OKC ad agency doesn't do things the usual way

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - It's time for another meeting.

Rusty Duncan, co-owner of Insight Creative Group, gathers his employees and meeting notes, puts on his special socks and heads to the ball pit.

Yes, the ball pit. Not your average corporate gathering. But at this ad agency on 19 NE 9th St., that is the point. The in-office ball pit complete with oversized beanbag chairs is where ICG has all its meetings. Sure, it has rules, like "no bare feet." But, as co-owner Eric Joiner said, "Rules are made to be broken." Breaking rules helps you stand out. And that is ICG's goal: to be a different kind of ad agency.

The agency's office — if it can be called that — represents the quirkiness that shows in their ads. The entire inside is orange. It's filled with parking meters, stoplights, a basketball goal and of course, the ball pit. The staff is armed with Nerf guns.

"Our big thing we say is: Our work is serious so we don't have to be," said co-owner Doug Farthing.

Farthing, Joiner and Duncan started ICG just five years ago and have already gathered a large list of clients like Devon Energy, the Ford Center, the Cox Center, Heritage Hall, Kickapoo Casino, Lucky Star Casino and St. Anthony Hospital.

The ads in the spring for St. Anthony's no-waiting InQuickER program are what really started to garner attention: giant billboards saying only succinct, ominous phrases like "The end is near" and "The wait is over." The ads went viral and were the talk of newspapers, TV stations, Twitter and blogs alike and the guys at ICG were monitoring the buzz the whole time.

"Friends I talked to, they didn't know we did it, and they were talking about the whole office having conversations about the billboards: breaking down the colors, breaking down the red period at the end, and I'm just laughing," Duncan said. As a self-professed "agency of crazy ideas," ICG tries to go against the trends in advertising.

"We try to get (clients) to go as far as they comfortably want to go," Farthing said. "We actually like to push them over the edge.

"We talk to clients all the time about doing a teaser campaign," Duncan added. "Well, if a client can't see their logo up on something, sometimes they don't see the value in it. But St. Anthony did see the value."

To the guys at ICG, an ad can't look like an ad, because in this day and age, people don't buy straight, traditional advertising anymore.

"People recognize ads these days," Farthing said. "It now has to bring them in culturally; it has to bring them in on a fun level, on an intelligent level. An ad just can't be an ad anymore."

Examples of what the guys at ICG look up to include the current Old Spice "Smell Like a Man" campaign or "The King" from Burger King. They are out-there, they grab attention, and they are different. Farthing said the time is perfect for this kind of advertising in Oklahoma because the metro is starting to embrace creativity and breaking the rules more and more.

"There are a ton of good agencies that are doing great things around the city," he said. "Things are only getting better; people are only getting more creative at what they do."

Added Duncan: "It's a good vibe happening here."

The vibe is equally good in the ICG office, where everyone works on a project together, from the graphic designer to the social media director.

"Using whips," Duncan said jokingly. "No, it's a collaborative effort. We're a small shop; we pull from everywhere to stimulate creativity. We have to be nimble and think on our toes."

The agency wants to be a model for a new business culture, in everything from creativity to environmentalism.

"We wanted a company that wasn't just about what we do, but who we are," Joiner said. "We want to work with partners who are willing to be bold. Not everyone needs a ball pit, but everyone needs a ball pit — an extension of who they are. We're not video guys, we're not designers, we're idea guys."

And if most of their ideas are created by lounging in a ball pit, so much the better.

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Information from: The Journal Record, http://www.journalrecord.com