• by Larissa Faw , November 3, 2018

Alex Bogusky left his agency eight years ago because he felt the ad world was misdirected in its pursuits and he wanted "to find his soul," as Fast Company put it. Now that he’s back, Bogusky intends to redirect the agency to some degree by combining advocacy with advertising.

Under his direction, Crispin, Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), part of MDC Partners, will donate 1% of its agency profits to groups that support media literacy. The shop is looking to partner with other agencies and nonprofits working in this space.

"Ultimately, we hope to take on even more. Our social mission gives a more complete idea of how and where we want to make a positive impact," stated Bogusky, adding that medialiteracynow.org and newslit.org are two organizations CP+B admires. 

"While the issue is ultimately bigger than media literacy, for us it represents the best place to start, because it's where we can have the biggest impact in the least amount of time," he said. "We will all benefit when critical thinking beats down the bullshit."

This new advocacy coincides with CP+B’s new social mission, which is posted on Bogusky's LinkedIn page. The message emphasizes his purpose: "We do this, every stakeholder in the value chain benefits, from our company to our clients and finally the consumer, who is after all, us."  

While Bogusky is famous for wearing T-shirts supporting other agencies, he plans to make an exception to wear the new CP+B Human Lie Detector shirts, a reissue of the classic Truth shirt, with 100% of the shirt's profits going to support media literacy.