What I learned in my first 100 days at Buzzfeed
Simon Veksner joined BuzzFeed Australia as creative director in December last year. Here, he compares his new role to his adland days, where free biscuits were banned and ‘argument with creative director – 1.5 hrs’ never showed up on the timesheet.
After 20 years of working in ad agencies, I have now spent 100 days at BuzzFeed.
So what’s different?
First of all, the pace. The joke we used to trot out in one of my previous agencies was “we may be slow, but at least we’re expensive.” At BuzzFeed, we’re completing projects in days, not months.
And this can only happen because we make stuff ourselves. Agencies like to talk about being makers, but the truth is, they are outsourcers. Agency creatives make cool stuff in their spare time, but when they get to the office… they suddenly develop camera allergy. We shoot, edit, design and animate in-house.
Data: More walk, less talk
BuzzFeed is also much more data-driven than the world I’ve come from. Nowadays ad agencies have uncountable people with the word ‘data’ or ‘strategy’ in their title – sometimes both – so you’d think there must be a huge quantity of analytics going on.
But if so, it almost never reached me, the creative director. Which is kinda like spending millions developing a high-tech dog food, but then feeding it the same old brisket as before.
Maybe they thought data would upset me. Not true! I always had a suspicion that data would show consumers preferred interesting ideas over boring ideas, so I would have been delighted to have a thousand robots crawling over every decision I made. It just never happened.
Decisions around work seemed to come down to the creative director looking the client in the eye and saying: “This is going to be awesome.” Data? Not so much.
Which is odd, because that’s not how clients operate in their own businesses. A telco wouldn’t open a new store in a shopping centre without poring over demographic info and foot traffic.
At BuzzFeed, there is lots of data – we are swimming in it. And we use it. The creatives are constantly looking at what is working and not working with our audience, right down to the individual words used in headlines.
At ad agencies, I’d grown used to the notion that we were playing a kind of game: consumers were basically trying to avoid us, and we were trying to hook their attention so we could sneak in a sell. But I’ve learned it doesn’t have to be that way. If you use real data and insights to create content that’s based on what people are genuinely interested in, then they are not only happy to consume it, but they’ll even share it with others… even though it’s branded.
Now, we need to talk about culture. Culture isn’t parties. Culture isn’t giving staffers $50 to go out and buy a personal desk-lamp to express their individuality. (Yes, that actually happened at one place I worked). And culture isn’t built by committees.
Culture is who you hire. BuzzFeed has a ‘no haters’ policy, and diversity. Too many companies are still just saying they want a diverse workforce. It’s really not hard. Just hire that way.
Focussing on the consumer
I’ve learned to deploy a more ruthless focus on the audience. Clients are great at this in their actual business. Like, when telcos figure out we want to be able to roll over our data, they rush to let us do it. But when it comes to their communications, they have a tendency to drop this ruthless focus on the consumer for a ruthless focus on themselves. And ad agencies let them get away with it, because they’re scared of losing the account.
At BuzzFeed, our starting point is what consumers are interested in. Why is so much of our content about puppies, pizza, dating, shopping, and babies? Because that’s what we’ve found our audience are interested in. The job becomes figuring out how to make the fee-free ATM or data rollover announcement into something people care about.
I’ve learned that it’s very simple to generate teamwork: you just give everyone the same KPI. In ad agencies, there’s more a system of (how can I put this…) creative tension. The suits, planners and creatives all have different KPIs.
On a good day, the resulting pressures create fireworks. On a bad day, you just spend all of that day arguing. How much time did we waste in ad agencies fighting each other? Impossible to say, since ‘argument with creative director – 1.5 hrs’ never shows up on the timesheets. But it’s a lot.
Finally, there’s a noticeable difference in ‘vibe’. The ad agency model is more than 100 years old, and the structure is making creaking sounds like a submarine that’s about to implode. I recall with sadness an all-staff email at one of my previous agencies announcing “the end of free biscuits”.
BuzzFeed is new and growing. And the snacks, my friends, are unlimited.
Simon Veksner joined BuzzFeed Australia as creative director in December last year.
Sounds like purgatory.
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Enjoy the unwarranted smugness all Buzzfeed employees adopt as much as you can before you lose all your previous friends who can no longer stand your listicles and boring bragging about unlimited snacks mate.
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Great article. Couple of comments though.
For someone so infatuated with data you should know there’s likely to be a significantly higher number of horror stories after ten years some place than after three months. So not really comparing apples to apples, are we?
So you’re saying they hire base on the applicant’s genitalia and skin colour? Nice.
No haters? Except for white people of course. Oh, and men. And conservatives, duh. Yeah, no hate there. And no actual diversity either then. But whose counting?
Using data the way you guys use it is killing creativity. How about using it to document actual effect on brands (effect on sales from all those likes and shares you get from the brilliantly tweaked headlines (i.e. lists)).
Seems to me your view on data and diversity has something in common. Superficial and deceptive.
Wow, you found people like puppies pizza, dating and shopping. You are geniuses after all, aren’t you?
I honestly cannot think of a more horrible place to work, being bossed around by a bunch of authoritarian millenials. Simon, you’re like a newly-wed. Three months in you’re still in love. Fair enough.
I give it a year. If you’re still in love, you have officially been institutionalised. And if that can happen to an intelligent Gen-X: abandon hope all ye who enter Buzzfeed.
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@The Devil’s Advocate
You sound like an absolute douchebag. The guy is clearly enjoying himself and you try to tear him down.
The media industry has moved on from that attitude, maybe you should just move on in general.
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@The Devil’s Advocate– Where do work? Need to ensure we’re never in a room together with a client.
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Hmmmm…I think the two previous commenters, despite their complete inability to respond to any of my points, may have a point.
I’m being too harsh on Simon here. I’m sure he’s a nice guy and glad he found a job he liked.
Sorry Simon. Honestly.
Buzzfeed is still an indoctrination camp though.
@newguard
Next time you find yourself in a room with a man who makes you feel out of your depth….it’s probably me.
What was that? Narrow it down you say?
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@ TDA
Judging by your comments comments, I’d say we are looking for:
– A white male, aged 40- 50
– Potentially clean shaven, bald and sporting black, thick rectangular glasses (Moby style)
– You are jaded from his many years in media and claim a LinkedIn title like ‘media professional’ – even though you are anything but
– You will try to appear relevant and assimilate with your much younger (and probably more driven and successful) peers – eg – wear Converse sneakers and Nudie Jeans – although all you really want is a warm cup of tea and someone to hug you and tell you everything will be ok.
– Despite your wannabe ‘cool older guy facade’ you cannot deny your age and and the stereotypical 70’s attitude – e.g – you will often whinge that people are to easily offended, people are soft these days, diversity is a waste of time, ‘in my day’ stories, etc
– You will continue to troll and harass people on Mumbrella, believing that you are edgy and funny. The reality is you do no work, get no recognition in your role and generally ‘just exist’ in the middle rungs of agency land – safe and anonymous.
Finally, can you prove that I’m wrong and give your name, rank and title?
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The funny thing is that you, with your simplistic, stereotypical view of the world, got it so wrong.
I bet I’m better than this than you.
You’re one of those people who get really offended when other people resort to ageist, racial and gender stereotypes.
One of those people who, if I talked in the same condescending way about, say, black females aged 20-30, would climb up on your moral high horse, absolutely outraged.
One of those tolerant, compassionate people who, if I told you who I was, would gather all your cool, liberal friends and bully me out of the industry.
One of those people who are pathologically incapable of constructing a single argument on your own, resorting instead to ad hominems (managing, in the process, to be ageist, sexist and racist).
One of those people for whom an apology from one’s opponent will never suffice, nor does it ever occur to them to give one themselves.
Because if you admit to yourself that you’re wrong about even the most insignificant detail, your entire ideological house of cards will come crashing down over you.
But deep down in that tiny brain of yours, there’s the tiniest tinge of an itch…”what if he’s right”, it says.
I hope you keep nurturing that itch by exposing yourself to comments by people wiser than you.
(Or, you just have a small penis)
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