Descript’s first billboard campaign is live. We’ve taken over the Montgomery Street MUNI in San Francisco. And, like most things we decide to do at Descript, we’ve decided to do something pretty weird.
The short answer as to why we went with this campaign: it made us laugh.
But here’s the longer answer.
On its face, our ad campaign might feel alienating. The art direction is intentionally dystopian — Orwellian imagery, over-the-top copy that’s meant to tip into satire. (The problem of course is that Silicon Valley billboards are already so grandiose they're impossible to satirize, just like you can't write a satirical LinkedIn post because nothing you say will be more unhinged than what 15 lunatics just posted earnestly.)
Illustration by Miriam Martincic
The outrageous imagery is supposed to make you feel uncomfortable because the message feels uncomfortable. In creative work these days, there’s a constant tension between volume and quality. You spend a lot of time drawing the line between making good work and making enough of it to satisfy the platforms, help the business, engage your audiences. If you're being honest with yourself, that line is dotted at best — but there is a line. You know where it is in your gut, even if you can't explain it in a Slack message.
Illustration by Miriam Martincic
There's also this: even if you love the company you work for and love your customers, you understand that companies need to grow and keep growing so they can ship great products — but that's not what got most of us into this. None of us (Descript, creative people, builders) started on this journey because we wanted to create shareholder value. We started because of an idea. We felt it seriously, earnestly, the way you feel things you're a little embarrassed to say out loud. So we rarely say it out loud, but quietly keep it on a pillar somewhere in our hearts.
Which is why, if you go to the Montgomery MUNI station, you'll mostly see big, exaggerated art screaming at you about why businesses need to make more video. (They do. We really believe that.) But if you walk to the part of the station where no human is really supposed to be — the spot for making out and maybe smoking weed — you'll find a pillar that says the other thing we really believe.
The thing that got us into this in the first place.
