Alex Bogusky: The Fast Company Interview

UPDATE: Here's the article online.

You've probably seen the cover of the latest Fast Company floating around the interwebs. You know, the one with Alex Bogusky on the cover. Oh yeah, that one. As a big fan of Crispin Porter + Bogusky I had to go out and grab a copy (since it's not on Fast Company's site yet). Here's my reaction:

When an article starts with "He looked like Jesus..." you know it's gonna be really good or really bad. The first paragraph mentions Bogusky speaking at the New Denver Ad Club in April 2007, a nice little plug for the local club. The first few pages give lots of fodder to either Bogusky camp; for the haters or the lovers (hit the poll below to let me know where you fall), lots of mentions about how he turned around Burger King, launched Mini, made smoking uncool with The Truth, etc. There's an interesting graphic on the second page that details Micosofts ad campaigns since 1995. Funny how the first two from Wieden+Kennedy are memorable (Start me up, Where do you want to go today?) and the rest, from the purveyors of mediocrity, McCann-Erikson, are pretty forgettable.

Then come quotes like this:

Bogusky works on a raised platform in Crispin's 70,000-square-foot space, which once housed an indoor soccer field. His desk seems almost to levitate above the vast openness. A shiny new silver Mac-Book Air sits in front of him, next to his aviator sunglasses.

Wow, that really makes him seem Jesus-esque. It also brings to mind an issue that's touched on a few times in the article, but never in depth: how do you sell Microsoft when your whole company uses Macs? Granted, that Mac Book Air could be running Windows, but still it seems a bit ironic.

But alas when the Microsoft work does appear (rumored to happen in July) it will be the result of Andrew Keller and Rob Reilly who have taken over Bogusky's creative post while he move on to talk strategy and focus on growing the company internationally.

Then comes what we've all been thinking the whole time: the thought that Crispin has one good shot at making Microsoft cool. They will either succeed amazingly and be elevated to God status in the ad world (some would argue they're there now) or fail miserably and have to prove themselves all over again to the world to show that they haven't lost the magic.

July can't come any quicker.

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Need more Bogusky? Here's another Fast Company interview with him on What Paris Hilton Can Teach you about Branding