Meet martin bihl | ECD at LevLane and Founder & Editor at The Agency Review

We had the good fortune of connecting with martin bihl and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi martin, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I am reminded of what Frank Lowe said. Lowe, you will recall, was a famous “wild man” of British advertising, and once presented some work to a client. There was a safe option and there was a risky option. The client, as clients often do, asked him what the agency’s recommendation was. “We believe it is too risky to take the safe option” he said.

I feel like that all the time.

Advertising is literally the business of getting noticed, and yet most clients frankly are afraid of drawing attention to themselves. So they take the “safe” option. And no one notices them, and their sales decline and they lose market share – invariably to a competitor who understood that the real question isn’t “is this risky” but rather “is this a calculated risk or a reckless risk?”

I believe in calculated, prioritized, contextualized risks. I abhor arbitrary, impulsive and capricious ones.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Okay so the way I pay my bills is, I make advertising. Currently I’m Executive Creative Director at Levlane, an agency in Philadelphia. I’ve done this, in some form or another, for most of my life. I’ve also written about it and taught it at several universities. Plus my father and grandfather were in the business too.

That last fact would, one would think, set me apart from others. And sure, it does, a bit. But I think the real difference is something else.

Because what I really am is a writer, and I bring a writer’s sensibility to advertising. Now, you may think that means that my ads are distinguished by way too much copy. And frankly some of my art directors will tell you you’re right. Whatever. But a writer’s sensibility is less about the quantity of verbiage, than it is about the quality of the argument. Writers are in the business of understanding the thinking behind what’s going on – what they’re thinking, what their reader is thinking, what their characters are thinking. They’re in the business of understanding these things so they can make a compelling argument for some insight that they have – whether that argument is called an ad or an essay or a novel or a poem.

And they do this with a tool that comes packed with rhythms and references that can evoke any number of memories, sensations, and dreams, and that can let writers – and those who consume their work – dive deeper into a thing than most other things allow them to. To dive deeper to understand on a deeper level – ideally, a level beyond words and memories and even logical argument – the underlying needs, desires, hopes and dreams.

That’s what I do. And that’s what makes me different from other people in advertising.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The answer to this question really depends on the person, right? Every best friend is different and so is the corresponding “best time ever”.

And for me, this question is made even more difficult by the fact that I don’t live in Phoenix, and I don’t really know the city very well at all.

So let me turn this around. If I were visiting Phoenix – or rather, when I visit Phoenix – what would I want to do and why?

Well the “why” is easy. Because every city is, in fact, really many cities; so the challenge is to encounter as many of them as you can. And my solution in the past has always been – head to the ballpark. When you sit in the stands for a couple of hours watching a baseball game, not only do you meet people you never would normally, but you end up talking to them. A lot. Because a baseball game takes forever. You tell the guy next to you – between hot takes on the pitcher or the batter or the manager – that you’re from out of town, where’s the best place to get dinner? And he’ll tell you his favorites, in his version of the city. Which, the guy on the other side of you will overhear and say, well, okay, but really, you have to also check out his favorite, which is a totally different kind of restaurant in a totally different part of the city. And then his buddy (who never moved out of the old neighborhood) will suggest a place and they’ll all say “this guy doesn’t want to go there!” and you’ll say “hell yes I do!” and by then the game is over and they’re all escorting you to some amazing place with some incredible characters that you’d never know about if you just, you know, used the Google machine.

I’m not saying that works every time – but it works a lot. And when it fails? Well, at least you got to watch a baseball game…

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
The number of people who have helped me along the way is almost infinite and listing them here would be as tiresome as it would be inexact. So let me answer this a different way; I think people don’t give enough credit to how art can – and does – change their lives. And I think that’s because we don’t think of art that way any more. I don’t know, maybe we never really did. We think art should just entertain us; fill up the blank moments of our days, and, if we’re lucky, distract us from the emptiness and the pain of our lives until it’s time for bed.

But art can do more when we let it. It can change the way you think about the world, life, yourself. Really great art can force you to think about what you take for granted and why you do. It can show you who you take for granted and force you to ask yourself why that is. It can hint at new ways to structure your understanding of the world and reveal why the friction you’ve been experiencing isn’t just a minor annoyance – it’s a clue to a different and more accurate truth.

I’ve experienced this with the paintings of Rothko, the writings of Didion, the music of Monk to name only three. Work that literally made me stop what I was doing, look away, and say “Hold on. If that’s true, then… whoa.”

And to be clear, I’m not talking simply about an impact on the art I may do – I’m talking literally about the way I think about life. About how I understand how business works. About what my friends and family actually mean to me.

Not a bad impact by people I never met.

Website: https://www.martinbihl.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/martinbihl/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinbihl/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/martinbihl

Other: https://the-agency-review.com/