Five Minutes With Eric Lobb

A veteran of the design and advertising industries, Standard Black co-owner Eric Lobb has worked with a number of top brands such as Calvin Klein, Adidas and more. In an interview, Lobb discusses design, digital strategies and what makes an effective media campaign.

What are the best (and worst) aspects of being one of three owners in a company?

The best aspect is that we all have each other’s back at every turn. It’s great to have different prospects from my two partners, as we all have different skill sets and perspectives. I think it’s important that all three of us keep our respective lanes and are able to maximize our individual strengths. Without them, I would be trying to be everything to everyone, and that’s just not a productive approach. Having partners helps me think through things with more clarity and approach projects differently at times. The worst? We’ve known each other for a really long time, so we are like brothers; and brothers can disagree at times. But, in the end, we are always family. 

How did you approach the challenge of a 360-degrees media campaign for your CVS project?

As a creative director with a heavy design background, I like to have complete control over the entire creative process. But when you are working on something this big, you have to realize you can’t always do that. You need to have your media teams, PR teams and strategists all collaborating to pull off something this big. When we announced that CVS would ban retouching, we received over two billion impressions within a week or two. There were so many elements of the campaign: from TV, to print, to digital, we established very tight brand standards to follow and made sure that every single piece of creative that left the agency or any of our partners was held to these standards. It can be daunting to do something on this scale at first, you need solid account management teams and seamless alignment across all parties involved to pull this off.

What was your strategy to blend content, design and brand identity in the Medium projects?

Medium felt like an algorithm serving articles to the reader based on clicks. We wanted to bring some humanity to the platform with hand-drawn typography and by creating a digital content program acting as a writer hall of fame, which we called Noteworthy. We profiled the writers beyond the pen to put a face to their name and shot those profiles in their own space and in their own words. The Noteworthy badge gives readers an insider’s look into the creative lives of top Medium writers through a series of engaging, profile-driven videos and imagery. We developed a fully dedicated digital experience within Medium to house and focus all Noteworthy content.

What are the most important elements to consider in a digital strategy?

The first step in building a digital strategy is to define your goals from the very beginning. A lot of marketers like to look at brands that have a successful strategy in place, such as Glossier or Airbnb, but they aren’t able to see how much time and money has gone into building these brands to what they are today. Once the goals have been defined, we can create a content map, which is essentially a plan for how we are going to use every piece of creative. Next is finding the voice for the brand in digital that is going to resonate with our consumer, and also allow for efficiencies in production dollars — brands just cannot waste any resources on inefficient production. Finally, we have to look at the production itself, huddle with our producers and figure out how to execute and produce content that is truly engaging. We believe in quality over quantity, and that means trying to create something that is truly special and will get people to interact with the brand.

What do you think makes a compelling design?

Compelling design should spark curiosity and drive passion for discovery. Curiosity is the driving force behind engaging and captivating an audience. 

What is one Standard Black project you’re incredibly proud of?

We’re extremely proud of our projects with Willy Chavarria. Working with a designer who is deeply connected with social issues such as equality and sustainability is invaluable and rewarding. His brand takes a unique and progressive position that is original and consistently inspiring.