How Code and Theory’s Michael Treff Channeled Punk Energy to Fuel His Career

Being in a punk band is not a requisite for getting into the ad industry. In fact, it’s anything but the normal starting point, but it worked for Michael Treff, who went from punk musician to record label owner to agency CEO.

Treff is CEO of Stagwell agency Code and Theory, but he followed a very unconventional route to the position. He started off playing in a band called Closure in Long Island, New York in the mid-1990s and managed to wind his way into the ad industry with a high-decibel mode of trial and error.

Treff talked with ADWEEK about how the ups and downs of the independent music industry made him a better leader, one who is able to balance creativity with the need to solve client problems through collaboration.

Learning through failure

Treff was a skateboarder and found his way into the punk scene. He played guitar, wrote songs and dreamed about scaling the heights of the punk music industry.

“When you’re 15, you join a band, you make records, you go on tour, and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is totally going to be my life.’ And then you realize quickly when you’re out of mom’s house, it’s not your life and it may not pay the bills,” said Treff.

But the DIY spirit of punk kept him in the game during the ’90s. He not only played in Closure, he started record labels, including Tiger Style Records, a label he ran for five years, putting out over 50 albums.

“I’m really proud of the work we did. That total punk ethos, 50/50 profit splits, the whole thing. It was all independent,” said Treff.

The music industry, unfortunately, started sinking at that point, but running the label gave him a sense of empowerment and creativity.

“You have to be creative to figure out how it’s going to work, and you take those lessons with you. It also sets you up for failure, which I think is so important in leadership. Being comfortable to sit in failure is OK and you learn from it, it makes you stronger,” said Treff.

In and out of the agency business

By 1999, after the label folded, Treff moved to Brooklyn and started another band. When his roommate pointed out that he was going to miss rent, he offered him a job where he was working—J. Walter Thompson, where he was told he could do whatever he wanted, which included recording with his band at the JWT studio off hours.

While Treff got to learn the agency world at JWT, he ultimately wanted to learn new digital trends and was able to land at Agency.com, which was absorbed by TBWA. He spent time working in digital strategy but sought even more tech knowledge.

“I wouldn’t say that I’ve ever been the biggest marketing person. I’m more interested in building things,” he said.

Treff left the ad industry and started a joint venture with Warner Music Group, a product innovation company called Soundscreen Design, making furniture, art books, clothing lines and digital products attached to the music industry. The position taught Treff about supply chain issues, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do professionally.

“A buddy of mine was working at Code and Theory, and he said, ‘You’re going to love it here. These people are just like you, they’re crazy,’” said Treff.

Finding a focus through collaboration

Everything Treff learned along the way led to him becoming CEO of an agency, one that has a balance of 50% creative and 50% engineers. The technology-led agency helps businesses navigate changing consumer behaviors, emerging technologies and AI, and it’s a format that fits Treff’s sensibilities.

Treff, who joined Code and Theory in 2011, loves the agency because of the ethos, ambition and mentality, especially adhering to the mantra “our goal is to only be limited by our own creativity.”

While Treff said that statement might sound like “marketing bullshit,” it’s something that cuts through the budget limitations, client difficulties and other constraints that might give other agencies excuses.

“If there’s one thing I learned in my life, from music, from art, from business—you take those constraints and you turn them into an offense,” said Treff, adding that no matter the size of the playing field and the parameters set, the agency will only be limited by the team’s own creativity and what they bring to it.

What makes the agency unique to Treff is the many employees who hadn’t worked at agencies, instead coming from startups or client side, or are career changers like himself. He added that the staff are experts at doing things they’ve never done before because they take the responsibility of figuring out how to do something very seriously.

“You put those factors together and it feels like the band I was in when I was 20. It feels like there’s a creative collaboration, there’s passion, there’s a lot of intellect; we’re focused on a goal and we’ll do whatever it takes to get there,” said Treff.