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McKinney's Omid Amidi Says Creativity Doesn't Need to Please Everyone, But It Must Have a Point of View
He helped devise the trendsetting 'Share a Coke' campaign
Omid, currently co-chief creative officer at McKinney, has spent much of his life moving between cultures, personalities and expectations. “It’s made me highly attuned to how people read a room, how outsiders find their way in and how identity changes depending on who is looking.”
And don’t get him started about generic truths. “I’m more interested in the odd detail, the contradiction, the behavior people do not admit to and the small cultural signal that reveals something larger. That is usually where the work starts.”
Omid began his career by winning the YoungGuns International Creative Brief while working as an assistant at a mutual funds company. He then landed his first full-time job at Droga5—where his first campaign won a prize at the Cannes Lions. Since then, he’s created some of the most memorable and impactful campaigns of the last few years, most notably “Share a Coke.”
We spent a few minutes with Omid to learn more about his background, inspirations and on spotting the thing inside the thing.
If someone wrote a book about your career so far, what would the title be?
Started From Tehran, Tripoli, Toronto—Now We’re in a Status Meeting. A story about immigration, reinvention, basketball, hip-hop, advertising and somehow spending most of adulthood arguing over whether one word is doing too much.
What creative hill would you die on?
Have a fu**ing point of view or shut up. Creative work does not need to please everyone. It needs to believe in something. The fastest way to make something forgettable is to sand off every opinion until nobody can disagree with it.
What’s a project you are proud of?
“Kismet” for Ross. Ross has no app. No online store. In a world obsessed with removing every reason to leave the house, we turned that limitation into the entire idea. We made an unbranded romantic micro-drama about the possibility of meeting someone while shopping in real life. It reframed Ross for a new generation. Not as another place to buy things, but as a place where something could happen. And I just love the craft, from the casting, to the way it was filmed, to the dialogue. All of it.
What’s a source of inspiration you return to constantly?
Battle rap. It’s one of the purest forms of writing. No budget, no production trick, nowhere to hide. Just language, structure, performance, timing, references, disrespect and point of view. The best battlers can take one tiny detail, flip it six different ways, and make a room explode. That level of verbal precision, cultural fluency and commitment constantly reminds me what good writing is supposed to do. “That’s light.”
A non-advertising industry you learn from?
Single-player games teach me about world-building, pacing, atmosphere and how small details make a place feel real. Multiplayer shooters like Call of Duty, Halo and Battlefield teach me clarity, instinct and consequence. You know immediately whether a decision works. There is no room for vague thinking when someone is already shooting at you. Advertising could use more of both. Better worlds. Faster decisions.
What’s your favorite productivity shortcut?
Make a call quickly and commit to it. I like getting to the answer quickly, trusting my tastes and instincts and staying focused once I see the direction. Most wasted time comes from circling, second-guessing and keeping too many mediocre options alive. Speed is not about rushing. It is about recognizing what is good, killing what is not, and moving.
Who changed the trajectory of your career, and what did they teach you?
The leaders who trusted me before I had fully earned it: Joe Maglio, Leo Premutico, Jan Jacobs, Andrew Ostrom, Cam Blackley. They gave me rooms, people and problems that I probably wasn’t ready for. That taught me that confidence is sometimes borrowed before it becomes your own. It also taught me that a creative leader’s job is not to have every answer. It is to create the conditions where the answer can appear.
Your main strength as a creative person?
My height. No, I like to think that I can feel when an idea has life in it. Even when it is badly explained. Even when the deck is terrible. Even when everyone else is staring at it like it was found wet in a parking lot. It just hits me. And I focus on it. None of that “let’s keep pushing” junk. I get excited by spotting the thing inside the thing, then helping make it sharper, bigger and harder to ignore.
2 Minutes With is our regular interview series where we chat with creatives about their backgrounds, creative inspirations, work they admire and more. For more about 2 Minutes With, or to be considered for the series, please get in touch.
