My Greatest Source of Inspiration

When looking back at my previous blog posts, I’ve found that I talk a lot about inspiration.

In the end, as a creative person inspiration is key to continuously moving, reaching for the nearly unattainable and getting you going. Often that inspiration will come from a related field; but, I’ve found, for me, that some of my strongest inspiration comes from outside of advertising.

The individual that has inspired me the most is the writer/philosopher, Ayn Rand. She wrote a lot on the behalf of supporting laissez-faire capitalism, the positive attributes of selfishness, anti-religion and being pro-individual. Yet, the thing that consistently grabs me the most is simply that she clearly and ardently fights for her point of view.

In a sea of being politically correct, speaking between the lines and passive aggressive culture, she consistently cut to the core of what was being discussed and eloquently stated her point of view. She never backed away from her ideals and never apologized for her position on issues. Even though she wasn’t a native English speaker, she worked herself to death writing and rewriting drafts until she produced Fountainhead (read by my most American high school students) and Atlas Shrugged which has been judged to be the second most influential book in human history (second only to the bible).

Yet, with even a figure that I so deeply admire, I still wonder to myself how much of it is the ideals themselves and how much of it is simply excellent persuasive writing?

Always Meet The Team Before Accepting The Offer

When helping a friend think of advice to give to ad students three things immediately jumped to mind. They are what have and will continue to guide me on my career path:

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1. “Start your career at a small agency, it is incredibly chaotic; but, you get your hands in everything and can learn skills that will help your later career flourish.” –Brian Collins, CEO at Collins

2. “Always plan your agency path three moves ahead. If you can’t get into your top agency of choice find out where most of the creatives came from and go there. You can gain the skills that the creative team will look for having come from a similar career path.” –Tim Brunelle, Co-Founder & CEO at Hello Viking

3. “Always meet the creative team before accepting the offer.” –Kathy Umland, Director of Creative Operations at Martin Williams

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For most students who are lectured to be choosey when selecting agencies to go after the thought is often: I wish I had that luxury.

Yet, the thing you rapidly learn in the industry is that it isn’t a luxury it truly is a necessity. If one works at an agency with a poor reputation, often the creative industry will have a predisposition to think less of you. As a result, you have to work much harder to prove yourself to that agency later in your career.

For a student using that advice as a guiding principle more than set in stone needs, it can prove to be quite fruitful. In the end, I was surprised how I had followed all the advice unconsciously starting at a small agency, Rockfish Interactive, where I have had a chance to have my hands on everything including the pitch, I’m gaining the interactive experience the big agencies are looking for and before I accepted I drove to Arkansas to meet the team.

My advice as a young art director is: “Never underestimate anything. Do what you want and prove yourself the most on the 'throw away' projects, they are what earn you the clients you want to work on.”

The Necessity of Collaboration

One of the hardest lessons for me to learn, when attending MCAD, was the necessity for collaboration.

Like most new advertising students, I started my education with little information and a massive ego. When we received a new client to work on, be it a live or hypothetical, I would delve into research surrounding their product, the market, potential targets etc., I would look for what I thought was the perfect mixture and attempt to sell my partner on why we should head in that direction. As a result, there was a lack of collaboration.

I was lucky enough to attend MCAD where a healthy mixture of Nancy Rice, my fellow students and the live clients taught me the strength of partnerships. It is a fundamental truth; but, many creatives struggle with collaboration. If you look at history for examples, some of the best advertising creatives jumped at each project as if they had to prove themselves yet again and openly collaborated as a result.

No matter the drive on each project, having that approach of humility and openness to new ideas from any creative is paramount. Yet the most difficult part about collaboration is a strong foundation of trust. If you can’t trust your partner to put in the hours, to have the skills to rise to the occasion or give honest critique, the partnership will fail. Yet, if one can find the elusive creative partner that makes a great fit, the work that they produce together can literally be ground breaking.

The question is how does one determine who that partner is and can it only be found through trial and error?

Why I Love My Clients

One of the hardships for an entrepreneur is giving up control and placing full trust in a new agency.

When working with an agency it can be difficult to emotionally remove themselves from the way their product or service is being marketed. As a result, they can often become a micro-manager in the creative process, wanting to say too much at once or potentially highlighting an asset that won’t resonate with their target market.

The important thing to remember as an entrepreneur, is to allow each person and organization to fully bring their expertise to the table. In doing so, they can have even greater business results than they had hoped for.

That is why I love my current clients. They understand this fundamental truth, give their incredibly logical feedback and at the end of the day allow for us to do something great for them that will hopefully yield even better results than they originally hoped for.

The question is though: When a client is micro-managing, what is the best approach for helping them understand this fundamental truth and who, within an agency, should be leveraging the agencies strengths?

The End of the Creative Partnership?

After over half a century from its creation, we’re starting to see the art director/copywriter partnership decline.

With the rise of interactive advertising and copywriting being owned by the everyday person (across social media platforms), there has been a greater rise in designers over copywriters in agencies. As a result, copywriting is rapidly becoming an after thought. It’s a role flip from the 50s.

Personally I think this is a huge hit to the level of creativity that has and continues to come from the ad industry as a whole. The biggest hope is the drive to “cut through the clutter” could create a refreshed avante gard movement to obtain great creative copywriters again.

Yet the question that this arises is: Is the decline of copywriting due to our visual obsessed culture, the inability to sell clients on the ad hinging on copy or the lack of groundbreaking copywriting talent that we were flooded with in the 50s?

The 3 Big Lessons of An Ad Agency

The best part about working in the ad industry is the constant need to continue to learn, experiment and grow to be successful.

I spent a lot of the past week looking back at my internship experiences at Campbell Mithun and MRM Worldwide along with my in class experiences at Martin Williams and Zeus Jones. Overall I learned a lot from each of the agencies; but, the three core principles include: keep it simple, collaborate and work pause work.

The biggest thing I learned from my agency experience is that, although the consumer isn’t stupid, they genuinely don’t care about the ads shoved in the middle of their shows. You need to keep it simple to stick.

Collaboration was never consciously taught; but, was always inferred at each of the agencies. The creative teams that were successful at each agency were incredibly good at collaboration. They had build an environment where failure is encouraged, that in taking risks you often won’t succeed; but, it’s worth it for the one time you will.

Work Pause Work is a system that many traditional agencies have perfected. The best creatives work like theres no tomorrow when they get a fresh brief absorbing research, throwing out the low hanging fruit and getting their creative juices flowing. They take the time to pause, have fun and let the ideas gestate naturally. Then when the big idea(s) hit, they take off running.

Each of the agencies had dramatically different structures and systems but these were the common three threads I learned.

A big thanks to everyone that helped me get to where I am today:

Nancy Rice/////Formerly Head of MCAD Ad Program, Rice & Rice and Fallon

Kindra Murphy, Jan Jancourt & Natasha Pestich/////MCAD Design & Print Making Professors

Kathy Umland & Julie Kuzinski///// Director of Creative Operations & CD at Martin Williams

Ed Huerta, Andy Anema & Gary Carter///// Creative Manage, CD & ACD at Campbell Mithun

John DuBois & Julie DuBois/////CD & ACD at MRM Worldwide MPLS

Brad Surcey & Adrian Ho/////Design Director & Partner at Zeus Jones

Bruce Edwards///// EVP/CD at FAME

Matt Wilson/////Lead Marketing Consultant at Evantage Consulting

Tim Brunelle/////CEO at Hello Viking

David Schutten/////CD at Bleakly & Schutten Advertising

And all of my close advertising and design class mates that pushed me everyday to be better.

Agencies That Make Stuff

One of the biggest discussions in the ad world is what the future ad agency will look like.

Will it be media agnostic or specialize in an area, will the creative partnership survive, will it be small & nimble or large & loud? More importantly, will the agency rollercoaster of hiring and firing with each client remain the norm? I think one thing is for sure, as time goes on agencies more and more will make stuff.

Since the inception of the ad agency it had been our culture to not just spread messages but to make things, starting with the creation of the magazine. Agencies more and more are being hailed for their originality when introducing their product lines such as BBH’s line of quick prepare food, Rockfish’s Silver Joe’s & Tidy Tweet and Mother New York’s Target bags and rock concerts.

It’s not just a fad of “look what we can do.” It’s a tangible way to generate extra revenue for the agency and hold onto valuable creatives by absorbing the blow from the loss of a client. I also believe that as agencies are able to take daring steps with their own product lines in the marketplace, they’ll have the chance to directly compete with the big name brands.

The question than becomes, in the future, will we simply shrink away when we lose a new business pitch or simply create a product to directly compete with that brand.