A Designed Life with Joe Duffy

The San Diego Ad Club had the priviledge of having Joe Duffy present to their membership today. This presentation follows the “Ad Legends program”, where Alex Bogusky and Jeff Goodby previously spoke.

Joe Duffy is one of the world’s most accomplished designers. His client roster is really whose who in the world.  Joe was in town for a meeting with Jack in the Box representatives and gracefully accepted the invitation to speak.

Joe Duffy started by talking about his history.  Five years ago, he decided to simplify his life and started Duffy Design.  Duffy and Partners, his previous agency, had been around for a long time.  He talked about how the internet has brought new choices to consumers.  Joe said that we have to give our consumers what they want instead of pushing it down their throat. Nothing really too deep there…

Joe gave examples of the creative process behind some of his new campaigns.  Key learnings:

• Your most important client is yourself. Promoting yourself is more effective than cold calling.
• Nothing in design is ever permanent.
• Process: insights, essence and visual brand language.
• Don’t surprise the client, have visual briefs that guide you towards the final decision.

It was very interesting to see the creative process behind the re-branding campaign of Fresca and the Bahamas campaigns.  For both campaigns, they got their clients involved from the beginning to establish ownership on their part.  The Jack in the box rebranding campaign’s theme was “jack as the challenger.” Joe mentioned that the personality of Jack wasn’t coming across in the stores like it does in commercials. They changed the menu boards, logos and packaging.