produce, cut, and assemble packs of these cards for every single intern and employee who wanted one, and created an online microsite that aggregated and organized the cards by department. It turned out to be a big hit, just like no one thought it would.