“What other creative person’s legacy can we point out that’s bigger or more entrenched into culture from our industry?” asked Said.
Lion of St. Mark win to agency rally cry
When Droga won the Lion of St. Mark in 2017, he was the youngest winner of the lifetime achievement award, nabbing it at just 47. He used the occasion as a rallying cry to encourage the ad industry to care about their work, arguing that care is crucial.
“I would put down everything in my career to the fact that I cared—about what I do, who I work with, what I make,” he said at the time. “Caring makes you want to work harder. People can’t pay you to care. People can’t teach you to care. But when you find something that you care about, you give it everything you’ve got. You never settle. And you are always pushing to learn and be better and support those around you. All I’ve tried to do in my career is care.”
He continued: “That’s all we need to do. More agencies need to give a shit, work hard, and try to make beautiful and impactful things.”
The New York Times’ “The Truth Is Worth It”
That care was evident in Droga5’s work for The New York Times. During the 2017 Academy Awards ceremony, The New York Times ran its first-ever ad touting the importance of truth.
The spot was Droga5’s debut work for the newspaper and kicked off a campaign that continued to evolve, covering investigative journalism and more, to detail the importance of journalists’ work. In 2019, the campaign won the Grand Prix for Film Craft at Cannes.
Newcastle’s “If we Did it”
Advertising around the Big Game instead of in the game is something any marketer would hope they could pull off–why spend more than $7 million for 30 seconds if you can avoid it?–but few are able to do so and truly break through.
But Droga5 did for Newcastle Brown Ale in 2014. The shop created “If We Made It,” which dug into what the brand would have done if it had made a Super Bowl spot. The work made a massive splash and was dubbed the best ad of 2014 by this publication.
Tagging Air Force One
Droga built the Droga5 brand with bold creative work from the very start.
In 2006, before going viral online was even on clients’ radar, Droga did just that for designer Marc Ecko. The shop posted a video online of a graffiti artist seemingly tagging Air Force One, writing “Still Free” on the plane. As ADWEEK previously reported, the stunt, which was fake and the Pentagon eventually had to publicly deny, garnered 23 million unique views in its first week and some 17,000 news stories. The campaign won the Titanium Lion and a Cyber Grand Prix at Cannes Lions that year.
