Greg Hahn on risk, reinvention and building Mischief without fear

Luckily, an art director took Hahn under his wing, showed him how to curate a portfolio and land an entry job. The young creative’s eyes were opened to what “good advertising” looked like early on and his “scrappy, put-together” newly formed book helped him get into a small agency in LA called Mendelsohn/Zien, which was a “hot shop” at the time.

“I went there and, you know, it was like eight o’clock at night and nobody was there except for the chief creative officer and his assistant,” he says. The assistant brought him into the sprawling office for the interview. “It was this magnificent, huge LA conference room with a table about 50 feet long. He’s at the other end of the table, right? And it’s kind of like ‘Ad School the Movie’, you know? It felt like this young kid who has no idea what he’s doing, but he sees this executive. He’s all the way at the other end of table and he’s not looking up at me. He’s writing. So, I’m just standing there and then finally I go, ‘Are you, are you working on something?’”

The exec was an art director, on a big deadline for a client that is expecting an idea for a huge billboard the next day, which it wants to generate a lot of press. Fresh-faced and eager, Hahn started batting around ideas with him for the client, Wok Fast. “I wrote him a line and then he ended up selling it to a client and he got it produced. So, that was kind of the interview. And, believe it or not, he didn’t even give me a job. After that, he brought me in to freelance, so I had to still prove myself.”

Looking back, Hahn admits it was “not a great ad,” but he’s kept it because it’s the first one he ever wrote and there’s a sentimental aspect to that. In fact, he says it’s somewhere in his portfolio at his mom’s house in Cincinnati, “buried in a closet,” he laughs.

He has many ads close to his heart for different reasons, but another that stands out is the work he did on the United Airlines account, just days after the 9/11 attacks in New York City and during his time at Fallon. “It’s the most personal thing I’ve ever written. And it was the first public statement from United.”

After the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, the airline prepared a “formal” release intended as a full-page spread in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. But to Hahn and his creative director, it felt far too “corporate.” After being asked to take a look at it, Hahn deduced that it “didn’t feel right” for the moment.

“I had all these feelings that were kind of stirring up. And I was like, ‘I know the whole world is scrambled at the moment and everyone’s feeling the same. This is time to be human and not the time to be a big corporation.’ So I wrote something from my heart and they published it.” The creative describes how “high pressured” that moment was and that he fully expected the heartfelt message he wrote never to see the light of day and for United to go with the corporate messaging. It was the only ad Fallon showed the client and, to Hahn’s surprise, it went with it. “Pat Fallon actually said it’s his favorite ad Fallon ever did.”

The long-form copy, which you can read below, ended with a line that still resonates with people today: “On Tuesday, September 11, America was knocked to its knees. On Tuesday, September 11, America got back up again.”

It was while at Fallon that Hahn worked with industry legend David Lubars. At the time, the creative shop was producing industry-defining work for the likes of BMW, Sports Illustrated, EDS and Timberland.

Hahn considers Lubars one of the best mentors he’s had and believes the industry is “different and better” because of him. When Lubars announced his retirement last year, Hahn described him as not just a mentor but a “brother and friend” (the “Obi-Wan to my Luke,” even though Lubars is more of a “Trek person”).

In 2005, after eight and a half years at Fallon, Hahn went to BBDO to rejoin Lubars, who had moved on a couple of years earlier. In New York, Hahn eventually became chief creative officer and stayed put for 14 years and, with Lubars, oversaw one of the country’s most prolific, award-winning shops, creating work for clients such as FedEx, AT&T, Snickers, Lowe’s and Sandy Hook Promise.

But in 2020, as the pandemic gripped the world, Hahn was “abruptly” let go from his role, alongside executive vice-president and director of integrated production Dave Rolfe. The cuts at the New York office affected “high double digits, but no more than 100” staff, according to sources at the time. “I’ve often said I felt like the poster child for layoffs,” laughs Hahn. “It was very high profile and it happened very quickly. I was let go on April 16, the day after tax day, and it had to report all its numbers.”

Hahn describes it as an “unexpected ending during a chaotic, disruptive time” and not one he believes either side truly wanted, but simply that “the cards that were dealt.” Looking back, he sees it as a reminder that, if you play those cards right, what feels like a dark ending can actually become a new beginning.

“I didn’t even realize it until after I was out, but you know that saying, ‘If you ask a fish about water, they have no idea what you’re talking about because they’re in it’? As soon as I got out, I was like, ‘God, that was heavy and hard, ’” he reflects. “And it always felt like, every day, I was having to defend people’s jobs. And it just felt like things were coming at you from all sides.”

Just two months after being let go, in an unexpected next move, Hahn teamed up with Canadian agency No Fixed Address to create Mischief @ No Fixed Address. While June 1 marked the official launch, it had been “ready to go” earlier, with a client already in the bag: Kraft Heinz. He believes that his firing being on the “front page” of all the trade magazine websites actually helped build momentum for Mischief from the start, because there was “already a built-in audience.”

Five years on, the agency counts Tinder, Coors Light, Elf, Tubi and Pizza Hut among its clients and has been recognized as one of the world’s hottest shops on The Drum’s Indie Top 100 list. “We can make stuff that people talk about in culture and the things that we come up with here in this building and throughout Mischief suddenly end up on the news or late-night TV. It makes a big difference for businesses. There’s kind of magic in that.”

Mischief has grown from just six full-time employees to 130 globally. It’s considered a mid-sized agency, but there’s nothing “mid” about its approach to cultivating creativity and Hahn says the sense of creative freedom there is a world apart from what he experienced at a holding company agency.

At BBDO, he felt constrained, like you couldn’t do anything in a client meeting that might “shake them up,” because “God forbid you anger them or lose a client.” To Hahn, that’s “no way to work.” When he spoke with No Fixed Address founders Dave Lafond and Serge Rancourt, he learned one of their founding mottoes was, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” – something Hahn felt was “liberating” and a way of thinking he encourages of all agency staff.

“Clients have come to us and said their agencies are afraid of them,” he adds, noting that traditional shops often present work they “think” the client wants. In contrast, he says, the aim at Mischief is to “surprise.”

Knowing “who you are” is one of the biggest lessons from Hahn’s career, which has now spanned over 30 years, and then to “be committed to it,” because that will attract the right people to you.

Hahn wants Mischief to be a place where creatives can “do the best work of their life.” Importantly, however, he says “it doesn’t have to hurt,” rejecting the notion that you can only succeed by sacrificing your wellbeing. “There are places where you can do great work, but you’re not going to have a life and you have to suffer for that great work. I don’t think that’s necessary.”

He aims to create an environment where people are genuinely excited about their work and eager to come to the office. “Enthusiasm is a better motivator than discipline,” he notes.

Looking ahead, Hahn embraces the fleeting nature of advertising, aware that “you’re only as good as your last ad” – and he has no shortage of those.