Hasta La Creative!

IN 1980, when DDB Worldwide Chairman Emeritus Keith Reinhard was CEO at Needham Harper Worldwide, he found himself contemplating the network’s growth and the affect that it would have on the agency. “We believed that culture was so important, but how do you keep that alive when you can’t physically be in 86 countries? The people have to feel that they’re in touch with management and leadership.”

His solution to that problem? A fax.

Well, not just any old fax, but a very special one from Mr. Reinhard himself. He decided that every week he’d send an inspirational note to his team around the world. “This was way before email, but how could we create that feeling that everyone was part of something bigger?” he said. He wrote each on ruled paper, turned sideways — a gentle design reminder that “rules are to be broken, rules are prisons,” he said. He titled each memo “Any Wednesday,” after the 1964 Broadway play, but also “because that would allow me to write ‘any’ Wednesday. Then I soon discovered if I didn’t do it ‘every’ Wednesday, I wouldn’t do it at all.”

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