Art director Scott Schneider and copywriter Blair Dewan met at Glennie Stamnes in Vancouver about two years ago and soon began to develop a creative relationship. Eventually, both moved over to Cossette Vancouver, where they became a creative advertising tag team.

‘We had worked well together at Glennie Stamnes and we had done a few things. We thought we were just a good fit,’ says Schneider, whose resume includes a two-and-a-half year stint at Palmer Jarvis. ‘Blair started [at Cossette] a few months before I did. It seemed like agencies were interested in hiring teams that had experience together. It seemed like a trend and a good way to go.’

The two have worked on ads for McDonald’s, BCTel Mobility, Sympatico, and most recently on two spots for Molson Dry.

The Molson ads have a theme of living life by your own rules. They preach there are two things in life that are for certain – the beginning and the end – and everything in between you make up.

The first spot involves a man on a bike speeding to a law office with a package. When he arrives, he tells an employee to send the package out immediately. The second, shot on location in South Africa, involves a man driving through a desert, thinking back to his voice mail at home. He recalls a message offering him a job, and deleting it. He then pulls into a small African village.

Dewan and Schneider agree that being a good creative team involves humor, honesty and individuality.

‘I think it is basically challenging each other,’ says Schneider. ‘It’s so easy to be complacent. Also, being able to rely on each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I don’t know if we were just lucky or not, but I think it takes a while to find the right partner or right person.’

Their first step in creating a campaign is to split up to consider what direction to take.

‘Then we generally come together and throw whatever we have back and forth and mercilessly rip and tear what each other has to say,’ says Dewan. ‘Then usually a shred of something comes out of that and you take it a step further.’

Schneider contends that their differences are among the important elements that make them such a strong team. He believes that if two people in a team are too much alike, then one of them is not needed.

When Schneider and Dewan put together a production team they look for the co-operation of individuals who know their craft and contribute ideas.

‘We use people who work really hard and people who have a willingness to actually work inside an idea rather than try to manipulate it externally,’ says Dewan. ‘You have to establish the initial premise, and then there are all sorts of possibilities for other sorts of people to bring things to it based on what their expertise is.’

Schneider and Dewan have enjoyed their success as a creative team. Having only been together as creative partners for about two years, they have made their mark and have very few battle scars to cry over.

‘I don’t think we’ve had a bad experience yet to be perfectly honest,’ says Schneider. ‘You have your stumbling blocks, but I think we’ve fared reasonably well. We’re fairly lucky that way.’

That is not to say that the Schneider/Dewan partnership is charmed and without challenge. As Dewan says, ‘There’s no magic bullet or anything. It’s generally just dog hard work.’