Ad Caulk

You are staring into your computer screen. Seething while you read this post.

You're angry with your ad program.

You question. What have they ever done for you?

You rant. They haven't prepared you right. The only campaign in your book is a case study from ad principles. For water wings.

You sob delicately in to your hands. Your school's internship postings are a "who's who" of "who's that?"

And across the vast expanse of the internet you have encountered how much better other schools are at teaching advertising. School like* UT Austin, VCU, U of Oregon, Emerson, BYU** ect. ect. ect. Or perhaps you've come across something great that art school that you wanted to go to. But your parents wanted you to get a four year degree at a "real college".*** 

Those places have guest speakers.

Their students have campaign after campaign of brilliant work.

They have classes you would simply die to take.

I understand.

I've been there. And, to be completely honest, I'm still there some of the time.

But we need to cut that out.

Because the very thing that breeds our discontent is the best resource you can use to supplement your education.

That's right folks, the big beautiful internet is a place where you can learn a myriad of things!

VCU always livetweets their Friday speakers who, while you'd prefer to see them in person, have some serious insights about the industry.

Youtube has video after video of creative directors giving advice about getting in to the industry. For free!

The students at the schools you envy all blog, tweet and stream - ad infinitum - about their own curriculum. You can follow along and even try your hand at their assignments.

I've written in the past about some of the blogs I enjoy reading but I recommend you find some that resonate with you. I've also posted videos that have helped me shape the way I think about advertising.

In turn all of this has a positive effect on my work.

Your situation may not always be the best but instead of getting pissed just remember that you always have the internet.

*by the way if you are here and still looking at undergraduate programs these are some of the best I've found.

** Yes. The LDS school. I am not shitting you. The work they put out is really really good.

***art schools are really cool. if you know that your passion lies in the arts or the kind of thinking art schools teach I applaud that. one of my biggest regrets is not applying to any art schools. so it goes.

One of the things I'm dreadfully bad at is reflection.

Working to get in to the industry makes me very present and future focused so the past occasionally falls by the wayside. I spend very little time on back pattery or reflection on the past.

As a result I can be discouraged by how little I feel I have accomplished or learned. I'll become unhappy with myself or where I'm headed.

Now I'm an advocate for everyone having a touch of discontent. It  keeps you going and aspiring to do better. It can be a very good thing. Too much, however, becomes a hindrance on your ability to think about anything other than the discontent.

This all hit me today as I read back through one of the blogs I was reading around this time last year. I remembered my excitment to break in to the industry. To make ads. To affect people. And how sweet that result is.

Even better it helped me remember how much I have evolved in a relatively short period of time. I've made connections that I'm beyond grateful for. I know what I want to do with a career past just having a career in advertising.

To me that is tremendously exciting. It also gives merit to the power of reflection.

So the next time you may be feeling down on yourself - or down on your plan to make it huge (you always want to shoot high) - take a moment and reflect. Don't look for outside validation. Look inside at what you've learned, who you've met and what you've done.

If you don't smile a little bit you're lying to yourself.

The Making of Inception

This video is a really good commentary on the importance of process. The path to the finished result.

It didn't start with this grand idea and a bunch of welding. There were detailed drawings and sketches and thought behind each component of this huge movies.

So many tweaks. So many of pages full of thought cobbeled together in a very technically impressive film.

You spec work isn't going to have a multi million dollar budget. Probably not a multi hundred dollar budget but you still need to plan. You still need to walk through a lot of the steps in the video. You should be albe to trace back along the path from frist idea to finished result.

Don't go directly to the computer and start playing around with effects. That stuff is secondary.

Step away from the keyboard.

Worry about the basic components, the why, then expand out from there.

Don't put the fist line you write on the ad. That line is not nearly good enough.

Write 10 more. The 100 more and you'll see how much more clear your thoughts become.

You're not making a feature film but you should put that same level of craft and time in to your ad.

Because work like that has soul. And might even help you get a job one day.

Now go off and incept that thought into your brain.

i’ve always considered what is termed “planning” to be my job as a creative. To me that’s the fun part of advertising. The “what the hell should we do” part.

This quote comes from a blog post Vinny Warren wrote a while back about his agency winning a planning award. You can read the full thing (it's short) here. Apparently a lot of student books are missing ads with any semblance of planning or strategy and that's not good because those ads don't do anything. His blog entry inspired me to write this post:

While you're trying to break in a lot of people will tell you it's not enough to be a really good writer or artist. You will blow them off as "idiots" who "don't know anything about anything - least of all becoming a Creative."

You will be wrong. Being really skilled at what you want to do puts you in a better place some other people. Because there are people out there who want to be copywriters who can't write and people who want to be art directors who have no design sense. 

But if you just rely on those skills you will make, borrowing a phrase from a great book, "ad-like objects".

An ad-like object looks like an ad (it can even be really funny) but doesn't have thought behind it. It doesn't do anything other than show you are clever. And while clever is fine, it's not enough. Believe me on this.

So what do you need to do? You need to be a strategist.*

Rather, a strategically minded creative. You need to be able to pick out the problem and say ok how do we fix this? It could be an ad, it could be a video, it could be a new website. In reality it could be anything.

Once you've really defined the problem and the solution it makes making an ad much easier. and cuts down on you making adlike objects.

The strategy informs the creative. It gives you direction. It gets you to stop thinking in creative, media, and strategy silos. The sum becomes better than it's parts. Because creative, media and strategy can't do anything other than make clutter on their own.

The idea is important. The solution is important. finding the problem is important. Because it's those things that move your ad forward.

This seems like common sense but a lot of people miss it.

So the minute you start putting campaigns with real strategy into your book the minute it becomes monumentally better. You'll be able to intelligently talk about your decisions with the creative because there is thought behind the campaign.

So take time to set out a strategy or make a plan. But only if you care about your work.

*becoming a strategist or a planner is very different than becoming a strategic minded creative. If pure strategy sounds good to you you should google other resources. There's tons because those guys love to write.

One of the things I try to do is find out about how really brilliant creatives think. The book "the Creative Process Illustrated" does a pretty good job of this. If you have the cash you should pick up a copy of it and let your mind bathe.

I you don't have the money, oh starving junior, there's always youtube. On youtube there are awesome vidoes like the one below where creatives divulge their secrets. Watch it:

It shocks me that a video like this would only have 360 views after three weeks! But that's even more reason for you to watch. You'll know something your competition doesn't.

Enjoy!

There are a few creatives whose advice I can't help but post here. One in particular is George Tannenbaum, writer of Ad Aged.

His post from yesterday is a must read for anyone just getting in to the business. And those who care about helping others break in.

STARTING OUT

It shows how getting your book into the right person's hands can help out enormously.

You never know who someone knows or who is currently looking for fresh talent. Even if you're clued in to hundreds of job boards and constantly pinging the carers page of your favorite agencies you just don't know.

If a senior creative ever offers to help you out and you don't take them up on that offer you are a fool. A fool I tell you!

Don't be afraid to reach out to older creatives either. It's a great way to strengthen your book if you can put up with the criticism. The first time my book got torn apart stung a little bit (hi Jason).

But it helped me get a handle on what the good work in my book was. And what was shit. In the end it was working on the holes in my book that helped me secure an internship.

All because I was willing to seek out help.

The last point is just be respectful of the people who help you out. They are doing you a favor and have been in advertising for a long time.

And maybe, just maybe, they'll be the reason you get a job.

 

 

Right now I'm doing an independent study that critiques Universities in America.

Part of the inspiration for it is my own, poor, experience at University.

So I figured I could learn about it and try to think of ways to fix it.

However, I've become much more sympathetic to the people who run universities in my study of them.

It is extremely difficult to enact any sort of change in the system. Each college is a tiny bureaucracy inside the large bureaucracy of accrediting bodies, government and curriculum standards.

The task is dizzying. And no one is more critical of higher education than those involved in it. Seriously, take a look at the chronicle of higher education. It's all fire and brimstone from where they're sitting.

It actually reminds me a great deal of the advertising industry.

There is, however, a point of contention about college that most students agree on. Many professors agree on this as well.

The primary flaw of higher education stems from the idea of knowledge acquisition for acquisition's sake. Learning and learning and learning - without any application.

It's frustrating to say the least.

And I think a lot of ad students fall into this same trap.

We learn and discuss all sorts of ideas. We watch the great ads of the past and the new stuff that comes out constantly. We read books about writing copy and pour through books about design. We pile knowledge on top of knowlege and can get stuck there.

Because everything is so interesting. Because the internet is so huge and there is so much to learn out there.

But that's not really helpful.

Your brain can be soaked with all of these great ideas but the ideas themselves have no value. (Makin' Ads actually just had a post about this.) You have to show up with something. Make something or do something.

This is why I love something The University of Oregon communications program did recently. They 'created' the hastag #buildshit.

Their belief is that you ideas are pretty worthless unless you act on them. Unless you start making things.

And making something can make you feel tremendously confident. You look back at your days or weeks of work and can smile.

You have something tangible to show, you have made something. Most importantly you've applied what you've learned to something uniquely yours. You have something to talk about and to show off.

And you understand that making something rocket science, unless you're making a rocket, it's just sweat.

Ideas are awesome but at some point you need to take them and make something of it. Impress yourself with what you've done.

#buildshit

NOTE: Sorry for the gap between posts. I've been very busy lately and blogging fell by the wayside. I'm probably the person most upset by this.

Recently my thoughts have been pretty far removed from advertising. Maybe not as far removed as most people, I still tried to stay current, but at least advertising wasn't running my life.

This may be because I'm working more on my own projects or a post-Super Bowl hype-hangover. Regardless it's not a bad thing at all.

Quite to the contrary. I've taken my own advice and explored a whole bunch of everything. Art, entertainment and local restaurants have helped me recenter myself and this time "away" has been really rewarding.

In particular two videos I watched really impressed me. By impressed I mean I was completely floored. 

Now, one video is just a mashup of amazing vidoes, haunting music and a great voiceover. The other is a man displaying the artistry of his craft. Both tell the same story.

Simplicity can be powerful. You don't need the best tools to produce something awe inspiring.

I've blown glass and made glass beads. It's a particularly temperamental medium and the way The Ocularist handles it is awe-inspiring. But look at his setup - a torch, some glass rods and a few metal tools. It's hardly modern, it's hardly unique. Anyone could buy the tools he has. But his skills and confidence help him create something amazing.

Those are more than just glass eyes, they are art that becomes a part of someone.

And look at the NASA video.  A voiceover, powerful visuals and a music track. All of them used before but the art is the way they were brought together this time. Again, the tools are not unique but what the creator brought to it is.

So even if you don't have the best tools- don't have the latest photoshop or video editing program - do what you can with what you have. Because it's the idea and the artistry that make something compelling. Not the expense of making it.

Get out there and make something regardless of the tools in front of you.

You may have already seen this video. I implore you to watch it right now if you have not. 

It is one of two vidoes IBM produced to celebrate 100 years in business.

I took two major things away from it.

First, IBM is involved in everything. Traffic light infrastructure, online hotel and plane reservesation software, barcodes, computers, and just this week they had a computer play (and win) Jeapordy! The remarkable thing about all of this is most of these huge successes came from huge swings. They hegged the entire company on the idea that computers would take off a consumer technology. Common sense now, tremendously innovative and scary then. Just this video made me want to invenst in IBM because I was so impressed by everything the company does.

Second, and more relevant to the blog, really compelling content makes for a good ad- regardless of length. These vidoes are ads and total 45 minutes in length. Sitting through them was a joy, not a buredon. It was all about IBM and the content is really brilliant. There's popular rethoric that people don't watch vidoes over 3 minutes but over half a million people have watched these vidoes from IBM. 

Once again IBM took a huge swing, and ends up with something brilliant.

you can also watch the second one here.

I could probably be classified as a Trottie. The amount of times I have written about his work/thoughts, retweeted him and commented on his blog are not that of a sane person. (thankfully I have already proved this point by walking over fire.) What he says just makes too much sense not to pass on to those who might not read him directly.

Recently he gave his comments about portfolios to another blog and I found what he said very interesting. Without giving away the entire article here is one of my favorite things he said.

For years I’ve been happy to give [portfolio advice]. But what’s depressing is, in the last few years they’ve been asking not for advice, but for permission. They don’t want to set the world alight.They don’t want to be rebellious and exciting. They don’t want to create a fuss. They want to fit. To quietly and politely get a job.

So I was a bit misleading with the title of this post. He doesn't give any real advice about what a portfolio should be. That's why I like the article so much. Most, if not all, the great advertising ever produced didn't ask permission. Instead it demanded to be listened to or read or interacted with. 

And this is what you need to do with your book. You need to make it grab attention, break the rules because everything is becoming homoginized. the ability to make work that looks great but has little substance has become too easy and If you want a job you'll push against that.

While others are being funny you should be serious. When everyone else is doing big do something small. Do something that makes you stick out among the pile of links sent to recruiters and creative directors every day.

Before you do that, read the rest of the blog post. Then start making work that will make you stand out, not fit in with the rest of the crowd.