Kiser Barnes - Chief Creative Officer and Partner at Red Antler

18:28Kiser Barnes:We build the future.

18:29Claire:Yeah, that is a very good answer. We build the future.

18:32Kiser Barnes:At Red Antler, we have this ethos called Future Magic, which is really about defining incredible optimistic visions for the future, for brands, through the worlds that we build and the experiences that we build. And we are really fortunate to work with an incredible scale of brands, from, as I said, brands in the startup pre-launch space who come to us with just the start of an idea and we help concept and come up with names and positioning for them within the marketplace. We have brands that come to us in a growth phase where they're sort of trying to reach for their next evolution, which is such an exciting space of transformation for brands who've had some success.

19:09Kiser Barnes:We did this for Hinge in the past, sort of taking them from a sleeper kind of product to the most successful dating app, I think, in the world. And so the team collectively swarms around these projects, around strategy, around design and creativity across these multidisciplinary ways of thinking. And we are so fortunate to work across this amazing scale. So we work now, in addition to some of the startup work that we do, we're pivoting a lot into enterprise-scale brands. So we just are working on Google and we work on McKinsey and some brands that are, I think, like really kind of doing things like McKinsey, just, we just launched their first global campaign.

19:48Kiser Barnes:They'd never done a campaign in their hundred year history. So that was like a really exciting kind of like, and so we like to come in as like the agency that helps transform, reinvent and invent brands.

19:59Claire:Yeah. What are you trying to do for McKinsey? What's the change they need?

20:02Kiser Barnes:So McKinsey is an exciting brand, right? And I think that they, like every other brand in the world are facing kind of the challenges of technology and the challenges of changing landscapes around their business model. And so what we are helping them to do is to tell the story of the incredible legacy that they've had over the past 100 years. But more importantly, what's the story for the next 100 years for McKinsey, which I think is a proposition that's really exciting both for their partners and for them internally as a 5 ,000 plus partnership team.

20:35Claire:Wow, so it's internal as well. So getting everyone on board and facing in the right direction. Yeah.

20:39Kiser Barnes:And a lot of what we've been doing at Red Antler to help make this possible is we're like building new disciplines. So we've got an ad team. We've always had an advertising team, but we've been like really focusing on growing that team and that capability. Jason, who's here, is helping to lead that team. And so we've got some really exciting kind of like new disciplines that are connected to this idea of an experience forward brand agency that really thinks about like the relevant places for brands to play. And we have a digital transformation team. We just hired a creative technologist and we're hiring an AI creative director, which is like a role that's never really existed before.

21:16Kiser Barnes:So we're getting people internally to sort of incubate ideas and think not just about how they impact the brand process, but also how they impact brands through tooling and through engineering. And I think our role potentially as an agency might shift into, you know, how do you build product for brands, right? Yeah. How do you build kind of, you know, tools for brands in addition to all the great kind of creative and in addition to all the great marketing work that we do?

21:41Claire:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'd love to know how the AI creative director goes and what happens with that. Yeah. It's a massive opportunity.

21:47Kiser Barnes:It's a first of kind role. So we've got, you know, like it's weird to hire for a role that's never existed because you've got people who will send you like mid journey stuff that they did. That's not great. And then you've got people who are like doing really exciting things, you know, who are actually building tools. So it's an exciting new space. And I think like technology can give us all an advantage in some ways.

22:08Claire:Yeah, absolutely. Can we talk about the design industry? Because you guys obviously have got like, it's not just the design industry, it's advertising, it's marketing, it's all of it. But do you feel part of it? Do you feel part of the industry?

22:18Kiser Barnes:Absolutely. I think, you know, we've been around for 18 years as an agency. So Red Antler has been around for a long period of time. I think 18 years is incredible. And we have, I think, an amazing reputation, both within the industry and outside of the industry. And I think a big part of what we've been doing over these past two years as well is like, I think it's really important to have a conversation with your peers and with the community at large. And so we've been having more conversations like the one we're having now. We're actively involved in the AIGA, as you mentioned earlier. And so really trying to be involved in sort of like, you know, having the conversation with our community.

22:56Kiser Barnes:And I think that invites opportunities for us to find great partnerships, find great talent. And ultimately, like I think grow our kind of like, you know, collective vision of what design means both in New York and globally.

23:10Claire:Yeah. Yeah. I love the AIGA. I think they do some amazing work. yeah it must be a good board to be on do you find any aspects of the industry particularly

23:16Kiser Barnes:challenging i think i think technology is so tough at the moment and ai i think like we're all dealing with like this existential sort of like yeah it's really exciting but it's also scary

23:29Claire:and who knows what's gonna happen who knows what's gonna happen yeah yeah so i'm like constantly like

23:33Kiser Barnes:doom scrolling you know it depends on what time of day you ask me that question like at night i'm like, you know, I'm like, oh God, we're all going to die, you know? And then like on a panel like this, I'm like, AI is the best thing ever. So I think we're trying to find like, what's the middle ground on technology. And I think that it's there for all of us. I think it's a great, like, it's a bit of a threat to some of us, but it's also an opportunity. And I think like a lot of questions have been asked around like, what's the human side of this, right? And what's the human perspective? And I think that's what we're trying to define collectively, you know, as an industry and also in red antler is like what is the what's our special kind of perspective on ai and how do we use the tools in ways that feel really exciting and innovative yeah and i think human creativity is ultimately about experimentation right it's like everyone's going to have the same baseline tools but it's an opportunity to build bigger worlds an opportunity to sort of leverage these these new technologies in exciting ways in the same way that i like discovered photoshop you know many, many years ago, I think it's like a new discovery for us.

24:35Kiser Barnes:And we don't know where it's going to go, right? Is it going to be a dumb tool that we use to create memes of yourself dunking on your friends? Or is it going to be something that like becomes much bigger than that and exciting platforms that we build? And I think experimentation is a big part of how we're using that internally is like, we're trying different things. We're sort of probing into like opportunities with AI and with the technology itself. And I think that can be scary. Like experimentation feels scary right because you're like i don't know what's going to happen here it's not the linear path you've always taken yeah i think my background is that is like perfectly suited for that like i embrace experimentation i'm really curious about like what these tools can bring and what they can yield and so i've been like i think we've all been embracing that

25:17Claire:here um at red antler yeah absolutely yay so exciting times and that so can i ask you a final question and then i thought we'd open it up to a q a if everyone's anyone's got any questions for kaiser have you got any tips for juniors starting out today sort of beyond being really good at design and creativity basically how to stand out be good at design and creativity um no i think like that's an assumed isn't you've got to be good at that to be like but how else do you stand out

25:44Kiser Barnes:i think we're in an exciting time around a shift in culture that is sort of more bottom up at the moment and i think actually like it's an incredible opportunity for junior and new creatives to embrace that power that they have i think that when i started as i said it was a very like hierarchical structure it was like the creative director said this and then you do that and you know i was doing a lot of production it was top down yeah when i first started in an ad agency the juniors just they did the sort of yeah dog's body work type stuff but they didn't yeah they

26:17Claire:weren't allowed to speak in meetings and stuff whereas now it's the complete opposite you want

26:20Kiser Barnes:people's opinions yeah to get involved so culture is bottom up now right it's like absolutely you find that like brands now like dr pepper's new jingle was like basically someone on tiktok singing a jingle right and like it got upvoted and everyone else was like okay that's a new dr pepper jingle and so like i mean it's bottom up and i think it's an incredible like moment as a young creative to be involved in our industry because I think if you own that sort of power and confidence, you can take all of your experience and your passions into the work that you're doing at work. I think what that means in a tactical sort of functional way is I would advise like young creatives to experiment and show their experiments because I think more senior creative leaders are looking to understand what's emerging in culture and in technology.

27:08Kiser Barnes:But like we don't have necessarily like the skill set or the experience that they have to understand it in the abstract. And so I think it's about sort of showing your process, your thinking, your work, and being confident and bold enough to like put that forward. And, you know, doing things like for brands that maybe aren't on the brief, right? So like if you get a brand identity brief, go out and build, you know, some memes, you know, if you're excited about that or go build like a vibe coded AI tool or whatever you're excited about. But like, think about like the incredible power that you have both culturally and in the technology.

27:42Claire:Yeah, I think that's fantastic advice. Thank you very much. I turn on my other mics and see if anyone's got any questions. Hi, I'm Miriam, an account manager at Rosetta, working with Claire and the team. You spoke about it there a little bit about working across so many different industries. I was wondering if there was a common denominator that you look for when you're partnering with clients.

28:03Kiser Barnes:Yeah, great question. We tried as much as we can to work with brands who are in this space of invention and reinvention is what we try to put our fingers on in terms of like our, you know, approach to brand building. And that sounds broad, but it is really true in the work and the types of brands that we work on in the sense that we are trying to find brands and they also come to us when they're trying to pivot their product or their brand or their identity or their, you know, kind of way of thinking or their strategy. And I think that sets us up nicely for creating incredible work because they're coming up to us with a great brief and with a great opportunity to create great work.

28:42Kiser Barnes:So that is, I would say, our specialty in terms of the types of work that we do. So there aren't any specific industries that we work on at all. A lot of the work that we do now is in the tech space because a lot of capital investment on the startup side is in tech, right? So we're seeing a ton of work in the AI, SaaS kind of platform brand space. So we get a lot of brands that are doing like some version of a traditional business model, but with AI, you know? So they're like, you know, creating kind of like better medical outcomes for patients with AI or we're working on a brand that is working.

29:20Kiser Barnes:It created this incredible like robot AI powered robot that helps take patients to the correct space in a hospital because a lot of like patient care can be like super like destructive in terms of wait time. So if people are waiting on a bed, right in an emergency room and they can't get from that bed to the doctor in a timely manner there are obviously like consequences for that from a health perspective so they're making this robot it's a really cool cool robot that like basically attaches to a bed and automates like itself through the hospital space and delivers the patient radiology or x-ray or whatever and it's like so we work on like such an incredible array of brands but they're all in the space of

30:00Claire:invention or reinvention yeah i want to see what that robot looks like i know it's a really cute robot it's gonna yeah it's gonna look friendly hasn't it does yeah it does look really friendly any other questions hi i'm mcleet i'm an art director and i'm always curious where creatives are getting their inspiration so are you reading or watching anything lately that has caught you

30:21Kiser Barnes:whether it's like a tv show or magazine or blog yeah my inspiration creatively comes a lot from art like I I think like that's like my primary source of inspiration I just went to the Guggenheim this past weekend and I find that like that's my reason for living in New York in a way is like the ability to connect to kind of really great craft and art but I'm always like curious about like pushing on art that pushes into the space of technology some of my passions and you know kind of culture and great craft. And so I'm always sort of like walking around the city and like just being in New York City, I would say is like my primary source of inspiration is like just literally being in the city and walking around and like I see incredible like fashion creative perspectives, right?

31:11Kiser Barnes:Like people are walking around, they've interpreted, you know, fashion design in interesting ways. I go to restaurants and it's really incredible culinary creative expressions. And that really like excites me and inspires me. And so that's sort of my primary source of inspiration in the city. I will say that like my Instagram discover page is like, I've kind of like intentionally turned it into my quiet space where it's just like crafts people. Like I like my discover page is like all like furniture makers and like, and it's like, what I love about that is like, it's people presenting their work with no sell.

31:47Kiser Barnes:Like, it's just like, here's my painting, you know, or here's my piece of furniture that I built. And it's like a really like incredible, like almost meditative inspiration space for me to like not have the noise of social media and all the other things, but still be on some of those platforms and still be getting like great inspiration. So I kind of try to find like a bit of like a quiet creative space, I suppose, is how I would define it. That like clears some of the noise and allows me to sort of like think about what the stories are that are being told in that space. I love movies. I just saw one battle after another, which I thought was like really interesting.

32:23Kiser Barnes:Is it good?

32:24Claire:I was like to watch that on the plane the other day. Right. I need to, yeah, I need to see that. It seems, looks like it needs to be in a cinema though, not on the plane. Cinema for sure.

32:31Kiser Barnes:I went to see the movies and there's like the scene at the end. So cinematography is like for sure, but there's a scene at the end where there's a car chase and the camera angle is like really low and right on the road. And it's just like a beautiful scene that I've never sort of seen in movies before. I'm sure he lifted it from somewhere else, I love those kind of like you know moments where you're able to sort of immerse in just a one-dimensional perspective around creativity.

32:56Claire:Yeah good questions. There's one more. Hey I'm Aaron I'm a creative director. You mentioned earlier one of your previous partners kind of taught you like a different speed or a different way of like working at speed and I'm curious like your thoughts on how you can kind of create excellence at speed as well. If that's possible.

33:12Kiser Barnes:Yeah. I think that what I learned from that like speed process was go fast, go wide, and then like edit, you know, go fast, go wide, edit. And I think everyone has different approaches, but I think that that's been my way of approaching creativity is like go fast, go wide, edit, go fast, go wide, edit. And I think that creatives become better creatives by doing the work, not by like thinking about the work. you know there was like an interesting experiment i heard about where they took a class of ceramics makers like in college and they basically were like half of the class gets graded on making the perfect teacup right so like you you don't have you could just have to make one teacup that's perfect yeah and then the other half of the class gets graded on making the most teacups yeah and they had them go off in parallel paths and the side of the class that like was focused on just making the perfect teacup made horrible teacups because they were just trying to like get it right and get it perfect right but of course like it makes so much sense the side of the class that

34:18Claire:was making a hundred teacups get really good they got incredible and they were producing like the

34:24Kiser Barnes:best most creative teacups because they had made it was repetition they'd done a lot and so like i think that we somehow have this like especially when we come out of college we have this like precious design kind of mentality of like everything's got to be perfect and you know And I think that like if we free ourselves a little bit of that in the process, especially early on, I think we can arrive at like really interesting answers.

34:46Claire:Yeah.

34:46Kiser Barnes:Good question. That answers the question. Yeah. Hi, guys. I'm a client business director at Denomination. I'm curious about kind of the two sides of your family and how you were raised. And if you ever find yourself leveraging both of those different sides in unexpected ways or ways that aren't really obvious. I love that question because I think so much of who we are is about like its environment it's you know your DNA what you're sort of like you know kind of inclined to do and I think this like I've always again like debated and like sometimes veered into one space of feeling like I just want to like think about the craft and like I just like I'm obsessed because I love it like and I really like you know early on like there were days where I was like oh should I just be an artist like I just want to paint stuff you know know really and then yeah and i was just like i was always also curious about like again like telling stories and ideas and i think that i've learned both sides and i think sometimes i veer into either side i think as i've gone up in my career and as i've grown in my career and become more senior oddly enough i think this is like a cliche but you get less and less involved in the making right and you're more and more involved in the storytelling and the selling and the narrative of how you sell the work.

36:02Kiser Barnes:And so I would definitely say that I'm leaning more now in my role now into the space of like trying to define stories and help my team tell better stories. And I think my team are, I have an incredible team of like both makers and storytellers and creative thinkers. And so I think I'm leaning more into that space, but I think it's really important as a creative, no matter what level you're at, to be like in the work and to be making things. And so I try to stay connected to like the making and actually building things. And whether that's like in the work that you do or side quests or whatever it might be, I think that's important as well.

36:39Claire:Yeah, absolutely. Kaiser, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

36:44Kiser Barnes:It's amazing. And thank you all so much for coming.

36:59Thank you.