Craig Allen | Founder, CCO @ CALLEN

Don‘t Skip with Zack Seckler

On today’s episode I chat with legendary creative Craig Allen. Craig spent nearly a decade at Wieden + Kennedy where he won armloads of awards including 2 Grand Prix Lions at Cannes, Best in Show at The One Show and a Grand Effie. His Old Spice campaign “Smell Like A Man, Man” has been lauded as one of the top ad campaigns of the 21st century. Craig co-founded his eponymous agency CALLEN in 2017 where he and his team have created celebrated work for brands including Clif Bar, Vistaprint and Liquid Death.

Now, it’s been almost a year since I posted our last episode. My hope was for this interview to be the first in a new season of Don’t Skip. But as it turns out, the extra time I had to create this podcast during covid has just completely evaporated.

So before anymore time slips away I really want to get this interview out there. It’s a great one. Craig and I chat about his time at Wieden and how his insanely successful Old Spice work impacted his career early on. We talk about the challenges and opportunities of starting your own agency. And we talk about commercial directing and how Craig has actually directed a bunch of spots himself and almost ended up leaving agency life to become a commercial director.

Craig's work: thisiscallen.com

Zack’s work: zackseckler.com

Find Zack on Instagram: @zackseckler

Email us: dontskippodcast (at) gmail (dot) com

Don’t Skip is a podcast featuring conversations with ad-agency creatives and other talents who help create award-winning advertising. Ads you don’t want to skip.

Each episode delivers valuable insights into how the best campaigns are created along with honest discussion about the challenges and opportunities experienced during a career as a commercial creative. Topics include pitching to clients, creative ideation, client relations, treatments and creative calls, pre-production and on-set adventures.

Don’t Skip is hosted by award-winning comedy director and photographer Zack Seckler.