Life Lessons: David Oakley

Over a generation, BooneOakley’s president has rolled out one memorable ad campaign after another
David Oakley K3a0071
Photos by Rusty Williams

In September 2021, 18 months into COVID, Mecklenburg County’s vaccination rates were plateauing, and the community health care provider StarMed wanted to encourage people to get their shots. StarMed turned to the Charlotte ad agency BooneOakley, whose co-founder, president, and creative director, David Oakley, has made a career out of getting attention.

Oakley arranged to have a black step van driven around town. On its side, in white, was a bold imperative: “Don’t get vaccinated.” Beneath it, in smaller type: “Wilmore Funeral Home,” with a URL and phone number. The funeral home has never existed. The URL takes you to a page with another message: “Get vaccinated now. If not, see you soon.” People who clicked on the first sentence were directed to StarMed’s page for vaccination appointments.

The Wilmore Neighborhood Association was livid. The number belonged to the company BooneOakley had rented the van from, and the office was swamped with calls. But the stunt worked. Oakley later appeared on CNN and reported that StarMed’s vaccination rate had risen 22%.

This was classic BooneOakley, which proclaims this unofficial statement of purpose: “Disruption is in our DNA. We create provocative work that gets noticed, talked about, and shared.” You may have seen Oakley’s billboards for Sextro vodka, which read, “Have Sextro on The First Date” and “Have Sextro All Night Long,” or Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority’s slogan, “Charlotte’s Got a Lot.” Bojangles’ famous tagline, “It’s Bo Time,” is another BooneOakley creation.

Oakley, 62, grew up in Creedmoor, a small town just northeast of Durham. He earned a business degree at UNC Chapel Hill, then worked in the advertising industry in New York City. In 1994, he and his wife, Claire, moved to Charlotte, where he worked for Price/McNabb and The Martin Agency before he founded BooneOakley with business partner John Boone in 2000. Boone left the partnership in 2012, and Oakley has run the agency ever since—along with Claire, the director of account services, and a staff of about 20. He’s accumulated numerous industry awards and, in 2017, was inducted into the NC Media and Journalism Hall of Fame at his alma mater.

“So many cool things have happened to me, and I know more will happen,” he says. “I can’t wait to see what’s next, and I feel like the best is yet to come.” 

His words have been edited for length and clarity.

I don’t think of myself as naturally funny. It’s something I work at and practice every day. I think humor is important in life, especially during the bad times. When you have a friend going through tough times, and you can get them to laugh or chuckle, it lightens things up for a minute. Sometimes dark humor is the funniest.

I think there’s been a cataclysmic change in the way advertising is done, but it didn’t happen overnight. The biggest change is the immediacy of things. It used to take a couple of weeks to get a video done, and now it can be done in a couple of hours. You can have a much quicker response time in getting a message out. People have tools on their phones now that are way better than what was in the best production studio 25 years ago. 

The thing that’s remained constant is that ideas carry the day. It’s always been ideas over execution. Really smart ideas are more important than something that looks cool. This is true whether it’s social media or anywhere else. You need to have a solid strategic idea behind it.

I come from a creative family. I had great parents—my mom is still alive. Both my parents were potters. We lived on a dirt road outside of a small town. It was very rural. My parents were both college-educated but chose rural life. Maybe they were hippies. They started a craft and art community, and eventually more potters and different artists moved to the area. They also started the Cedar Creek Gallery, which is still there. My sister runs it now.

Growing up, I did whatever needed to be done to help with the pottery. I would wedge clay for my parents and mix chemicals for glazing. There were giant tobacco fields across the dirt road, and other kids were out picking tobacco.

David 11 Cedar Creek

David Oakley, 11 in front of Cedar Creek Pottery, Creedmoor, NC. The bowl was made by his dad, Sid Oakley.

I got accepted to Chapel Hill and went through school like a total idiot. I partied so much the first semester, I didn’t know if I’d make it. I was busy drinking, hooking up with girls, just partying. I didn’t know what I wanted to do until right around graduation. A friend was drawing stick figures and writing captions. And I said, “You can get college credit for that? It looks so easy.” She said, “It’s not easy.” But I knew I could do that.

I went to speak to the professor in the advertising department, John Sweeney, and he said I couldn’t take his class because I was about to graduate. I showed up, and for weeks, he wouldn’t acknowledge me. When midterms came around, he was passing out the tests and got to me. He looked at me, sighed, said, “You’re in,” and handed me the test.

He became a mentor. I stayed in town and shucked oysters at an oyster bar while I took three classes and an independent study. That’s how I was able to put together some spec ads. Then I left Chapel Hill and went to New York. I worked in New York for eight years, first at Young & Rubicam and then at TBWA\Chiat\Day.

I met Claire at work. She was an account executive. I didn’t want a girlfriend at the time, but we were friends and spending time together. She had a boyfriend. Things with us developed into something more, and she had to dump her boyfriend.

We were living in a 750-square-foot apartment with our first child, our daughter, Sydney. I knew we needed more room, and I wanted a backyard. This meant we’d have to move out of the city, and I didn’t want an hour-and-a-half commute to work. We decided to move to Charlotte. It was really a culture shock for me. I forgot how slow Charlotte was compared to New York.

Vow Renewal

Oakley and his wife, Claire, celebrated their 33rd anniversary by renewing their vows at the Elvis Chapel in Las Vegas.

We thought Charlotte was up and coming. They had the Hornets and just got the Panthers, and I thought it was a city that would be growing. I’d only been to Charlotte once, even though I grew up in North Carolina. I’d go to the beach or the mountains, but there was never really a reason to go to Charlotte. It was just a place on the way to Atlanta.

I took Claire to visit my parents, and we went to a local barbecue place where everyone knows everyone. While we were in line ordering, Claire ordered something like a chicken salad sandwich. And the lady at the register looks at me and says, “Does your daddy know you’re marrying a Yankee?” But Claire grew to love it down here.

This is why I always say, “Just be yourself.” Even when presenting your work, you don’t have to be so formal. You can just talk to people one-on-one, in a conversational way. When I first moved to New York, I thought New Yorkers would think of me as a country bumpkin, but they didn’t. They were accepting. And they were very interested in hearing about Chapel Hill, which they thought of as prestigious.

As a city, we don’t have one thing we’re known for, like Nashville being the Music City. So with “Charlotte’s Got a Lot,” I looked at the word “Charlotte,” and noticed that “a” and “lot” were part of the word. It stood out to me. When we pitched the line to the CRVA, they actually didn’t like it at first. But it stuck.

Booneoakley Wilmore Funeral Home 2

Havesextrowithyourself

A pair of Oakley’s cheekier ads.

I would never get anything done if I didn’t have a deadline. Creative people have to have deadlines. And we also have internal deadlines here. So when we get to a midpoint, we can say to the client, “Come in, and let’s talk about where we are at.” It’s much more collaborative that way, and they can contribute ideas and shape what we’re working on.

Everyone is creative. People are told they’re not creative if they’re an accountant or a banker. People just use it in different ways. Charlotte has an amazing creative community—chefs, journalists, musicians. It’s booming with creativity and is constantly growing. Charlotte’s not just a banking town anymore.

I’m old school. I carry a pad around and jot down ideas. I also keep a pad by my bed in case I get an idea during the night. Most of those are terrible, but if you don’t write them down, you don’t remember.

I relate to the optimism in the song “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” by Jimmy Buffett. I think of the lines, “Yesterday’s over my shoulder, so I can’t look back for too long/ There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me, and I know that I just can’t go wrong.” 

I feel like I’ve grown with the city. I mean, I’ve never grown up, but I do have these moments where I just can’t believe how different things are here now. It’s been more than 25 years, but it feels like only a few. Things go quickly when you’re having fun, and it’s been a lot of fun here. 

I’ve seen people rest on their laurels after they did one good thing. But I think, What’s next? Let’s do something even better.

Allison Futterman is a writer in Charlotte.

Categories: The Buzz