November 16, 2023 • 33 mins
Creative processes and frameworks are often presented as neat and linear orders of operation. But looking closer, we'll find a circuitous mess of unexpected twists, turns, and detours that we hope are worth it in the end. In this episode, J.B. and Molly explore with rogue creative director Mary Michael Pringle the crucial roles of joy, play, and vulnerability for fostering creativity in the workplace. She shares her approach to creativity, from drawing on her inner child and using toys, games, and stories to spark fearlessness, to creative briefs and verbal dreaming, to creating emotional connections that truly resonate with audiences. Get ready to unleash your inner child.
"It is about returning to your younger self. The word 'make believe' is perfect, because you do have to believe in what you're making... it's about really believing and wanting to try. You get back to that and you've got yourself your creativity back." - Mary Michael Pringle
0:10 Intro
2:25 Play in the workplace
5:39 Accelerating creativity and positivity
12:55 Hire, Fire, Boss!
17:05 The creative brief and brainstorming
21:45 Case study: Egypt Air
26:43 Friendships at work
30:29 Reflections and outro
Connect with Mary Michael on LinkedIn.
Follow Unserious in your podcast app, at unserious.com, and on Instagram and Threads at @unserious.fun.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
J.B. (00:05):
This is Unserious.
Creative processes andframeworks are often presented
as tidy packages, neat, linearorders of operation, but the
truth of the matter is thatgreat ideas don't follow a
step-by-step process.
When we covered creativeoperations in our conversation
(00:30):
with Courtney Kaplan a coupleweeks ago, we focused on how to
organize creative work.
Today, we're going todisorganize it.
We're going to dive into themessy, circuitous process of how
great ideas come to the surfaceand the key roles that play and
childlike wonder have inbubbling them up.
Our guide through the creativemaze today is Mary Michael
(00:52):
Pringle, a freelance creativedirector and copywriter who has
worked with clients and partnerslike IDO, nextdoor Details
Magazine, pinterest and so manyothers.
She's a graduate of VanderbiltUniversity and the legendary
advertising school CreativeCircus.
Not only does she createrelationships and emotions in
her work.
More importantly, as a creativedirector, she enhances and
(01:15):
accelerates the creative processon teams by being a positive
and fun force.
Welcome to Unserious, maryMichael.
Hello, it is so awesome to haveyou here.
Thank you for joining us.
Mary Michael (01:25):
Oh my gosh.
Molly (01:26):
Thank you for having me Unserious.
We're so glad you're here, so Ijust you know, to get us
started.
I wanted to share what it'slike to work with you when you
joined our team at IDO.
It felt like anything waspossible.
I remember one Friday wegenerated so many ideas and
laughed so hard that I couldn'twait to get into the office on
Monday and do it again Like theweekend.
(01:47):
I didn't even want the weekendto come, I just wanted to be at
work with you.
That type of experience and thatjoy that we had together took
our engagement initiatives to awhole other level.
And I'm pretty sure we also, inthis process, got shished by
other studios, particularly thefood studio at IDO, where we
were sitting outside laughingtoo hard but we went on to do
(02:10):
really creative and impactfulwork.
I saw customers and communitylaugh.
I saw them cry.
I saw their lives change in thecourse of our work together.
What is it about our work andenvironment that make it fun?
What does fun look like in awork environment or feel like?
Is it foosballs and pizzas?
Mary Michael (02:31):
What is it?
Well, thank you, molly, thatwas a great project.
I think we lost ourselves alittle bit in a great way in
that process where we were justcoming up with stuff, and I
think that is where you play.
You know it is the sandbox orwhatever Play in the workplace.
I mean it can be foosball ifyou're getting at it, which I'm
not, so that's not super fun forme.
What is fun is laughing, istelling personal stories and
(02:58):
having the space and time toriff and roll and be yourself
and bring your stresses andhilarities to the day.
And then those mix and minglewith the work and, before you
know it, this really coolalchemy is happening, not just
with you and the work and yourlife, but also like the people
(03:19):
in the room, and I just think, Ithink you have to really set
out to say we will have joy heretoday, you know what I mean,
Like yeah, totally.
I take joy and play veryseriously in that sense, because
I think it is like the Trojanhorse to great stuff.
Molly (03:36):
Why is play the Trojan horse for great work?
Mary Michael (03:40):
Everything I do is trying to get back to my
elementary school self.
J.B. (03:44):
Yeah.
Mary Michael (03:44):
So cool and free.
When I was younger, I dressedup like a king for Halloween,
because why wouldn't you want tobe a king?
They're the most powerful.
I was Poncho.
Molly (03:54):
Villa for my first.
Halloween.
I don't really know who that is.
Mary Michael (03:58):
Is that like a, that is a Mexican revolutionary?
Oh, I'm thinking of like thecoffee beans, like out there One
.
Molly (04:07):
Valdes, one Valdes, one Valdes.
Mary Michael (04:12):
I was actually picturing a Poncho when you said
that I wore a.
Molly (04:15):
Poncho, but with fake bullets as like a foil Nice.
Mary Michael (04:20):
Revolutionary seat , I mean we would hang out.
Yeah, I don't know.
I just had a blast as a kid.
I would do things like I hadthis weird closet you could get
on your back and put your feetup and I thought, well, that's
really cool.
So my friend and I put a boardgame up on the feeling so that
we could play it with our feet.
We thought that would be reallyfun.
Like I just feel like play islike you can take rest.
(04:40):
There's no, you know, there'sno reason not to try it.
You can bring that to yourbrainstorming, like that energy,
that fearlessness, to acreative brainstorming session
and you're in a great place.
Molly (04:54):
I think that importance of risk and fearlessness is a
big part of why you bring likefun and play into the workplace,
because it lets you go to thatnext creative edge and if you're
having a good time, you get todo it together Like you're
you're laughing or you're you'reputting yourself out of your
comfort zone with someone else,and so you're also, while you're
(05:14):
able to go to that nextcreative edge, you're also
building these bonds within yourown team because you're sharing
like these really Personalaspects of who you are.
You've gone beyond being likebuttoned up and professional To
being a little bit of your trueself, that childhood self that
you just talked about, which issuper powerful.
Fun can accelerate creativityand positivity on a team, and
(05:36):
you do this really well.
So I'm curious how do youAccelerate creativity and
positivity on a team?
Mary Michael (05:44):
first of all, I do think you come in as yourself.
You know, like I bring I dobring toys and things into it,
like we had those story cubesone time.
You know that, like I have twoboys who are now 13 and 16, but
I have really enjoyed parentingbecause, like I had this new
reason to bring it all back likeLegos.
I have Legos all around my deskright now.
(06:04):
We have them like on display inour home, throughout the house,
like we've done stop motionwith it and all this.
So I will bring like props towhatever team I'm working on,
you know, and I do love a greatprop and I do think that they
Stand for a lot.
Yeah like at my desk I have frommy dollhouse.
When I was little it was anelectric dollhouse that I got
(06:25):
out of Sears magazine I was soexcited about and you could buy
little pieces to it.
And this is a little light upaquarium.
J.B. (06:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
Oh my gosh, I love thisminiature world inside a
miniature world.
Mary Michael (06:34):
You can see a little fish in there.
They used to say in advertisingyou dig little holes, yeah,
little holes.
So you're like trying a lot ofdifferent little ideas around
here and then you figure out theones to go back and just really
hunker down into you.
You can also look at it aslittle rooms in a dollhouse that
you kind of enter into, tinkeraround in, then you take your
characters out and put them inanother room and so you're just
sort of definitelyworld-building, but in a very
(06:57):
like loose, playful way.
J.B. (07:00):
I absolutely adhere to this idea of ensuring that there
is joy at work.
I think it's actually one ofthe ways that you build a great
reputation for your team at alarger company that you're the
team that has fun doing hardshit and and then people really
want to work with you.
But so much of the work that wedo is very serious and, like
(07:21):
you know, I've worked on, youknow, user privacy at Facebook.
Yeah, exactly, it's.
There's nothing, there'snothing more serious than that
at Facebook.
Yeah, I'm curious how you wouldBring in that element of fun to
the work with very seriouspeople on very serious topics.
Mary Michael (07:38):
That is such a great question.
I would say that first you comein as your total self.
Yeah, I'm also facing stuffalways works for me.
I will throw myself down Toconnect and I feel like when you
get vulnerable and you tell astory or two, that kind of puts
makes people laugh and it's likelittle self deprecating.
People immediately feelconnected to you and I get I
(08:01):
know that Brené Brown talksabout this a lot, but I like it
total vulnerability hangoversfrom like brainstorms or
whatever.
We're trying really hard toconnect up, like I way
overshared Usually and I'llcircle back and usually kind of
repair some of the overexposureand everything.
(08:21):
But I don't know if it's not, Ithink it's still worth it, yeah
you know, like I do, I wouldsay I sacrifice a lot to connect
.
J.B. (08:28):
I would have a cross-functional team that I
would meet with, that we wouldstart every meeting with taught.
It was like somebody wouldshare a soup recipe and you know
.
And it was like you know, theother 27 minutes of the meeting
were very serious, but we alwaysstarted off with this very
light moment and it was fun yeah.
Mary Michael (08:47):
Yeah, I was working on a pharmaceutical
company that was helping createvaccinations that were saving
the world.
We were remote, we were allover the country and we always
met on zoom and it was a sixmonth project where we were
doing pretty, you know,intensive work and our clients
were, for the most part,scientists.
You know, like we had to sellit through to scientists
(09:08):
ultimately.
And then they had me, whowasn't Particularly well
respected by the scientistsbecause I was an ad person, you
know.
I mean, like that was mybackground.
I was like I better tidy up myLinkedIn.
So at this point was like I'mjust gonna have to prove it in
the space, I'm just gonna haveto deliver.
You know, live.
I think it became like we aretalking to scientists.
(09:28):
They need Rigor to have fun.
They're not gonna like we aregonna lose them.
Yep, you know if this isn't arigorous environment, but once
it got rigorous, they werecutting and making, yeah,
playful stuff.
And then they decorated anentire wall of things and
somebody went off east and didlike a knitting that weren't
even available.
(09:48):
You know, like created thisentire Beautiful environment.
They said it was so wonderfuland what we were teaching them
were like cultural Mindset,again through this Trojan horse,
but it had to be delivered.
You know, in all theseparticular ways that sort of
address the needs of ourscientist audience.
And yes, they're humans but,and we all operate in some
similar way, but still they werea unique breed.
Molly (10:11):
I think what I'm hearing, mary Michael and JB actually
just hearing both of you guys isthat creativity is solving big
problems vaccines, privacy.
That creativity and that funelement lets you do hard work
well.
Like you, you Designintentionally for joy.
You bring your.
(10:33):
You bring your full self oractually I'm not sure I love
that language but you, you knowthat you're going to to have
vulnerable moments.
You have to create like apsychologically safe space For
that.
So you can't, so you can bevulnerable and you are gonna
have a little authenticconnections you have to invest,
you have to give yes.
Mary Michael (10:51):
You actually have to give.
You have to give and you haveto expect to.
Like you're gonna jump in thispuddle and you're gonna splash
people and yourself and getthings dirty.
It is messy we talked about, wethought I I think messy is a
really important word.
Um, I Of course the idea ofphrases like embrace ambiguity,
but I think, like it is, it getsso messy and scary before it
(11:16):
gets good that you start off fun.
It feels great.
So, honeymoon, you're likeyou're just discussing things.
You know.
It's just like oh, I love mypeople in a group.
I'm like crushing on everyone.
Like you can come in as afreelancer especially.
It's like a Magic tool to comein just fresh, as the daisy, all
new thinking, you know, sort ofsize up the seat.
(11:39):
You read the room and be like,okay, I'm gonna dial up my this
or that.
You know what I mean.
Like, and I think like thisgroup could really use some,
some icebreakers, some of theicebreakers.
I wasn't responsible for thisone, but I will always remember
and use these.
They're two that are reallyfunny to me.
One that works great for yourhome Was this toilet paper
Sculpture Idea.
(12:00):
And you wait what?
So we had to bring joy in.
So we we got a stipend for joy,basically, and we started doing
Icebreakers with art andsharing them on the thing and
screen.
We all got sent this lobster tohold our pens.
J.B. (12:16):
Oh I love.
Mary Michael (12:17):
A story about.
Growth is painful and yet tooutgrow your shell and lobster's
you know they shed their shellsas they grow and it's painful
to grow this painful and youknow you have to keep.
So this lobster was one of thestories that we've gotten during
our project and during theprocess, and so this was sent
out and then Wait, wait, wait,so lobsters actually grow a new
(12:38):
shell.
Molly (12:41):
This is new information to me.
Wisdom bombs by Mary Michael.
J.B. (12:48):
Back with more in just a moment I.
Molly (12:56):
Mary Michael, I know you know, I know you love a good
game.
Oh, I love a good game.
So the game is Higher, fireboss.
Higher is somebody that youwould hire to work fire.
So, yeah, fire is somebody thatyou would let go and boss is
somebody who you, you would workfor.
So we're gonna start withfashion icons, and these are.
J.B. (13:19):
These are the fashion icons I select these are yeah, I
want, I want to be clear.
These are, these are Molly's.
Molly (13:28):
Okay, so those fashion icons are Cindy Crawford, grace
Jones and Stevie Nicks.
J.B. (13:39):
Where?
How did Stevie Nicks get ontothis list?
Molly (13:43):
She's a fashion icon.
She's the ultimate witchy woogypsy queen.
J.B. (13:47):
I guess so all right.
Mary Michael (13:50):
I mean Grace Jones is obviously boss and I would
hire Stevie Nicks.
She's not gonna want to workunder me.
And Cindy, I mean I'm sorry butit's really it's very clear to
me.
I mean I, I would probably.
I Mean there's a part of methat would want to move Stevie
as boss.
(14:10):
But I just think, grace, Ican't imagine her working under
anyone, truly, and so that'skind of her stick as dominatrix.
Dominatrix, and Stevie is gonnabe a little bit unwieldy.
J.B. (14:23):
Oh, stevie's a fire.
Stevie's a fire for me, and allover me.
Mary Michael (14:27):
So I, I'm a fire, stevie, I can't okay, I'm a huge
Stevie Nicks fan, so, even aswitchy and weird as I love it.
All um so.
But we also.
But, molly, also, you are aStevie Nicks fan too, I think
right.
Molly (14:44):
Oh, I definitely want to work with Stevie Nicks.
I want to put on the scarvesand twirl around on stage and
maybe light some candles and youknow, manifest shit, I mean.
Mary Michael (14:54):
I've dressed up as Stevie for Halloween and I
don't look like I heard all.
Nobody knew what I was doing.
I had a crushed velvet dressfrom the canal district in New
York City.
I had my tambourine, I have myNass, like it was like a long
but nobody in Atlanta Georgiaknew who I was and I had had it
from New York, cuz I always, andthey, just like this party,
called nine of a thousand TVsthat everybody dresses.
J.B. (15:16):
Yeah, of course annual party.
Mary Michael (15:18):
Yeah, I always wanted to go to that but I
haven't.
And I have a.
I have a photograph a DavidLushapal photograph and details
magazine from the 90s frames inmy hallway of Stevie Nicks.
She's like kind of like I Don'tknow floating in the air yeah
being struck by lightning.
Okay.
J.B. (15:35):
I don't think Stevie can be tamed and I don't think that
she would be a good employee.
She's gonna be, she's gonna bein her vortex in Sedona like
chanting and it's fine, I'm I.
I also I want Stevie to beStevie, but if I'm gonna get
(15:59):
shit done, cindy is gonna be myemployee and obviously Grace is
the boss.
Molly (16:05):
I mean Cindy.
Cindy is ambitious, she's gonnalike execute, that's right I
have.
J.B. (16:12):
yeah, no doubt she works hard in earnest.
Mary Michael (16:17):
Who are your choices?
Molly (16:18):
Molly, oh, I, I think I was letting go Grace Drake,
grace Jones, because no one canmanage Grace.
She's doing her own thing.
She's like I got my ownbusiness happening.
I know and I'm not gonna fitinto this oppressive system of
corporate world.
I'm out.
J.B. (16:32):
She's like you're traveling to Saturn tomorrow.
Molly (16:39):
Yeah, she's not.
She's not, she's not staying inthe corporate space.
I think, steve, I would, I, soI definitely.
I think we're all working forCindy Crawford.
We may already all be workingfor Cindy Crawford in the
fashion space and, I think,stevie next man.
I just want to like snuggle inwith her and be pals, so let's
work together, okay, uh-huh, forsure.
Mary Michael (16:59):
All right, what fun.
That was a great exercise.
This might work for detouring,and why I think it's so great I
had I have deemed it verbaldaydreaming.
I think it's really cool if youcan allow for that, but you
definitely need the boundariesand guardrails of a sandbox, and
so that is where the creativebrief comes in.
(17:21):
Yeah, the process doesn'tnecessarily kick off with a
creative brief, and so a lot ofresearch will be done up front.
It's a lot of looking at,looking in and advertising.
It's a planner or slashstrategist Yep Goes out and does
basically ethnography, likegoing into homes, talking to
clients, customers, everythingtrying to understand stuff, and
(17:42):
then you put together insight.
So you have your insight, youhave your objective and you put
all these things on just a onepager and those are the
boundaries of your sandbox andyou push down into what is the
one single thing, thesingle-minded promise that you
want to make, and it's got to beone thing.
It's usually like we make yourteeth white and your breath
(18:04):
fresh.
No, that's two, that's onesentence, or like two
Conductions.
So what's the one thing?
So you get it down and it's sohard and you have to let go of
things, so what's the one thingyou want to talk about?
And then what's the one sort ofhuman truth that it's based off
of?
And then you got your tone, yougot your audience.
All these things.
That's just one page.
(18:24):
Now you're in your sandbox,right?
Yeah, I mean, you've got to settimers, you've got to do all
kinds of things, but in betweenthe box and in between what
other guardrails you're in, youcan go anywhere, and I always
say this I think everybody wouldsay this too that the more
constrained and confined you are, the more freeing it is
creatively.
Yeah, totally, you can onlytalk about this.
(18:45):
So now we don't have to worryabout we can't shoot this in
Fiji, we can't hire Madonna orwhatever we know.
We can't do these things.
Budget is often also on thatpage.
J.B. (18:57):
And mandatory.
Mary Michael (18:58):
So I mean, a great creative brief is the essential
, and sometimes you have towrite another one that works for
you.
One comes from the client, thenone comes through the
strategist, then one comes tothe creative, and the creative
takes it and goes OK, now I'mgoing to do the widest
toothpaste, because maybe in thezeitgeist everyone's drinking
super strong coffee now in whatthey're never used to.
(19:21):
So now our teeth are darker, weneed it more.
So you just lean into thesesort of spirit of the times kind
of things, right, so super funonce you nail this shit down.
Molly (19:31):
One thing that I'm hearing from you, Mary Michael,
about how to go from detours anda lot of divergent thinking and
that fun space, how you narrowit down.
One you start off with anawesome creative brief and know
really clear about what yourgoals are.
Your second thing that I'mhearing is it's really grounded
in human-centered insights whoyour consumers are and what
(19:52):
they're feeling, and that's theevidence to know if you're
heading in the right directionor not.
To help, like found you in.
And then you also mentionedlike timers, like you time bound
stuff.
Mary Michael (20:03):
OK, so I think like two hour brainstorms are
like max, you know, like I justdon't think people can go beyond
that.
You're probably pushing itanyway, but you're having many
detours in this two hour period.
It is not giving me anotheridea.
Great, another one.
Let me build on that it's.
I mean, in there you're goingto have a conversation about how
sad you are that your brotherisn't talking to you right now.
(20:24):
Another conversation about,like totally, your marriage,
yeah, or your breakup, or yourrecipe.
Your colorist is just notshowing up like they used to.
I mean, it's going to be reallyhigh, low, heavy, nothing stuff
.
And I know for sure this is whyI love advertising, because it
(20:46):
is like I get paid to just haveconversations with people all
the time and then talk aboutbehavior of other people and
then try to like kind of.
I don't like the idea of likecontrolling behavior, because I
really respect the audience thatI am talking to.
Like I was raised in the adworld to be like you are
interrupting someone's program,yeah, yeah.
Like you better make itinteresting.
(21:07):
Like basically, like it was thehey Whipple squeeze this like
Luke Sullivan world, and it waslike you do not talk down to
your audience.
You bring them in.
You create enough of aninterest, like you engage them,
and to such a degree that you go75% of the ad makes sense.
The engagement comes from theparticipant.
The consumer has to finish theextra 25% to get a dopamine hit.
(21:29):
Yeah, and now you've got them.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's like this is not you donot give them everything,
because you show them that youbelieve that they are smart with
you.
One of the things that I learnedto do in ad school, you know
(21:49):
you'd have to come up with ideasevery day for every class and
it was like two years straight,constant.
You know, here's a brief,here's a project.
It was like the harder twoyears of my life presenting and
just getting shot down like allthe time, just fixed in school,
basically fixed in school,building a school.
You know I would do this thingwhere I would you know when
you're in the car, when you'rein the shower, when you're just
(22:10):
falling asleep or just waking up, you have this lucid, semi
lucid state, right.
So I would set my timer becauseI would fall asleep and I would
lay down and I would have mypad next to me.
I just feel like, okay, youhave like 30 minutes for all.
Like, you better come up withsomething.
And I remember and you just do,you, you can.
You're, because of theconstraints, because of this
timed boundary, you can totallyallow yourself to fall asleep,
(22:33):
like I'm not worried, right?
Yeah, and that to me is like iskind of a formula this is this
play thing, right, it's likesafe, but you are free falling,
yeah, yeah, just proving thatthis worked.
There was this.
I was.
There was a project for EgyptAir and we were having to like
design a new livery which islike the paint for it.
Come up with an ad for the NewYork times, one of those one
pager ads, and then a poster orsomething like that, a couple of
(22:56):
posters.
I just I can't remember, but Iremember thinking, okay, we have
to do a new, it's going to be abrand new airplane.
Like we had to design a newairplane and I was like, oh so
when it flies over Egypt, theSphinx will be so psyched that
it's brand new that he'll lookup.
You know, like, yeah, and we'vebeen taught like don't show
(23:18):
everything, right, just makesure that.
So the ad was just a black andwhite shot of the Sphinx with
his head up and there's nothingin the sky, you know, like it
was just empty sky and then downthe bottom, just tiny.
Is that introducing the new,like the new paint job or
something of Easy to dare youknow?
Like just super subtle and thenout?
(23:40):
it's clever and it's reallyclever and then we ended up with
it, then we ended up with acampaign.
I think that, because now we'retweaking monuments, yeah, like,
oh, then it just spills out ofthat, right?
So it's like the sort ofmonuments of like things, like
characters who are seated nextto each other.
They look like they're in a rowtogether.
So we put seatbelts on them andthen we did like it's like
(24:03):
Ramesses.
Yes, thank you.
The Ramesses, yes, our line islike Go to Egypt, the oldest,
newest Place in the world, orsomething like that, and we
showed that like in between, wemade, we did.
We had the designer made like awall of Styrofoam and then cut
into it real hieroglyphics, andthen we would do like a Like a
roller blade, or then a cocktailglass or like some modern thing
(24:27):
.
Anyway, these are not supergreat ideas.
It was cute but it like, but welike one, the Gold of the show
that year.
Do you know what I mean?
I was just thinking like what,what a cool Like from I have
Jack, all I am gonna go to classand die and then, alright, just
lie down.
Just, you know, likebrainstorming and meetings to me
(24:48):
, where they're dynamic and yougo home with hope and you Seek
joy, are like like likescavenger how they're hunt, like
what are we gonna come out ofthis meeting with?
Like Something.
We have nothing right now, butwe could have something and it
is really a thrill like and itand I will say it not always
Work, but like it's worth trying.
J.B. (25:09):
It's.
It feels like every time thatwe put together a larger
creative team.
So like one or two people justsay, like I am not Creative.
How do you combat that thinking?
Because I think as a human, youare creative.
It is a biological,neurological fact, so how do you
convince these people that theyhave it within them?
Mary Michael (25:30):
I guess I would just say, I would just reflect
back that like it is aboutreturning to your younger self,
the word like make believe islike perfect, because you do
have to believe yeah, right,yeah in what you're making and
it just goes back to play right.
J.B. (25:45):
So I just think it's about just really believing and and
wanting to try you saidsomething earlier about
daydreaming out loud and itreminded me of you know, if
you've ever been on a road tripwith like an eight or nine year
old in the back of the car.
They are just narrating theirthoughts and it's like, and it's
(26:07):
wonderful, and it's like it'sfabulous, it's like it's the
most interesting thing thatyou've ever heard, because it's
so how can we get?
Back to that exactly.
Mary Michael (26:17):
You get back to that and you've got.
You've got yourself yourcreativity back.
Yeah.
J.B. (26:24):
More unserious with creative director Mary Michael
Pringle.
Mary Michael (26:27):
After this short break, I Remember my I would say
to my husband like and this isnot to say that he doesn't have
a great time or a great life oranything, but I would say how is
(26:49):
your day?
And he would be like it's.
It was really productive.
And I'd be like I've nevermeasured my day that way.
I was like was my day fun ornot?
You know, yeah, assumed it wasproductive, but it was really a
measure of like was itinteresting, was it fun?
Did we do things I didn'texpect?
You know?
Like, did I have a conversationthat blew my mind?
(27:11):
I think Re-framing your daylike that can be very powerful
and very productive.
J.B. (27:18):
It sounds a lot like work as Friendship.
Mary Michael (27:23):
Oh, holy cow, that is it.
That is the point for me.
I think that my hobby is peopleand I think I collect
relationships and friendshipsand because I'm a freelancer, I
am like a serial friendshipmaker and relationship maker and
I keep thinking I shouldprobably go back to full time,
(27:45):
but then I would have to be amonogamous.
I would stop meeting all theseinteresting people.
I mean, I have a monogamousmarriage, thank you very much
and I am like a total mercenarywhen it comes to my work and my
friendships.
People are so awesome and theyare what make work fun, and to
(28:05):
make the work different andinteresting and smart and just
maximizing them by buildingrelationships with them is the
way to go.
I love that.
J.B. (28:15):
I love that too.
Mary Michael (28:17):
I think I am addicted to connections.
J.B. (28:20):
Yeah, I'm the same way.
I think that the idea ofnetworking feels so
transactional and it always hasto me, and it was like I don't
want a network, I just wantfriends and that's what I need
in my life and I need it at work, I need it at play, I need it
everywhere in there.
Some people that I work with,that I'm friends with, that I
(28:41):
don't see them outside of work,but I love.
That doesn't mean I don't lovethem.
Molly (28:45):
For sure.
I think about what is reallyyour magic and how you do create
this make believe on teams.
Even in your storytelling youoften talk about other people,
but actually I often believe,mary Michael, it is you who is a
catalyst that lets people becreative in the way that makes
(29:06):
most sense to them.
I do believe there's a magicthat you have and you would
never want to codify it becausethat's not your jam.
But if I codified it for youthings that you talk about as
you come in with intentional joy, you embrace being vulnerable
and sharing parts of yourself.
You think about props and playand not being afraid of that,
(29:31):
putting constraints around yourwork, creating moments where
you're going to brainstorm fortwo hours and time it, but then
you might need to take a nap tohave that personal moment to
come up with your own ideas.
So you have to come in and out,and when you do, when you are
intentionally designing for this, you can solve tough problems
(29:53):
as friends on a team doingreally hard work out there, and
often you need that so that youcan navigate and lead through
complexity.
And one thing we didn't eventalk about was that often there
are tears well up in people'seyes as they are brainstorming
and building and making togetherbecause of it.
So I'm so pleased you came on.
(30:14):
Thank you, molly, thank you forthat.
And share with us some of yourmagic and stories.
So thank you, Mary Michael, forbeing here today.
J.B. (30:22):
Thank you for joining us today and sharing your wisdom.
Mary Michael (30:25):
Well, thank you, I'm serious.
J.B. (30:31):
What a cool, fun, amazing person to lead a creative team.
Molly (30:36):
I'm totally jealous that you had the chance to work with
Mary Michael so closely, molly,oh my gosh, I've just seen her
catalyze joy, innovation,amazing work on great teams and
with sometimes tough clients.
So, jb, tell me what were someof your takeaways.
J.B. (30:56):
Well, the one thing that totally resonated with me was
the idea of using friendship asan organizing principle for
teams.
It's not nepotism that she'stalking about, but it's how we
choose to work with each otherin the creative sandbox, and
friendship is one thing thatreally brings about safety,
camaraderie and a lot of joy.
Molly (31:18):
Totally.
J.B. (31:18):
I also loved how she talked about connecting deeply
through to childhood.
Through that process, kids arejust so fearless about trying
new things and exploring newideas.
Because that's what kids dothey're the ultimate beginners
and we all can learn from that.
How about you?
Molly (31:36):
What I loved hearing from Mary Michael was about the
importance of not controllingthe behavior of your audience.
I think that also kind ofrelates to your teams as well.
But one thing that she sharedthat in advertising you're
always striving for 25% audienceparticipation and that's like
(31:56):
the dopamine hit.
That's the emotional connection.
We talked about relationshipsas our hobby and that leads to
this sort of nonlinear, detoured, really creative process.
But it lets you be inspired, itlets you bring your childhood
self into work, it lets you bejoyful and that's what gets
teams to that next edge ofinnovation.
Teams get to be emotionallyconnected, they get to find joy
(32:19):
and belonging.
It leads to great work becauseyou're allowed to have that
authenticity and freedom to findemotional connections with
audiences at a whole differentlevel.
That's the magic of MaryMichael and I'm so glad the
Unserious crew had a chance tolearn with and from her.
J.B. (32:39):
And that's the show.
Unserious is in its firstseason, so please subscribe,
rate us, share with your friends, and you can keep tabs on us on
our website, at Unseriouscom,or find us on Instagram at
Unseriousfun.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Molly (32:57):
I want to put on the scarves and twirl around on
stage and maybe light somecandles and manifest shit.
This is Unserious.
Creative processes andframeworks are often presented
as tidy packages, neat, linearorders of operation, but the
truth of the matter is thatgreat ideas don't follow a
step-by-step process.
When we covered creativeoperations in our conversation
(00:30):
with Courtney Kaplan a coupleweeks ago, we focused on how to
organize creative work.
Today, we're going todisorganize it.
We're going to dive into themessy, circuitous process of how
great ideas come to the surfaceand the key roles that play and
childlike wonder have inbubbling them up.
Our guide through the creativemaze today is Mary Michael
(00:52):
Pringle, a freelance creativedirector and copywriter who has
worked with clients and partnerslike IDO, nextdoor Details
Magazine, pinterest and so manyothers.
She's a graduate of VanderbiltUniversity and the legendary
advertising school CreativeCircus.
Not only does she createrelationships and emotions in
her work.
More importantly, as a creativedirector, she enhances and
(01:15):
accelerates the creative processon teams by being a positive
and fun force.
Welcome to Unserious, maryMichael.
Hello, it is so awesome to haveyou here.
Thank you for joining us.
Mary Michael (01:25):
Oh my gosh.
Molly (01:26):
Thank you for having me Unserious.
We're so glad you're here, so Ijust you know, to get us
started.
I wanted to share what it'slike to work with you when you
joined our team at IDO.
It felt like anything waspossible.
I remember one Friday wegenerated so many ideas and
laughed so hard that I couldn'twait to get into the office on
Monday and do it again Like theweekend.
(01:47):
I didn't even want the weekendto come, I just wanted to be at
work with you.
That type of experience and thatjoy that we had together took
our engagement initiatives to awhole other level.
And I'm pretty sure we also, inthis process, got shished by
other studios, particularly thefood studio at IDO, where we
were sitting outside laughingtoo hard but we went on to do
(02:10):
really creative and impactfulwork.
I saw customers and communitylaugh.
I saw them cry.
I saw their lives change in thecourse of our work together.
What is it about our work andenvironment that make it fun?
What does fun look like in awork environment or feel like?
Is it foosballs and pizzas?
Mary Michael (02:31):
What is it?
Well, thank you, molly, thatwas a great project.
I think we lost ourselves alittle bit in a great way in
that process where we were justcoming up with stuff, and I
think that is where you play.
You know it is the sandbox orwhatever Play in the workplace.
I mean it can be foosball ifyou're getting at it, which I'm
not, so that's not super fun forme.
What is fun is laughing, istelling personal stories and
(02:58):
having the space and time toriff and roll and be yourself
and bring your stresses andhilarities to the day.
And then those mix and minglewith the work and, before you
know it, this really coolalchemy is happening, not just
with you and the work and yourlife, but also like the people
(03:19):
in the room, and I just think, Ithink you have to really set
out to say we will have joy heretoday, you know what I mean,
Like yeah, totally.
I take joy and play veryseriously in that sense, because
I think it is like the Trojanhorse to great stuff.
Molly (03:36):
Why is play the Trojan horse for great work?
Mary Michael (03:40):
Everything I do is trying to get back to my
elementary school self.
J.B. (03:44):
Yeah.
Mary Michael (03:44):
So cool and free.
When I was younger, I dressedup like a king for Halloween,
because why wouldn't you want tobe a king?
They're the most powerful.
I was Poncho.
Molly (03:54):
Villa for my first.
Halloween.
I don't really know who that is.
Mary Michael (03:58):
Is that like a, that is a Mexican revolutionary?
Oh, I'm thinking of like thecoffee beans, like out there One
.
Molly (04:07):
Valdes, one Valdes, one Valdes.
Mary Michael (04:12):
I was actually picturing a Poncho when you said
that I wore a.
Molly (04:15):
Poncho, but with fake bullets as like a foil Nice.
Mary Michael (04:20):
Revolutionary seat , I mean we would hang out.
Yeah, I don't know.
I just had a blast as a kid.
I would do things like I hadthis weird closet you could get
on your back and put your feetup and I thought, well, that's
really cool.
So my friend and I put a boardgame up on the feeling so that
we could play it with our feet.
We thought that would be reallyfun.
Like I just feel like play islike you can take rest.
(04:40):
There's no, you know, there'sno reason not to try it.
You can bring that to yourbrainstorming, like that energy,
that fearlessness, to acreative brainstorming session
and you're in a great place.
Molly (04:54):
I think that importance of risk and fearlessness is a
big part of why you bring likefun and play into the workplace,
because it lets you go to thatnext creative edge and if you're
having a good time, you get todo it together Like you're
you're laughing or you're you'reputting yourself out of your
comfort zone with someone else,and so you're also, while you're
(05:14):
able to go to that nextcreative edge, you're also
building these bonds within yourown team because you're sharing
like these really Personalaspects of who you are.
You've gone beyond being likebuttoned up and professional To
being a little bit of your trueself, that childhood self that
you just talked about, which issuper powerful.
Fun can accelerate creativityand positivity on a team, and
(05:36):
you do this really well.
So I'm curious how do youAccelerate creativity and
positivity on a team?
Mary Michael (05:44):
first of all, I do think you come in as yourself.
You know, like I bring I dobring toys and things into it,
like we had those story cubesone time.
You know that, like I have twoboys who are now 13 and 16, but
I have really enjoyed parentingbecause, like I had this new
reason to bring it all back likeLegos.
I have Legos all around my deskright now.
(06:04):
We have them like on display inour home, throughout the house,
like we've done stop motionwith it and all this.
So I will bring like props towhatever team I'm working on,
you know, and I do love a greatprop and I do think that they
Stand for a lot.
Yeah like at my desk I have frommy dollhouse.
When I was little it was anelectric dollhouse that I got
(06:25):
out of Sears magazine I was soexcited about and you could buy
little pieces to it.
And this is a little light upaquarium.
J.B. (06:30):
Oh, that's amazing.
Oh my gosh, I love thisminiature world inside a
miniature world.
Mary Michael (06:34):
You can see a little fish in there.
They used to say in advertisingyou dig little holes, yeah,
little holes.
So you're like trying a lot ofdifferent little ideas around
here and then you figure out theones to go back and just really
hunker down into you.
You can also look at it aslittle rooms in a dollhouse that
you kind of enter into, tinkeraround in, then you take your
characters out and put them inanother room and so you're just
sort of definitelyworld-building, but in a very
(06:57):
like loose, playful way.
J.B. (07:00):
I absolutely adhere to this idea of ensuring that there
is joy at work.
I think it's actually one ofthe ways that you build a great
reputation for your team at alarger company that you're the
team that has fun doing hardshit and and then people really
want to work with you.
But so much of the work that wedo is very serious and, like
(07:21):
you know, I've worked on, youknow, user privacy at Facebook.
Yeah, exactly, it's.
There's nothing, there'snothing more serious than that
at Facebook.
Yeah, I'm curious how you wouldBring in that element of fun to
the work with very seriouspeople on very serious topics.
Mary Michael (07:38):
That is such a great question.
I would say that first you comein as your total self.
Yeah, I'm also facing stuffalways works for me.
I will throw myself down Toconnect and I feel like when you
get vulnerable and you tell astory or two, that kind of puts
makes people laugh and it's likelittle self deprecating.
People immediately feelconnected to you and I get I
(08:01):
know that Brené Brown talksabout this a lot, but I like it
total vulnerability hangoversfrom like brainstorms or
whatever.
We're trying really hard toconnect up, like I way
overshared Usually and I'llcircle back and usually kind of
repair some of the overexposureand everything.
(08:21):
But I don't know if it's not, Ithink it's still worth it, yeah
you know, like I do, I wouldsay I sacrifice a lot to connect
.
J.B. (08:28):
I would have a cross-functional team that I
would meet with, that we wouldstart every meeting with taught.
It was like somebody wouldshare a soup recipe and you know
.
And it was like you know, theother 27 minutes of the meeting
were very serious, but we alwaysstarted off with this very
light moment and it was fun yeah.
Mary Michael (08:47):
Yeah, I was working on a pharmaceutical
company that was helping createvaccinations that were saving
the world.
We were remote, we were allover the country and we always
met on zoom and it was a sixmonth project where we were
doing pretty, you know,intensive work and our clients
were, for the most part,scientists.
You know, like we had to sellit through to scientists
(09:08):
ultimately.
And then they had me, whowasn't Particularly well
respected by the scientistsbecause I was an ad person, you
know.
I mean, like that was mybackground.
I was like I better tidy up myLinkedIn.
So at this point was like I'mjust gonna have to prove it in
the space, I'm just gonna haveto deliver.
You know, live.
I think it became like we aretalking to scientists.
(09:28):
They need Rigor to have fun.
They're not gonna like we aregonna lose them.
Yep, you know if this isn't arigorous environment, but once
it got rigorous, they werecutting and making, yeah,
playful stuff.
And then they decorated anentire wall of things and
somebody went off east and didlike a knitting that weren't
even available.
(09:48):
You know, like created thisentire Beautiful environment.
They said it was so wonderfuland what we were teaching them
were like cultural Mindset,again through this Trojan horse,
but it had to be delivered.
You know, in all theseparticular ways that sort of
address the needs of ourscientist audience.
And yes, they're humans but,and we all operate in some
similar way, but still they werea unique breed.
Molly (10:11):
I think what I'm hearing, mary Michael and JB actually
just hearing both of you guys isthat creativity is solving big
problems vaccines, privacy.
That creativity and that funelement lets you do hard work
well.
Like you, you Designintentionally for joy.
You bring your.
(10:33):
You bring your full self oractually I'm not sure I love
that language but you, you knowthat you're going to to have
vulnerable moments.
You have to create like apsychologically safe space For
that.
So you can't, so you can bevulnerable and you are gonna
have a little authenticconnections you have to invest,
you have to give yes.
Mary Michael (10:51):
You actually have to give.
You have to give and you haveto expect to.
Like you're gonna jump in thispuddle and you're gonna splash
people and yourself and getthings dirty.
It is messy we talked about, wethought I I think messy is a
really important word.
Um, I Of course the idea ofphrases like embrace ambiguity,
but I think, like it is, it getsso messy and scary before it
(11:16):
gets good that you start off fun.
It feels great.
So, honeymoon, you're likeyou're just discussing things.
You know.
It's just like oh, I love mypeople in a group.
I'm like crushing on everyone.
Like you can come in as afreelancer especially.
It's like a Magic tool to comein just fresh, as the daisy, all
new thinking, you know, sort ofsize up the seat.
(11:39):
You read the room and be like,okay, I'm gonna dial up my this
or that.
You know what I mean.
Like, and I think like thisgroup could really use some,
some icebreakers, some of theicebreakers.
I wasn't responsible for thisone, but I will always remember
and use these.
They're two that are reallyfunny to me.
One that works great for yourhome Was this toilet paper
Sculpture Idea.
(12:00):
And you wait what?
So we had to bring joy in.
So we we got a stipend for joy,basically, and we started doing
Icebreakers with art andsharing them on the thing and
screen.
We all got sent this lobster tohold our pens.
J.B. (12:16):
Oh I love.
Mary Michael (12:17):
A story about.
Growth is painful and yet tooutgrow your shell and lobster's
you know they shed their shellsas they grow and it's painful
to grow this painful and youknow you have to keep.
So this lobster was one of thestories that we've gotten during
our project and during theprocess, and so this was sent
out and then Wait, wait, wait,so lobsters actually grow a new
(12:38):
shell.
Molly (12:41):
This is new information to me.
Wisdom bombs by Mary Michael.
J.B. (12:48):
Back with more in just a moment I.
Molly (12:56):
Mary Michael, I know you know, I know you love a good
game.
Oh, I love a good game.
So the game is Higher, fireboss.
Higher is somebody that youwould hire to work fire.
So, yeah, fire is somebody thatyou would let go and boss is
somebody who you, you would workfor.
So we're gonna start withfashion icons, and these are.
J.B. (13:19):
These are the fashion icons I select these are yeah, I
want, I want to be clear.
These are, these are Molly's.
Molly (13:28):
Okay, so those fashion icons are Cindy Crawford, grace
Jones and Stevie Nicks.
J.B. (13:39):
Where?
How did Stevie Nicks get ontothis list?
Molly (13:43):
She's a fashion icon.
She's the ultimate witchy woogypsy queen.
J.B. (13:47):
I guess so all right.
Mary Michael (13:50):
I mean Grace Jones is obviously boss and I would
hire Stevie Nicks.
She's not gonna want to workunder me.
And Cindy, I mean I'm sorry butit's really it's very clear to
me.
I mean I, I would probably.
I Mean there's a part of methat would want to move Stevie
as boss.
(14:10):
But I just think, grace, Ican't imagine her working under
anyone, truly, and so that'skind of her stick as dominatrix.
Dominatrix, and Stevie is gonnabe a little bit unwieldy.
J.B. (14:23):
Oh, stevie's a fire.
Stevie's a fire for me, and allover me.
Mary Michael (14:27):
So I, I'm a fire, stevie, I can't okay, I'm a huge
Stevie Nicks fan, so, even aswitchy and weird as I love it.
All um so.
But we also.
But, molly, also, you are aStevie Nicks fan too, I think
right.
Molly (14:44):
Oh, I definitely want to work with Stevie Nicks.
I want to put on the scarvesand twirl around on stage and
maybe light some candles and youknow, manifest shit, I mean.
Mary Michael (14:54):
I've dressed up as Stevie for Halloween and I
don't look like I heard all.
Nobody knew what I was doing.
I had a crushed velvet dressfrom the canal district in New
York City.
I had my tambourine, I have myNass, like it was like a long
but nobody in Atlanta Georgiaknew who I was and I had had it
from New York, cuz I always, andthey, just like this party,
called nine of a thousand TVsthat everybody dresses.
J.B. (15:16):
Yeah, of course annual party.
Mary Michael (15:18):
Yeah, I always wanted to go to that but I
haven't.
And I have a.
I have a photograph a DavidLushapal photograph and details
magazine from the 90s frames inmy hallway of Stevie Nicks.
She's like kind of like I Don'tknow floating in the air yeah
being struck by lightning.
Okay.
J.B. (15:35):
I don't think Stevie can be tamed and I don't think that
she would be a good employee.
She's gonna be, she's gonna bein her vortex in Sedona like
chanting and it's fine, I'm I.
I also I want Stevie to beStevie, but if I'm gonna get
(15:59):
shit done, cindy is gonna be myemployee and obviously Grace is
the boss.
Molly (16:05):
I mean Cindy.
Cindy is ambitious, she's gonnalike execute, that's right I
have.
J.B. (16:12):
yeah, no doubt she works hard in earnest.
Mary Michael (16:17):
Who are your choices?
Molly (16:18):
Molly, oh, I, I think I was letting go Grace Drake,
grace Jones, because no one canmanage Grace.
She's doing her own thing.
She's like I got my ownbusiness happening.
I know and I'm not gonna fitinto this oppressive system of
corporate world.
I'm out.
J.B. (16:32):
She's like you're traveling to Saturn tomorrow.
Molly (16:39):
Yeah, she's not.
She's not, she's not staying inthe corporate space.
I think, steve, I would, I, soI definitely.
I think we're all working forCindy Crawford.
We may already all be workingfor Cindy Crawford in the
fashion space and, I think,stevie next man.
I just want to like snuggle inwith her and be pals, so let's
work together, okay, uh-huh, forsure.
Mary Michael (16:59):
All right, what fun.
That was a great exercise.
This might work for detouring,and why I think it's so great I
had I have deemed it verbaldaydreaming.
I think it's really cool if youcan allow for that, but you
definitely need the boundariesand guardrails of a sandbox, and
so that is where the creativebrief comes in.
(17:21):
Yeah, the process doesn'tnecessarily kick off with a
creative brief, and so a lot ofresearch will be done up front.
It's a lot of looking at,looking in and advertising.
It's a planner or slashstrategist Yep Goes out and does
basically ethnography, likegoing into homes, talking to
clients, customers, everythingtrying to understand stuff, and
(17:42):
then you put together insight.
So you have your insight, youhave your objective and you put
all these things on just a onepager and those are the
boundaries of your sandbox andyou push down into what is the
one single thing, thesingle-minded promise that you
want to make, and it's got to beone thing.
It's usually like we make yourteeth white and your breath
(18:04):
fresh.
No, that's two, that's onesentence, or like two
Conductions.
So what's the one thing?
So you get it down and it's sohard and you have to let go of
things, so what's the one thingyou want to talk about?
And then what's the one sort ofhuman truth that it's based off
of?
And then you got your tone, yougot your audience.
All these things.
That's just one page.
(18:24):
Now you're in your sandbox,right?
Yeah, I mean, you've got to settimers, you've got to do all
kinds of things, but in betweenthe box and in between what
other guardrails you're in, youcan go anywhere, and I always
say this I think everybody wouldsay this too that the more
constrained and confined you are, the more freeing it is
creatively.
Yeah, totally, you can onlytalk about this.
(18:45):
So now we don't have to worryabout we can't shoot this in
Fiji, we can't hire Madonna orwhatever we know.
We can't do these things.
Budget is often also on thatpage.
J.B. (18:57):
And mandatory.
Mary Michael (18:58):
So I mean, a great creative brief is the essential
, and sometimes you have towrite another one that works for
you.
One comes from the client, thenone comes through the
strategist, then one comes tothe creative, and the creative
takes it and goes OK, now I'mgoing to do the widest
toothpaste, because maybe in thezeitgeist everyone's drinking
super strong coffee now in whatthey're never used to.
(19:21):
So now our teeth are darker, weneed it more.
So you just lean into thesesort of spirit of the times kind
of things, right, so super funonce you nail this shit down.
Molly (19:31):
One thing that I'm hearing from you, Mary Michael,
about how to go from detours anda lot of divergent thinking and
that fun space, how you narrowit down.
One you start off with anawesome creative brief and know
really clear about what yourgoals are.
Your second thing that I'mhearing is it's really grounded
in human-centered insights whoyour consumers are and what
(19:52):
they're feeling, and that's theevidence to know if you're
heading in the right directionor not.
To help, like found you in.
And then you also mentionedlike timers, like you time bound
stuff.
Mary Michael (20:03):
OK, so I think like two hour brainstorms are
like max, you know, like I justdon't think people can go beyond
that.
You're probably pushing itanyway, but you're having many
detours in this two hour period.
It is not giving me anotheridea.
Great, another one.
Let me build on that it's.
I mean, in there you're goingto have a conversation about how
sad you are that your brotherisn't talking to you right now.
(20:24):
Another conversation about,like totally, your marriage,
yeah, or your breakup, or yourrecipe.
Your colorist is just notshowing up like they used to.
I mean, it's going to be reallyhigh, low, heavy, nothing stuff
.
And I know for sure this is whyI love advertising, because it
(20:46):
is like I get paid to just haveconversations with people all
the time and then talk aboutbehavior of other people and
then try to like kind of.
I don't like the idea of likecontrolling behavior, because I
really respect the audience thatI am talking to.
Like I was raised in the adworld to be like you are
interrupting someone's program,yeah, yeah.
Like you better make itinteresting.
(21:07):
Like basically, like it was thehey Whipple squeeze this like
Luke Sullivan world, and it waslike you do not talk down to
your audience.
You bring them in.
You create enough of aninterest, like you engage them,
and to such a degree that you go75% of the ad makes sense.
The engagement comes from theparticipant.
The consumer has to finish theextra 25% to get a dopamine hit.
(21:29):
Yeah, and now you've got them.
Do you know what I mean?
So it's like this is not you donot give them everything,
because you show them that youbelieve that they are smart with
you.
One of the things that I learnedto do in ad school, you know
(21:49):
you'd have to come up with ideasevery day for every class and
it was like two years straight,constant.
You know, here's a brief,here's a project.
It was like the harder twoyears of my life presenting and
just getting shot down like allthe time, just fixed in school,
basically fixed in school,building a school.
You know I would do this thingwhere I would you know when
you're in the car, when you'rein the shower, when you're just
(22:10):
falling asleep or just waking up, you have this lucid, semi
lucid state, right.
So I would set my timer becauseI would fall asleep and I would
lay down and I would have mypad next to me.
I just feel like, okay, youhave like 30 minutes for all.
Like, you better come up withsomething.
And I remember and you just do,you, you can.
You're, because of theconstraints, because of this
timed boundary, you can totallyallow yourself to fall asleep,
(22:33):
like I'm not worried, right?
Yeah, and that to me is like iskind of a formula this is this
play thing, right, it's likesafe, but you are free falling,
yeah, yeah, just proving thatthis worked.
There was this.
I was.
There was a project for EgyptAir and we were having to like
design a new livery which islike the paint for it.
Come up with an ad for the NewYork times, one of those one
pager ads, and then a poster orsomething like that, a couple of
(22:56):
posters.
I just I can't remember, but Iremember thinking, okay, we have
to do a new, it's going to be abrand new airplane.
Like we had to design a newairplane and I was like, oh so
when it flies over Egypt, theSphinx will be so psyched that
it's brand new that he'll lookup.
You know, like, yeah, and we'vebeen taught like don't show
(23:18):
everything, right, just makesure that.
So the ad was just a black andwhite shot of the Sphinx with
his head up and there's nothingin the sky, you know, like it
was just empty sky and then downthe bottom, just tiny.
Is that introducing the new,like the new paint job or
something of Easy to dare youknow?
Like just super subtle and thenout?
(23:40):
it's clever and it's reallyclever and then we ended up with
it, then we ended up with acampaign.
I think that, because now we'retweaking monuments, yeah, like,
oh, then it just spills out ofthat, right?
So it's like the sort ofmonuments of like things, like
characters who are seated nextto each other.
They look like they're in a rowtogether.
So we put seatbelts on them andthen we did like it's like
(24:03):
Ramesses.
Yes, thank you.
The Ramesses, yes, our line islike Go to Egypt, the oldest,
newest Place in the world, orsomething like that, and we
showed that like in between, wemade, we did.
We had the designer made like awall of Styrofoam and then cut
into it real hieroglyphics, andthen we would do like a Like a
roller blade, or then a cocktailglass or like some modern thing
(24:27):
.
Anyway, these are not supergreat ideas.
It was cute but it like, but welike one, the Gold of the show
that year.
Do you know what I mean?
I was just thinking like what,what a cool Like from I have
Jack, all I am gonna go to classand die and then, alright, just
lie down.
Just, you know, likebrainstorming and meetings to me
(24:48):
, where they're dynamic and yougo home with hope and you Seek
joy, are like like likescavenger how they're hunt, like
what are we gonna come out ofthis meeting with?
Like Something.
We have nothing right now, butwe could have something and it
is really a thrill like and itand I will say it not always
Work, but like it's worth trying.
J.B. (25:09):
It's.
It feels like every time thatwe put together a larger
creative team.
So like one or two people justsay, like I am not Creative.
How do you combat that thinking?
Because I think as a human, youare creative.
It is a biological,neurological fact, so how do you
convince these people that theyhave it within them?
Mary Michael (25:30):
I guess I would just say, I would just reflect
back that like it is aboutreturning to your younger self,
the word like make believe islike perfect, because you do
have to believe yeah, right,yeah in what you're making and
it just goes back to play right.
J.B. (25:45):
So I just think it's about just really believing and and
wanting to try you saidsomething earlier about
daydreaming out loud and itreminded me of you know, if
you've ever been on a road tripwith like an eight or nine year
old in the back of the car.
They are just narrating theirthoughts and it's like, and it's
(26:07):
wonderful, and it's like it'sfabulous, it's like it's the
most interesting thing thatyou've ever heard, because it's
so how can we get?
Back to that exactly.
Mary Michael (26:17):
You get back to that and you've got.
You've got yourself yourcreativity back.
Yeah.
J.B. (26:24):
More unserious with creative director Mary Michael
Pringle.
Mary Michael (26:27):
After this short break, I Remember my I would say
to my husband like and this isnot to say that he doesn't have
a great time or a great life oranything, but I would say how is
(26:49):
your day?
And he would be like it's.
It was really productive.
And I'd be like I've nevermeasured my day that way.
I was like was my day fun ornot?
You know, yeah, assumed it wasproductive, but it was really a
measure of like was itinteresting, was it fun?
Did we do things I didn'texpect?
You know?
Like, did I have a conversationthat blew my mind?
(27:11):
I think Re-framing your daylike that can be very powerful
and very productive.
J.B. (27:18):
It sounds a lot like work as Friendship.
Mary Michael (27:23):
Oh, holy cow, that is it.
That is the point for me.
I think that my hobby is peopleand I think I collect
relationships and friendshipsand because I'm a freelancer, I
am like a serial friendshipmaker and relationship maker and
I keep thinking I shouldprobably go back to full time,
(27:45):
but then I would have to be amonogamous.
I would stop meeting all theseinteresting people.
I mean, I have a monogamousmarriage, thank you very much
and I am like a total mercenarywhen it comes to my work and my
friendships.
People are so awesome and theyare what make work fun, and to
(28:05):
make the work different andinteresting and smart and just
maximizing them by buildingrelationships with them is the
way to go.
I love that.
J.B. (28:15):
I love that too.
Mary Michael (28:17):
I think I am addicted to connections.
J.B. (28:20):
Yeah, I'm the same way.
I think that the idea ofnetworking feels so
transactional and it always hasto me, and it was like I don't
want a network, I just wantfriends and that's what I need
in my life and I need it at work, I need it at play, I need it
everywhere in there.
Some people that I work with,that I'm friends with, that I
(28:41):
don't see them outside of work,but I love.
That doesn't mean I don't lovethem.
Molly (28:45):
For sure.
I think about what is reallyyour magic and how you do create
this make believe on teams.
Even in your storytelling youoften talk about other people,
but actually I often believe,mary Michael, it is you who is a
catalyst that lets people becreative in the way that makes
(29:06):
most sense to them.
I do believe there's a magicthat you have and you would
never want to codify it becausethat's not your jam.
But if I codified it for youthings that you talk about as
you come in with intentional joy, you embrace being vulnerable
and sharing parts of yourself.
You think about props and playand not being afraid of that,
(29:31):
putting constraints around yourwork, creating moments where
you're going to brainstorm fortwo hours and time it, but then
you might need to take a nap tohave that personal moment to
come up with your own ideas.
So you have to come in and out,and when you do, when you are
intentionally designing for this, you can solve tough problems
(29:53):
as friends on a team doingreally hard work out there, and
often you need that so that youcan navigate and lead through
complexity.
And one thing we didn't eventalk about was that often there
are tears well up in people'seyes as they are brainstorming
and building and making togetherbecause of it.
So I'm so pleased you came on.
(30:14):
Thank you, molly, thank you forthat.
And share with us some of yourmagic and stories.
So thank you, Mary Michael, forbeing here today.
J.B. (30:22):
Thank you for joining us today and sharing your wisdom.
Mary Michael (30:25):
Well, thank you, I'm serious.
J.B. (30:31):
What a cool, fun, amazing person to lead a creative team.
Molly (30:36):
I'm totally jealous that you had the chance to work with
Mary Michael so closely, molly,oh my gosh, I've just seen her
catalyze joy, innovation,amazing work on great teams and
with sometimes tough clients.
So, jb, tell me what were someof your takeaways.
J.B. (30:56):
Well, the one thing that totally resonated with me was
the idea of using friendship asan organizing principle for
teams.
It's not nepotism that she'stalking about, but it's how we
choose to work with each otherin the creative sandbox, and
friendship is one thing thatreally brings about safety,
camaraderie and a lot of joy.
Molly (31:18):
Totally.
J.B. (31:18):
I also loved how she talked about connecting deeply
through to childhood.
Through that process, kids arejust so fearless about trying
new things and exploring newideas.
Because that's what kids dothey're the ultimate beginners
and we all can learn from that.
How about you?
Molly (31:36):
What I loved hearing from Mary Michael was about the
importance of not controllingthe behavior of your audience.
I think that also kind ofrelates to your teams as well.
But one thing that she sharedthat in advertising you're
always striving for 25% audienceparticipation and that's like
(31:56):
the dopamine hit.
That's the emotional connection.
We talked about relationshipsas our hobby and that leads to
this sort of nonlinear, detoured, really creative process.
But it lets you be inspired, itlets you bring your childhood
self into work, it lets you bejoyful and that's what gets
teams to that next edge ofinnovation.
Teams get to be emotionallyconnected, they get to find joy
(32:19):
and belonging.
It leads to great work becauseyou're allowed to have that
authenticity and freedom to findemotional connections with
audiences at a whole differentlevel.
That's the magic of MaryMichael and I'm so glad the
Unserious crew had a chance tolearn with and from her.
J.B. (32:39):
And that's the show.
Unserious is in its firstseason, so please subscribe,
rate us, share with your friends, and you can keep tabs on us on
our website, at Unseriouscom,or find us on Instagram at
Unseriousfun.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
Molly (32:57):
I want to put on the scarves and twirl around on
stage and maybe light somecandles and manifest shit.
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