TBWA opens think tank on advertising for digital world.

FOR most of us, the words "think tank bring to mind antiseptic rooms full of brainy types pondering complex issues through statistical prisms before issuing profound statements.

Leave it to TBWA Worldwide--the ad agency behind the cutting-edge ads for Apple, McDonald's and Adidas--to create a think tank where the goal is disruption.

The giant advertising agency, which is under the Omnicom Group Inc. umbrella, has opened a Media Arts Lab in Los Angeles. The lab will function as a kind of for-profit think tank in the fragmented media landscape of the Digital Age.

"Media Arts is a philosophy that puts all the ways a brand connects at the center of what we do. It requires a deep understanding of how audiences digest media and the various crafts we can use to tell brand stories," said Lee Clow, chairman and chief creative officer at TBWA Worldwide. "Grounded in disruption, Media Arts is informed by .what I see as the new planning, including the areas of Audience Planning and Connections Planning."

In keeping with the lab's freethinking style, Apple will function as its core client. Two top executives on the Apple account, James Vincent and Duncan Milner, will serve, respectively, as president and executive creative director for the Media Arts Lab.

On a practical level, the Media Art conceit brings together media planners, account managers and creative types in one office. It's a retro strategy that goes back to a time before large conglomerates divided media buying and message creation into separate sciences, often handled by different agencies.

MA also involves connecting with consumers as often as possible via new and old media technologies. TBWA has developed a lucrative business based on its pitch of delivering "disruptive ideas" for clients such as Absolut, Michelin, Nissan, Samsonite and Sony PlayStation. The mantra of "disruption" refers to ways to cut through today's communication clutter, and it dovetails with the lab's goal of functioning as "a place for experimentation for new ideas about connecting people with brands."

The Media Arts Lab will be located at 12539 Beatrice St. in Playa del Rey, across a parking lot from the main TBWA\Chiat\Day building at 5353 Grosvenor Blvd. The lab's new home will be renamed the Jay Chiat Building. The think tank will share the building with Gehry Partners LLP, the architecture firm of Frank Gehry.

Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [phone], ext. 237, or at [e-mail]. Staff reporter Dan Cox contributed to this column.