It’s amazing what you can learn from a black sheep.
One of our first clients at BBH was Levi Strauss. It was 1982 and the company wanted to launch a campaign for black denim but needed the right idea to communicate.
We came up with this poster.
When we presented it to the client for the first time, however, they were horrified.
Where’s the picture of the jeans?! they exclaimed.
I responded by pointing out to them politely – well, relatively politely... – that everyone knows what a pair of jeans looks like and we had to get people to understand that black jeans were now available. And more than just announcing that, the poster also needed to communicate something about the kind of person who would wear black jeans. We needed to make clear: You will be different. You won’t be one of the crowd. You won’t be one of the flock.
To reinforce the point we were making visually, we added a single line of text:
WHEN THE WORLD ZIGS, ZAG.
The client finally relented and ran the poster.
So successful was this piece of advertising that Levi’s presented me with a life-size black sheep and we eventually adopted the black sheep as BBH’s logo. Like any great logo, it represents far more than a memorable corporate identity. It’s not only about standing out, being distinctive, and not following the crowd, it also drives our creative thinking and our values.
The black sheep became our identity and our philosophy. Even now in our creative briefs at BBH we always ask ourselves:
Where’s the zag in our thinking?
By looking in the opposite direction, you might just find something new.