Empowering Creative Resilience That Thrives Beyond the Portfolio
Advertising icon Rick Boyko reflects on the evolving advertising landscape and shares how agencies can build lasting impact through nurturing internal talent, strong mentorship, and staying fiercely independent
Rick Boyko is an advertising luminary. He spent 30 years working at agencies, including Leo Burnett, Chiat/Day, and Ogilvy & Mather. As Co-President, Chief Creative Officer of North America, he integrated Ogilvy’s North American offices, leading to the agency being named Agency of the Year by Advertising Age in 2000.
Rick left Ogilvy to lead the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Brandcenter, which is now considered one of the best graduate schools for the Business of Marketing Communications.
Under his leadership, the curriculum constantly changed, and the program doubled in size. In 2012, it was named one of the most Innovative Business Schools.
After Brandcenter, Rick founded Sparkstarters, an executive training program comprised of renowned entrepreneurs, advertising leaders, startup founders, marketers, designers, and anthropologists. Their mission was to help companies become more competitive by liberating the creativity that’s hidden within every organization.
In 2016, Rick retired and, in his spare time, created and produced the Inspiration documentary series in conjunction with the Advertising Club / International Andy's. The series chronicles what inspired many of the world’s most inspiring creatives.
Rick has served on the Boards of 4A’s, Art Directors Club, One Club, and Advertising Week and as the Dean of the Roger Hatchuel Academy in Cannes. In honor of his contributions to the industry, Rick was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Hall of Fame in 2012 and the One Club Creative Hall of Fame in 2024.
The Continuum sat down with Rick to talk about his own inspiration for getting into the industry, the stories he’s heard from other advertising icons, and his experience as a mentor and educator.
You’ve interviewed some of the most prominent people in advertising about how they got into the industry. Can you tell us how you got into the industry?
My dad had his own little advertising agency in Fontana, California, called Advertising Associates. It was a small agency, he did mostly signs and print ads for local retailers. This was long before the internet or even computers. I used to go out to the garage every night and watch him do layouts, hand letter posters, and make ads. I was enamored by what he was able to do. He didn’t do television, but I loved commercials. My mom said I used to fall asleep during the shows and wake up during the ads.
From the time I can remember, I was drawing. There was always a paper and pad, so I could express myself. I would sit in the back of the classroom and draw, and I guess it’s not surprising that I didn't get very good grades in academic subjects. But I knew probably by elementary school that I wanted to get into the business because it was just so exciting.
How did you get your start? Did you go to school for advertising?
Actually, I went into the Air Force after high school. I wanted to attend the Art Center, College of Design in Los Angeles. I was accepted, but I couldn’t afford it. This was 1967, the height of Vietnam. I had a low draft number, so it was either pounding ground in Vietnam or enlisting. My dad was in the Army Air Corps. He joined in January 1942, right after Pearl Harbor. My older brother joined in 1960. My dad said, “If I were you, I'd go into the Air Force.” That’s what I did.
I became an illustrator in the Air Force, which really was mostly nothing more than a glorified Xerox machine. I hand-lettered briefs. I was lucky because it meant I stayed stateside the whole time. I was stationed at March Air Force Base. It was the headquarters for the 15th Air Force, which was where the B52s that were dropping bombs in Vietnam and Cambodia were stationed. They would fly their mission and then come back to the base and brief the brass. Obviously, this was before PowerPoint or Keynote. I would hand letter presentations on flip charts. I started to embellish them with images. I added illustrations, drawings, and maps. They loved it. I was actually supposed to be sent to Vietnam twice, but the brass said I was critical to their organization.
I did go to the Art Center after I got out, but it wasn’t a good fit. I didn’t need to learn color wheels or take classes in perspective. I wanted to get into the ad classes, but the administration wouldn’t let me skip ahead. So, I left and went to Chicago and eventually landed a job at Leo Burnett.
“They wanted to pick me apart, dissect me, figure out how I ticked. It was a totally different mentality. It was then that I realized everybody was being taught differently.”
For the last ten years, you’ve been working on the Inspiration documentary series and have interviewed advertising icons about how they got into the business. Pardon the pun, but what was the inspiration behind this? Do you have any favorite stories?
I wanted to find out how people found their way into the business. It was meant to be an educational series to show people there are many paths into the business and that the classic six years of school are not necessarily the only path.
When I started interviewing people, I found many of them just sort of fell into the industry. I just finished an interview with Gerry Graff. He wanted to be a comedian but became a stockbroker, which he was miserable in and decided the only time he was happy was when he was writing jokes. So, he found his way to advertising. John Hegarty said he wanted to be a fine artist, but a college professor suggested he look into commercial art instead. A lot of people point to teachers who encouraged them.
I also love Tom Burrell’s story. He wanted to be a writer, but his dad told him he would never make anything of himself and would be lucky if he could make it as a postman and said he would never get into the lily-white industry of advertising. Tom proved him wrong when he got a job in the mail room of an agency in Chicago. He then paid a lot of attention to the work they were doing. One day, Tom heard they were looking for someone to work on a new client, so he worked up some ideas and took them to the creative director. The guy liked what he’d done, and Tom said, “What do you think is worth more, having me pushing this cart around delivering mail or having me come up with ideas for you?” They made him a copywriter.
I've just finished four more that will come out in the next few weeks, and I have some great ones set to film this summer. I think the stories themselves are really interesting, and we now have a catalog of some of the creatives who have driven the industry in their own words.
You’ve helped many people get their start in this business by being a mentor and a teacher. Can you tell us about the Young Guns project you started at Ogilvy?
This was almost 30 years ago. Even back then, everybody talked about diversity and the need for more women and people of color in the business. Yet we continued to make the same hiring decisions year after year and did nothing to attract people with different backgrounds into the business. We made people go to four years of undergrad, where they were taught mostly by academics who'd never been in the business. After that, they’d have to go to a portfolio program to produce portfolios to help them get into the business. This included schools like the Brandcenter, Creative Circus, or Miami Ad Center– offering two more years of expensive schooling. And after all of that—six years of school and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt—they're hired as interns. The industry is unwilling to take a chance on people.
So, I started this group called Young Guns at Ogilvy. I went around to schools and picked students I thought were really good and offered them a one-year salaried position with benefits. They weren’t interns. We started with two teams and quickly added a third and fourth. We brought them together and picked a Creative Director to mentor them. My goal at Ogilvy was to stop using freelance and start using an internal team that could work on just about any brand. They were young thinkers, and people began to want to work with them. We brought our freelance budget down and gave people great training in the industry while paying them a real salary.
“More agencies need to understand that staying independent is the best way to keep doing great work.”
You kept your focus on teaching. When you left Ogilvy, you went to the Brandcenter at VCU to build out their graduate program. Can you tell us why you went there and what program you created?
When I became Co-President of North America and Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy, I would go around speaking at schools. When I went to ad school, I'd show our work and talk about the business and how they could do all these different things like get involved in film and music. Inevitably, the first thing they’d ask me is what I look for in a portfolio and how they could get a job. When I gave the same talk at MBA programs, the students wanted to know the process for getting from strategy to an idea. They wanted to pick me apart, dissect me, figure out how I ticked. It was a totally different mentality. It was then that I realized everybody was being taught differently.
Critical thinking and creative thinking are different. Critical thinking is analytic, convergent, vertical, focused, linear, and objective. Creative thinking is generative, divergent, lateral, diffuse, associative, and subjective. Critical thinking is probability. Creative thinking is possibility. Critical thinking is “yes but,” while creative thinking is “yes and.”
It’s two different languages being spoken, and they’re going to have to work together but don't understand each other's language. So, having been on the Board of the VCU AdCenter, which Diane Cook Tench started, I was asked to become its new Director.
I went to the then AdCenter and changed the name to Bandcenter with the mission to create an MBA program across five disciplines: art director, writer, strategist, technologist, and most importantly, the creative brand manager. Basically, all the people you would need to create communication if you were a brand learning to speak each other's language.
“Agency leaders have to keep these trends in mind so they can help their employees continue to have connections, mentorship, and some sort of balance in their lives.”
It's been a while since you’ve been in an agency; what are some of the changes you see now that you’re on the outside?
This isn’t new, but the impact of holding companies is still a big issue. The agencies that continue to thrive and do the best work are independent. Look at Wieden + Kennedy. Dan and Dave’s philosophy was that they’d never sell. They actually put the agency in a trust for the employees. It’s probably the most genius thing anyone has done in the industry. It can never be bought. More agencies need to understand that staying independent is the best way to keep doing great work. I think the good news is that there are a lot of small, independent, creatively run agencies that are now growing. I hope that trend continues.
I may be unpopular for this, but I’m worried we’ve lost something in the industry with so many people working remotely. The opportunity to share ideas, have mentorship, and just collaborate on the fly is gone. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I hadn’t had the opportunity to walk down the hall and shoot the shit with somebody and share ideas. They’d bounce something back or just say, “That sucks!” We need that kind of connection, and sadly, Zoom just doesn’t deliver that same connection.
Finally, I see the industry continuing to constrict. They are hiring young people as they exit higher salaried employees. I worry that the people coming in are not getting any mentorship while being asked to do the work of four or five people.
Agency leaders have to keep these trends in mind so they can help their employees continue to have connections, mentorship, and some sort of balance in their lives.
“You need to be passionate, talented, and confident, and at times a pain in the ass.”
You’ve spent your career teaching future advertisers and recording the stories of legends in the field; what advice do you have for someone just starting out?
I've always told the students that, first and foremost, they should get into the business any way they can. I had students who had great books but couldn’t get into their dream agency.
Sometimes, they’d be reluctant to go to places that wanted to hire them. I told them to take the job. Get in there. Then, find a mentor in the building. Every agency has good people in it who will be happy to mentor you if you ask.
I suppose my last piece of advice is, be a pain in the ass. I would have students tell me they sent their portfolios to agencies they wanted to work with but hadn't heard back. I’d ask, “Well, have you called?” Inevitably, they’d say no; they didn’t want to bother anyone and were told they would hear back. These are real jobs, and the agencies have 10 people applying for the same position, if you’re not going to be your own advocate and be willing to pester someone, you’re not going to get the job. So be a pain in the ass to somebody until they go, “Okay, I'll hire you just to stop you from bugging me." I got my first job at Leo Burnett by bugging the recruiter every day for over two months. You need to be passionate, talented, and confident, and at times a pain in the ass.
April 15, 2025
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