Earlier this month, Smarts New York had the pleasure of hosting students from The School of Professional Studies at Columbia University for their Industry Insider Class. It was part presentation, part tour of our snazzy new offices, and part fascinating debate. Our Smarts US President, Mike DaRe, shares his thoughts from a stimulating day…
Everything Smarts does is built around a single idea: creating brand work that has Cultural Endurance. Not campaigns that perform for a day, a week, or a quarter, but work that actually means something over time. That philosophy invites scrutiny. And this group brought it.
What makes these sessions different is who’s in the room. These students are the generation most brands are desperately trying to figure out — and the first to enter this industry as actual natives to the tools, platforms, and cultural languages the rest of us have spent years adapting into. That’s a combination no generation before them has had. It means they can contribute to big strategic and creative thinking earlier, and more credibly, than I ever could have at their stage.
It’s a reminder that the next wave of this industry isn’t playing catch-up to culture. They started there.