Leo Burnett’s Farmhouse looks to connect with the venture community

By Yasha Saxena, 1871 Team Intern

Founded in Chicago in the midst of the Great Depression, ad agency Leo Burnett has always made bold moves in the name of creativity. Last night, Paul Earle, the Executive Director of Farmhouse which is the Innovation and New Ventures Center of Leo Burnett, came to speak to the 1871 startups about their mission to “really populate the marketplace with new brands that move people.”

The basis of Farmhouse is the idea that “the work of an innovator must be warmly and immediately human.” The name comes from Burnett’s prairie farm where he used to gather a team of seasoned co-workers to brainstorm solutions to the particularly difficult problems that the agency was facing. Through the late night conversations and grit of the farm, the gatherings marked the coming together of storytelling with raw and human creation.  The time spent on the farm had a huge impact on Burnett’s campaigns and inspiration for new products.

Now Farmhouse wishes to relay the collaborative and human experiences from the farm  onto the modern day branding process. Earle displayed this new approach to marketing and branding as a figure eight shaped diagram that loops from discovery to design. The figure eight represents the notion that the inception of a good idea can come from any area of expertise at any point in time. There is no start point and no defined line between departments. Theoretically, a copywriter could create an ad for a product from his own imagination and the technologists and developers would then create that product from the ad. Its not at all like the old method where there was generally a linear flow from one department to another. When you have the “researchers interacting with the copywriters” and the “technologists interacting with the industrial designers,” when you have this “literal mayhem,” brilliant ideas can truly take flight. Leo Burnett has thought of everything from the McDonald’s Happy Meal to the Special K App, but they know that there is always room to grow further. Through Farmhouse, this “800 pound guerrilla” wishes to explore the ideas coming from beyond the creatives and suites model. They wish to experiment and tinker with the branding experience, so that brands and products can become marketplace game changers.

Coincidentally, game changing is a language that startups and entrepreneurs understand quite well. Thus, Farmhouse is working on determining the best possible ways to collaborate and interact with startups that will help them “tap into the pop cultural Zeitgeist” and “touch people in a unique way.” This new chapter in marketing history is all about the intersection between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley.  Although the results are uncertain, the fact that large agencies such as Leo Burnett have a vested interest in the startup community is very promising not only for startups, but for the entire world as well.