Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Smith.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I moved to Dallas in 1994 for two people: A piccolo player and Tom Bodett.
While I was in college at Penn State, the Motel 6 “I’m Tom Bodett, and we’ll leave the light on for you” campaign convinced me that I wanted to write ads for a living. I’d also fallen for a piccolo player named Heather I met in the marching band. I learned quickly after graduating in 1994 that my portfolio wasn’t anywhere near good enough yet. After a few disastrous interviews, a small Dallas agency named MBRK took a chance on me because somebody thought my cover letter was funny.
Through a weird twist of fate, Heather ended up getting a job in Dallas, which just happened to be the home of The Richards Group, the agency that had made the Bodett campaign legendary. So, I quit my waiter gig at the Olive Garden in upstate New York, packed up my bald-tired Mazda Protégé (aka “The Mazdarati”), and drove to Dallas with the hopes of someday making a future with both Heather and TRG. Within two hours of arriving in the city, I was mugged at gunpoint. I was definitely off to an auspicious start. But I had a business card that said “copywriter” on it and my office was withing stumbling distance of Chelsea Corner. Not too shabby.
The mid-to-late ‘90s saw a frenzy of agencies being acquired by larger and larger networks and holding companies. Within just a couple years, our little MBRK family found ourselves absorbed by first a national network (EvansGroup), then a massive global network based in Paris (Publicis). On our first day at the new office, all us acquirees wore berets, thinking it would be funny and show our enthusiasm. It didn’t. We mostly looked ridicule (pardon my French).
In late 1999, after eight less-than-happy months at Publicis, I decided I was ready to take a swing at The Richards Group. In the meantime, I had started performing with the venerable Dallas improv troupe Ad-Libs after Heather had bought me their improv classes as a birthday gift. One of the other performers, Bill Cochran, worked at TRG and vouched for me with the owner, Stan Richards, who reluctantly hired me for a six-month trial. I guess I passed, as I would work there for the next 22 years, eventually becoming a Creative Group Head responsible for a team of creatives and several accounts. In another weird twist of fate, I ended up running the Motel 6 account, as well as iconic Texas grocery stores H-E-B and Central Market. I also worked on 7-Eleven, Zales, Famous Footware, Shamrock Farms Dairy, Bennigan’s (where I first worked with my business partner at Plot Twist, Dave Kroencke), and many, many others.
I kept performing with Ad-Libs, too, doing four shows most weekends for over 15 years and traveling to corporate gigs in Vegas, New York, Pebble Beach, Philly, and various airport Radissons. I still perform occasionally with friends from the troupe, some of whom have gone on to successful full-time comedy and acting careers. Now my performance itch is mostly scratched by serving as emcee and (hopefully) comic relief for advertising award shows in Dallas and elsewhere. I just recently got to host the Radio Mercury Awards in New York, which was a blast. I’ve sorta become the Bob Hope of the buffet-and-glass-trophy set. It’s a chance to give awards to friends I’ve known for years, and also see them all dressed up. I absolutely love it.
Oh, and I married that piccolo player in 1998. Heather is now a financial planner and we have a daughter in college at the University of Minnesota and twin sons at Lake Highlands High School where, fittingly, all three joined the marching band. Go Wildcats!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No road in advertising is what I would call smooth. It’s an incredibly mercurial business full of ups and downs, wins and losses, huge successes and crushing disappointments, sometimes in the same day. Hell, sometimes in the same meeting. But for the most part, I’ve been lucky to have long, relatively stable relationships with great clients and a great team to work with. This job is deadline-driven and subjective in a lot of ways, so that comes with a lot of stress, anxiety, and self-doubt. I’ve spent years learning how to deal with those things, with varying degrees of success.
The funny thing about this job is that even the most successful still have bad days where they think they suck. Or meetings where everything you present dies a flaming death and you walk away thinking you’ve lost your fastball or—gasp!—never really had one. The hard part—but, oddly, the kinda fun part—is shaking that off and starting again (for me, usually after a drink of some variety of brown liquor). Anybody in this business, particularly on the creative side, who says they don’t struggle with Impostor Syndrome is either a liar or a narcissist.
As far as challenges go, what happened at The Richards Group in October of 2020 would be the mother of them all. I’ll let you Google it, but the upshot was that, through no fault of our own, my team and I lost all of our accounts, quite literally overnight. It was crushing and world-altering, and just a tragic situation all around. My heart broke for an agency I loved being a part of for so long. But those long relationships paid off, as two of those accounts, H-E-B and Central Market, said they were committed to continuing to work with our team. We just had to find a way. So, we went out on our own and in January opened a new agency, Plot Twist Creativity. You can probably guess what inspired the name. And so far, things are going really well (stops typing to cross fingers). We have twelve full-time employees, plus a couple part-timers and freelancers. We’re working hard for our clients, doing good work, and the phone is ringing with new assignments. There’s a new plot twist every day!
As you know, we’re big fans of Plot Twist Creativity. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I’m Plot Twist’s Chief Creative Officer, which means that I oversee all the creative output of the agency. At bigger agencies, the person with that title doesn’t do much actual writing. But we’re small, so I still get to write and produce a lot, partially out of necessity but also because I like to write. As an agency Principal, I also share management responsibilities, so I’ll go from a meeting with Dave about healthcare benefits or IT infrastructure to writing funny headlines about asparagus. No two days are the same, that’s for sure.
If I have any notoriety in the industry, it’s mostly because of my work on Motel 6. I either wrote or collaborated on every single commercial for 17 years. It was in the hundreds. I kinda got the reputation as a “radio guy,” so I get to judge a lot of radio at awards shows and speak at radio conventions. The irony is that I’ve done hundreds of TV spots, too. But I like the radio community and it really is a writer’s medium. Here in Texas, we get to work on Central Market and H-E-B. Those are both passion brands for Texans, so it’s fun to hear when our work goes over well. We get the most buzz from our ads with the Spurs, Astros, and Texans. It’s really gratifying to see fans holding up signs at games with lines from our spots on them.
I’m proud of a lot of the work I’ve done, but I’m most proud of the relationships I’ve built. I’
Selling an idea is always a great feeling. But I get an even bigger thrill out of helping my team sell their ideas and make them better. It can be tempting for creative directors to use their position as a chance to sell more of their own ideas, but I’ve never approached it that way. I think if you help people succeed, they want to keep working with you. And besides, if you really want that credit, your name still goes on the trophy.
Speaking of, I’ve been fortunate enough to win some of the industry awards that were so inspirational to me when I first started. That got me invited to judge those same competitions, which has been a great honor and a ton of fun. I’ve become friends with top creatives at agencies all over the world. I’m still shocked to see my name next to theirs on those juries (there’s that Impostor Syndrome again). I also get to lecture at colleges (including my alma mater Penn State, a huge thrill) and various conventions all over the country, which lets me combine my loves of advertising, mentorship, and smart-ass comments. And the lanyards and tote bags are pretty sweet.
One last thing: The personal nature of creating things and being constantly judged on the quality of your ideas can cause all kinds of insecurities, and some people deal with that by being overbearing, arrogant jerks. It’s almost like they don’t think they’ll
Any big plans?
We’re always looking to grow the agency and find new creative opportunities, but I just want to make sure we do it at the right pace. We’d obviously like to be in a position where we have enough business to not be dependent on any one account, which is a challenge for most agencies our size. We have irons in a few fires that could add some full-time accounts to our roster, so we’re hoping that leads to good things. Again, a lot of these are from relationships that began years or decades ago. We’re focused now on adding some younger teams to our creative staff and increasing our diversity across the board, another thing many agencies are working on. If you know anybody, send ‘em my way!
Mostly, I just want to make sure we all like the work we’re doing and that this is the kind of team and culture people want to be a part of. We’re all in the unique position of getting to decide what this thing is as we build it. I’m excited to see where it goes.
On a personal note, the pandemic put a dream (well, for me and Heather. The kids declined comment) family cycling trip from Munich to Salzburg on hold, so I’d love to put that back on the books when things finally open up fully. Maybe we’ll go next year, to celebrate my turning 50, assuming my knees still work.
Contact Info:
- Email: chrissmith@plottwist.com
- Website: www.plottwist.com
- Instagram: @PlotTwistCreativity
- Facebook: PlotTwistCreativity
- Twitter: @WeArePlotTwist
Image Credits
Kevin Reid
Darrin Isbell
