5 Words About Advertising

5 Words About Advertising: Read Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.

Lori Roberts — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:41:48 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Doug Crozier, Senior Art Director at DJO Global in San Diego.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? Challenging, exciting, fun, rewarding, frustrating.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Challenging, frustrating, tedious, enjoyable, unstable.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? The early years were absolutely the best.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Technology & changing media.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? Read Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.

Click here to email your 5 Words

Collaboration is the new Competition – A. Bogusky

5 Words About Advertising: Grasp of all things digital.

Lori Roberts — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:06:04 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Barbara Langbecker, Freelance Account Director in New York City.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? Fun, team effort, long hours.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Strategic, driven by technology, integrated.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? I’m still passionate about it, but it’s changed tremendously.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Emerging media, going beyond demographics to define your target, ROI models.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? Grasp of all things digital.

Click here to email your 5 Words

The Smartest Thing Seth Godin ever said.

5 Words About Advertising: Beware of too much cleverness!

Lori Roberts — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:19:33 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Val Erb, freelance web designer/developer in Bennington, VT.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? This seems more like slavery. (…is what I’d say about my first ever job. My first ad industry job? “I was meant for this.”)

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Putting every skill to use.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? Better now. When I got started in online marketing the business world still wasn’t sure it was a viable medium. And then there was the dot-com bubble burst. Now that the rest of the world is taking the Internet seriously again, it’s a great industry to be in.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Telecommuting. Quite literally, I would be somewhere else right now without it.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? Beware of too much cleverness! (Can’t take credit [the Buddha in Herman Hesse's Siddhartha], but that’s the advice I would give.)

Click here to email your 5 Words

The Smartest Thing Seth Godin ever said.

5 Words About Advertising from Guest Author: Rob Schnapp

Lori Roberts — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:48:56 +0000

5 Words About Advertising: What Are You Waiting For?

I still find it unbelievable that there are people in our business who are not on Twitter. That includes people from big old agencies and purely digital shops.

They mock things like Foursquare. They “told ya so” about Google+. But it’s easy to stand on the outside and criticize.

As for me, I jump in and formulate opinions based on personal experience. BTW, Tumblr is great. Get Glue has possibilities. Linkedin is underrated. My Klout score is respectable. I wish WordPress were easier. The QR Code on my business card is already starting to feel dated. And I’m hoping that Apple iOS will reconsider Flash.

You don’t have to be the earliest adopter. But you should most definitely adapt.

While there is no such thing as a social media expert, you need to experience it in order to fathom its possibilities. Like the old New York Lottery tagline said: You gotta be in it to win it.

Rob Schnapp is a freelance creative director as well as the current mayor of Hyper Island Master Class – and 10 other places – on Foursquare

On Twitter: http://twitter.com/RobSchnapp
On Tumblr: http://brandishcreative.tumblr.com
On Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/robschnapp

5 Words About Advertising: Foot (slammed) in the door.

Lori Roberts — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:39:51 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Steve Stevenson, writer/creative director in Dallas, TX.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? Foot (slammed) in the door.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Shock and awe networking campaign.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? Yes and yes. Now, there are so many more – and more interesting – ways to reach the consumer. It’s become more about creating an integrated experience around a big idea, which I find infinitely interesting. Then, I was young and innocent and dreamed of shooting beer commercials.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Clearly, there has been an immense transfer of power from the advertiser to the consumer. And so we as advertisers have had to become more honest in how we sell our widgets. And our clients have had to become more diligent about delivering on the promises we make. Nobody wants to get blown up on Twitter.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? Take care of your co-workers.

Click here to email your 5 Words

Stop Trying to be Brilliant

There is no such thing as perfect.

Lori Roberts — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:20:09 +0000

When I was a sophomore at Syracuse University we had this class, no idea what this class was called except that it should have been called; Frustration 101. The assignment was to ink four shapes: a circle, square, triangle and rectangle – perfectly. The professor would take out a magnifying glass and examine the edges for divots, splatters or smudges and then we would either pass or fail the assignment. I nailed the square, triangle and rectangle but that circle drove me into Van Gogh-level madness with perfection never being achieved. So why did I name my new company Perfect Circle? The name is a synthesis of my drive to do something the best I can possibly do it and the realization that there is beauty in “failure”. My less-than-perfect results were far more interesting than if I had inked those shapes into the perfect sameness of my classmates’. That would have been pretty darn boring.

5 Words About Advertising: Check your ego at the door.

Lori Roberts — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:20:22 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Jane Goldman, Associate Creative Director at Studiocom in Boston.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? The best hands-on learning experience.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Fun. Crazy. Exciting. Stressful. Awesome.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? Now, because there are more ways to bring experiences and ideas to life in really amazing ways. It all starts with the idea—the sandbox we play in just got bigger.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Technology. I started off with radio, print, OOH and TV but over time ended up doing more digital.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? Check your ego at the door and become a sponge (okay not 5 words but creatives cannot count so we’ll allow it.)

Click here to email your 5 Words

The smartest thing Seth Godin ever said.

Mobile, game mechanics and mega-mayors.

The smartest thing Seth Godin ever said.

Lori Roberts — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 20:46:56 +0000

“I’ve never seen Seinfeld, I don’t watch tv.”

I’ll never forget that moment when my copywriter said that to me. It was at the height of Seinfeld’s popularity and the mere thought to me that someone in the business of creating things that play in the arena of popular culture could just…skip it. Seth Godin’s post today hit the nail on the head for me.

Seth says:

“It’s not enough to be aware of the domain you’re working in, you need to understand it. Noticing things and being curious about how they work is the single most common trait I see in creative people. Once you can break the components down, you can put them back together into something brand new.”

I DO feel it is my job to take things that are of the now and reshuffle them.

Seth says:

“…if you don’t have awareness and an analytical understanding of what worked before, you can’t build on it.”

If you are a creative and are not on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, at least tried Google +, and do not watch TV, you are doing a disservice to your agency and your clients. If I were you, I would not walk into a room and announce proudly that you do not have a Facebook account. As for live TV, I am guilty of time-shifting so I will caveat my above statement by noting that I do not always watch commercials live, but when something catches my eye, I stop. Subscribe to AdFreak, Adweek, I love Fast CoDesign. It is part of your job to know what people like and respond to. I have been thinking about how to explain why I am so attracted to the new and now and leave it to SG to say it for me and all creatives, brilliantly.

And one more thing…Seth says:

“Most of the the time, though, creativity is the act of reassembling many elements that are already known. That’s why domain knowledge is so critical.”

I’ll assume if you are reading this, you are already paying attention. So stay alert out there. You may re-invent the wheel someday but most likely you will just be putting kick-ass hubcaps on it.

Live TV is BACK.

Why you should care about the Video Music Awards.

5 Words About Advertising: Sticky shoes. Creative pitches. Education.

Lori Roberts — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:55:25 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Mike Pascale, Freelance Writer/Artist/AD for Advertising and Entertainment in Cali.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? Sticky shoes. Creative pitches. Education.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Always seeking new clients, work.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? Don’t miss the politics, cliques, spray mount, spec-ing type, and old “boy’s club”, but miss the hands-on approach, hilarious memos, big TV spot shoots, radio spot sessions and the camaraderie.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Going full-time freelance. Getting used to the roller coaster of no work, too much work, constantly searching for work.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? You get what you give.

Click here to email your 5 Words

Did he just throw his finger away?

Spec-ing type, photostats, the lucy.

5 Words About Advertising: You have everything you need.

Lori Roberts — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 16:21:37 +0000

The 5 Questions asked to Tom Albrighton of ABC Copywriting in the UK.

1. What 5 words would you use to describe your first job? Proofreading calendars. Do the math.

2. What 5 words would you use to describe your current job? Rewarding, evolving, absorbing, improving, exhausting.

3. Do you like the ad business better now or when you first started? Better now because I can claim to be part of it. I started out in publishing.

4. What change has impacted your job on a day-to-day basis since you started your career? Predictably, technology. Email rules working life; research is a snap; projects develop quickly. But activity isn’t the same as creativity, and solving problems takes just as long.

5. If you could give 5 words of advice for someone just starting out in the advertising business what would they be? You have everything you need.

Click here to email your 5 Words

Mailroom messenger: Son of CEO.

Run wild off the leash.