August 13th, 2009 
3
Dear fun folks at Zappos,
While we were disappointed we didn’t make the final round, we came out of this process a better company. Thank you for that. We found our voice in the RFP, we made great connections internally, and of course, we got the chance to meet you. Zappos has a truly unique culture and we want to wish you and your new ad agency tremendous success.
Brian Brooker
Chief Idea Officer
July 21st, 2009 0
The initial meeting is over, and now we wait in a holding pattern until we hear more from our new friends at Zappos. While we’re in orbit, we wanted to share a few things with you this week that we thought would be of general interest to everyone.
If you’re not familiar with Barkley, you probably don’t know that we have a rocket on the roof of our building. It’s a replica of the TWA Moonliner that Howard Hughes commissioned Walt Disney to design and place on top of the TWA World Headquarters (now our office building). That rocket was a symbol of Hughes’s idea that someday we would take passenger flights to the moon. To us, our rocket is a symbol of exploration.
The illustrations on the pizza boxes that we sent were all based on the rocket and our philosophy of exploration. As part of our presentation, we had various partners take our philosophy and interpret it as they wished in a video of two minutes or less. We played these videos sort of like commercial breaks. They were peppered throughout the meeting to keep the mood light and show off a little more of our partners’ thinking.
The results were too good to contain within that conference room. We present these videos to you now. We hope you enjoy the videos as much as our partners enjoyed creating them for you!
– Jeremy (@3rdmartini)
Carolyn Cawley brings her interpretation of “exploration” to a video created especially for Zappos.com.
Matt Bowne and Kyle Anthony bring their interpretation of “exploration” and “better ideas” to this video they created for Zappos.com.
Glen Scott and John Godwin bring their interpretation of “exploration” to a video they created for Zappos.com.
John Godwin brings us… Well, he blows stuff up for a minute or two. We’ll just leave it at that. Made especially for Zappos.com.
July 16th, 2009 8
I really hesitated to write anything about the Zappos RFP controversy. I’m obviously biased, and I have a clear stake in defending Zappos. So, at the risk of being branded a suck-up or getting into a pissing contest (that’s not what I’m looking for), I’m going to jump in, because a few things need to be said.
First off, anyone who has spent time getting to know the people running the Zappos RFP would instantly get that these are not disrespectful clients fishing for free ideas. Their inclusiveness is driven by a commitment to core values. One of Zappos’ cultural tenets is to be open to ideas from anywhere, and that’s why they graciously allowed other agencies, including ours, to submit proposals.
Our contacts at Zappos have always responded to our requests. They took time to meet with us up-front when we went to visit, and they’ve given us access to almost everything we asked for.
And just to be clear, we weren’t one of the agencies originally invited to the review. We reached out after the news broke, like a hundred other agencies. We knew the odds were long. Zappos was very clear about that, but we love their brand and their culture, so we took a calculated risk.
That risk has paid off abundantly. We were one of the agencies invited to the presentation round. Before we reached out, we had no shot of winning the Zappos business. Now we do. But more than that, the pitch has energized our agency. We’ve seen contributions and excitement from all corners of our shop. Regardless of the outcome, the experience has been fun and energizing, and it’s taught us something important about ourselves.
I have no idea whether we’ll make the final round or not. Regardless of the outcome, I think I speak for all 300 partners at Barkley when I say that we’re glad we got the chance to participate in the Zappos pitch. It was good for us. We feel like we brought great strategy and ideas to the table. And we rediscovered something really important.
Thank you, Zappos, for giving us the chance.
- Mark
@mlogan
July 15th, 2009 0
Sorry if we’ve been noticeably silent over the past couple of days. We had our nose to the, well, various things that we needed to stick our noses to in order to meet with you on Thursday.
At least from my standpoint, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling good about the ideas. I’m feeling good about the work we’ve put in over the past four days and, most of all, I’m feeling good about the possibilities for conversation with you that all of this work leads to.
It also doesn’t hurt that things have gone rather well on the beginning of this travel day:
We’re on our way, and we’re very excited to meet you all on Thursday!
T-minus 60 minutes and counting until liftoff…
– Jeremy (@3rdmartini)
July 9th, 2009 3
Being part of an ad agency pitch team is always exciting. Sure, it involves lots of hard work and some late nights. But, that’s an easy trade-off when you factor in the places you get to travel and the new people you get to meet as part of the process.
Usually, there aren’t a lot of people around the office wondering if there’s any need for just one more on the team this time around. But, come on… Vegas! Even if it’s just for an overnight business trip, people can’t resist the urge to try to squeeze their way onto the team just this once.
Adam Haney, PC/Mac Technician in the IT department wants to come to Nevada too.
My excuse was easy. “I’m Presentation Director. I need to go to the presentation.” But others are getting a lot more creative with their excuses for reserving that extra seat on the Barkley rocket. So, I’m proud to bring you:
We’ll see which excuses make the cut come Tuesday. Should be fun!
- Jeremy (@3rdmartini)
July 8th, 2009 0
There’s an even bigger crackle of excitement than there was last week here at ol’ Barkley Mission Control. No, it’s not from leftover glow snakes and sparklers from the weekend’s celebrations. It’s from the fantastic news that we’ve been chosen to come visit next week in the hopes of becoming your next advertising agency.
We heard from lots of you on Twitter that the pizza boxes (and the pizza inside – gone in 10 minutes!) were a big hit and that they’re going to grace the halls of Zappos.com. We’d love to see Twitpics and flickr streams of the box tops’ new homes, by the way. Based on the pitch invitation, we can also assume that our hand drawn RFP responses left a big impact.
What we hope that really comes across is that we’re a group of guys and gals who are big on ideas and big on working in a fun, creative culture. We know you can relate to that.
ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO! We’ve started to work on the conversation we want to have with you next week. We’re pouring the coffee (or beer, depending on the time of day), filling the glass walls with dry erase ink, firing up Keynote and preparing to launch the Barkley rocket and land it in sunny Nevada. Make sure to check in throughout the next few days as we chronicle the journey we’re taking to come talk with you. There’ll be mission control updates, more photos, and maybe even a video or two. Hopefully you’ll find it to be as much fun as it will be to experience on this end!
Oh yeah, I’m also excited to come take the tour!
Until next time,
Jeremy (@3rdmartini), Presentation Director
July 2nd, 2009 1
Hey Zappos,
Are you as ready for the long weekend as we are? Thought so. You’ve got a lot of proposals to read and a lot of ideas to digest. Nothing aids digestion quite so well as a cold beer, so we’re hoisting a glass of beer in your honor and wishing you a happy Fourth of July weekend.
More to come next week.
Cheers!
Barkley
July 1st, 2009 2
For Zappos, I wanted to make sure our personality came across in the RFP response.
From Vegas to Kansas City, I started to doodle some thoughts on the plane. Those doodles became the cornerstone for the proposal.
What if we wrote the entire piece by hand? What if we did rough sketches that let Zappos in on what we were thinking AS we were thinking it?
This was an ambitious approach because we had a lot of content to cover and of course, we didn’t want to come across as flippant. But the “doodle approach” seemed to work well because it forced us to distill our thinking.
Many Barkley partners contributed to this labor of love. For example, partners did a self-portrait and wrote their own bios. The personality of our partners shone through like never before.
The final result is a proposal that really reflects who we are. It was a lot of work, but all I remember is how much fun it was to put it together.
Brian – Chief Idea Officer
July 1st, 2009 0
Hi, Everyone at Zappos.
Glen and I want to say thanks for hanging out yesterday, it was super cool to meet everyone and we’re glad you enjoyed the pizza. I know our pizza box designers will be stoked to hear that you’re keeping them, and even having some of them framed.
Oh, and Roz, thanks for all your help coordinating with us. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Enjoy those boxes, and don’t be strangers!
Cheers,
Josh (@joshokun) and Glen (@the_glendon – yes, he really is THE glendon 
)
P.S. Check out some pictures from the party – feel free to add yours as a comment, or, if it’s easier, send them to me and I’ll upload them for you.
June 28th, 2009 7
Hi, Zappos!
We’re Glen and Josh, and we helped bring a little pizza by today. While we were working on the RFP, it seemed like Zappos.com and Barkley had a lot in common. And what better way to get to know each other than a good ol’ fashioned pizza party?
You guys seem to have a cool vibe going on over there, and we think our culture is pretty special too. And since we couldn’t invite you all over for some BBQ, we figured we’d send some pizza your way. A gift from our employees to yours.
We quickly decided against making the pizza (lucky for you), but we thought we’d at least put our stamp on the boxes. So we grabbed some designers, gave them a blank pizza box and let them get after it. The only rule was to include the Barkley rocket (which is pretty cool anyway).
We’d love to hear which ones are your faves.
Hope you enjoy the boxes. And if not, at least the pizza.
Cheers,
Glen and Josh
