Deschner\u2019s new office <\/strong>at One World Trade Center has its perks: \u201cThe people who have come through these halls are some of the most amazing artists, writers, and photographers of the last few generations,\u201d he says. It\u2019s a lofty stage from which to do things differently, something he has sought out since walking off the Commencement stage 22 years ago.<\/p>\nThe political science major then had just enough knowledge of HTML to build a web page, the skill that got him his first job as a designer. Realizing that the Internet was changing things quickly, Deschner found himself on the cusp of something different. And in a business that regularly values novelty, he shares an essential lesson: \u201cEither you mutate ahead of it or you get dragged behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embodying that mantra has helped Deschner do things his way at agencies like AKQA, Crispin Porter Bogusky, and Ogilvy Malaysia. But it was a change in mindset\u2014 the switch from seeing how much he could accomplish personally to how many people he could lift up with him\u2014that has put him near the top of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat shift\u2014from being skill and aptitude-focused to being much more people focused\u2014was the most rewarding,\u201d he says. \u201cShifting to see how you can assemble the right people with the right skillsets and the right personal chemistry, then helping them accomplish something really amazing, has been the biggest change in perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2014, Deschner led Target\u2019s \u201cBullseye University\u201d back-to-college campaign for Deutsch, Inc., which featured 90 hours of live-streaming shoppable video. Essentially, every visible item was available for purchase with just a click. Today such things are commonplace, but five years ago it was groundbreaking.<\/p>\n
Once they got past the \u201chey this is cool\u201d part, the complexity of it all set in. This wasn\u2019t just about content: It included image tracking, computer vision, and e-commerce integration as well. It took nearly a year to execute. It was an immensely successful campaign, generating plenty for Target\u2019s bottom line as well as awards and \u201cbuzz\u201d for the agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job on that campaign was to see if I could link the talent and push it forward,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was an insanely difficult year. I\u2019ve worked on some super fun stuff, and that was really cool. That helped launch some careers, won a bunch of awards, and brought a wave of really interesting new business for us. The reward is sort of just more hard work, but\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice trails, lingering for a moment on the thought. For Deschner, hard and good work has always led to interesting opportunities. He has found success bouncing from job to job, going everywhere, seeing how others do it. It\u2019s all part of the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have had the chance to do all of these things if I hadn\u2019t kept saying yes to interesting opportunities. It\u2019s really easy to not take the call or not to get on the plane.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut one of my favorite feelings in the world is stepping off a plane and noticing the air and the ground smell different. There are adventures to be had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six months ago, he was chief innovation officer at TBWA\\Chiat\\Day in Los Angeles. Now at CNX, he feels a little like the kid who was just tossed the keys to his father\u2019s Porsche.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s simultaneously humbling and frightening, but also I have the exciting, and sometimes unenviable, task of figuring out where to drive the Porsche.\u201d He laughs. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m moving faster and thinking harder, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether the keys have been to the Porsche or to The Bachelor <\/em>office, there is a common theme to Deschner\u2019s shotgun approach\u2014one he explains with a knowing smile.<\/p>\n\u201cThere is an element of mischief to them, purposefully bending, breaking, or putting a dent in something, purposely putting a system a little bit on its head. That sense of contrarian mischief\u2014without it, I might have a more middling existence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Of course, he\u2019s trying to pull my chain. John Deschner \u201997, the guy who once wrote columns in The Bachelor under the title of \u201cLike a Monkey with a Shotgun,\u201d is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":4730,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-videos","category-features"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2019\/06\/deschner-1-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4729"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4732,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4729\/revisions\/4732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>But every man has his tell. With John, it\u2019s the jokes. Always the jokes. Don\u2019t be fooled by the smiles. There is plenty of wisdom in the comments that come buried behind yet another one of his punchlines.<\/p>\n