MBAxAmerica + MADE: The Power of Giving a Damn
When Mad Men’s Don Draper decided to spurn Big Tobacco, he wrote a public resignation letter and pulled Sterling Cooper Draper Price out of its most profitable line of business.
When Greg Smith decided to turn his back on Goldman Sachs, he fired a shot-heard-round-the-world in the New York Times, and slammed the door on a lucrative career at the pre-eminent bank in the world.
But when the founders of the MADE Movement—Dave Schiff, Scott Prindle, and John Kieselhorst—decided to leave the legendary ad agency they helped build, they didn’t write a polemic. They didn’t go on cable news. They didn’t swear off the work they had done for iconic brands like Nike and Coke.
Not because they had an axe to grind but because they had a vision: to create the world’s first advertising agency dedicated to a resurgence in American manufacturing.
The MADE founders came from one of the most irreverent ad agencies in history, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, where they built careers by launching underdog companies that had no budget, no brand presence, and a behemoth competitor breathing down their neck. CPB creatives thrived on constraints and challenge, which often led to unexpected brilliant work like The Truth campaign against smoking that anybody who owned a TV in the late 90s should remember.
To understand their psyche is to understand leaving behind a six-figure salary and world-renowned clients to work out of a coffee shop with no clients or clear sense of whether there were even enough companies that manufactured in America to keep the business afloat. But as Dave, Scott, and John jumped off the cliff they found that there were brave souls and gritty brands jumping right behind them. Dave explains why:
“We’re not working for Nike, and we can’t pay people market value, but folks are willing to make a tangible sacrifice to get in the building. There’s no line item called ‘give a damn’ but it’s the most valuable thing an agency can offer you.”
Giving a damn happens to also be one of the most valuable tools in the fight to revitalize American manufacturing—giving a damn about high-quality products, American competitiveness, and the communities that we can’t afford to leave behind in the race to a modern economy.
That’s what Eli Cox is doing with his shop, Berkely Supply, which is reclaiming a Denver block with premium menswear all made in America. That’s what Sarah Calhoun is doing with her women’s work wear company Red Ants Pants, which has pledged to close its doors before it outsources production. That’s even what Walmart is doing by pledging to buy $50 billion more American-made goods over the next decade.
The power of giving a damn is perhaps the biggest lesson the MBAxAmerica team learned during our week with MADE—during which we provided a roadmap for MADE’s online marketing, curated a “roadtrip essentials” MADE collection, and hosted over 30 of Boulder's business, creative, and social sector leaders for an interactive workshop to develop actionable ideas to support made-in-USA products.
Even more, we built lasting relationships with folks like Dave, Scott, and John who push us to find a life’s work instead of a job, to be disruptive, and to believe that even the longest odds are no match for a dream that refuses to die.
