Recently I was talking to a young guy who had just finished training to be a copywriter.
He asked me if I had any tips on how to get a job.
I said, if you want a job as an advertising professional, you must think you’re pretty good at it.
If you’re good at it, use what you’re good at to get a job.
He looked at me like he didn’t understand.
I said, look it’s your job to get people to buy things, right?
Okay, we have a product, which is you.
We have a target market, which is creative directors.
The object is to get creative directors to buy you.
As an advertising professional, how would you do that?
Again, he looked at me as if he didn’t understand.
I said, okay if I was a client you’d expect me to give you millions of pounds to sell my product, right?
Why should I do that if you can’t even sell yourself?
For the one time in your life you’ve got no restrictions.
You are the product.
You are the brand.
You are the client.
You are the writer and the art director.
You are the planner and the account man.
You are the media director.
For once in your life you are free to be totally creative in all areas.
There is no one stopping you from doing whatever you want.
And then I realised what the problem was.
The problem was he had no one to do all that work for him in all those areas.
He’d never been trained to be creative in all those areas.
He thought ‘creative’ just meant writing ads.
To wait for someone else to do the research, to do the planning, to write the brief, to work out who was the target market, where the ad should appear, what it should say..
Then, when everyone else had done all that, he’d write the words.
Then an art director would Mac it up, someone would sell it to the client, someone would photograph or film it, someone would put it all together, and eventually the ad would appear.
Meanwhile he’d sit at his desk and wait for the D&AD award to arrive.
Of course he didn’t see it like that.
To him it was ‘concept creation’ or ‘content provider’ or ‘story telling’ or ‘involvement maximisation’ or ‘director of engagement’.
But what it actually came down to was a little bit of styling in the middle of a lot of other people’s work.
Without them he was helpless.
Without them he couldn’t even think creatively about how to get a job.
He was reduced to carrying his portfolio from interview to interview.
That was the extent of his creativity.
Here’s my book, can I have a job?
I asked him what he knew about his target market: creative directors.
Were they male or female?
Were they writers or art directors?
Old or young?
Black or white?
Posh or working class?
Where did they live?
How did they commute?
What paper did they read?
Why should they give him a job, what was in it for them?
Would he make their lives easier?
Would he make them famous?
Would he make them get a promotion?
Would he make their department work harder?
What did they want?
Did they want him to win awards?
Did they want him to make money for the company?
Did they want him to be good with clients?
Did they want him to look and sound trendy?
And what did he have that no one else had?
Was he funnier?
Was he harder working?
Was he ethnically or culturally unusual?
Were his ads more logical or emotional?
Was he better at digital or mainstream media?
What did he know that no one else did?
Work out what he’s got that makes him different.
Work out what creative directors want.
Then work out how to let the one know about the other, in a way that stands out from the competition.
And he looked at me like he didn’t understand.
Because I hadn’t used any of the advertising language he’d learned about at college.
So this couldn’t be good advice.
Do you think you’ll ever go into teaching full time at an ad school Dave?
I know most of us on my course used to read your blog as if it were a bonus lecture anyway!
CJ - 14 May 2012 8:53 am
Nice of you to say so CJ, but I think the problem is we’ve already got too many teachers.
We don’t need to cram people’s heads with more stuff.
We just need to wake people up.
Everyone’s got common-sense if they want to use it.
Creativity is just radical common-sense.
Dave Trott - 14 May 2012 9:05 am
When I did the D&AD course many years back, I memorized many of the lecturers’ ads. Wasn’t that hard because I really liked many of the ads and wished I had done them. Of course, arrogant idiot that I was/am, I ignored those I thought weren’t so great. I remember looking down on the CD of one small agency as he wheeled his bicycle up the stairs to his corner. His not having a room convinced me I was wasting my time. Then I saw on his window ledge 2 black pencils.
Robin. - 14 May 2012 9:05 am
I have a feeling this isn’t an isolated issue.
Jim - 14 May 2012 9:34 am
Mister Trott
Your creative department would be the only creative department in the UK with a Grilla Login in its employ.
Where do I sign + are there company bananas?
Grilla Login - 14 May 2012 10:07 am
Grilla,
We’ve already got quite a few mac-monkies.
Dave Trott - 14 May 2012 10:15 am
Dave
How close 2 completing the works of Shakespeare r they…
+ is “A peanut, a peanut, my CST The Gate pay is a peanut” a dismissible offense?
Grilla Login - 14 May 2012 12:47 pm
‘Common sense is as rare as genius.’ Emerson
Tom - 14 May 2012 1:41 pm
Your opening line was the most telling.
“He’d just finished training to be a copywriter.”
Mark - 14 May 2012 2:03 pm
This is a game where selling yourself short is better than not selling yourself at all.
john p woods - 14 May 2012 2:37 pm
Advertising yourself is one of the hardest things to do. It’s why clients seek out 3rd party agencies to do the work. In my school, one of the teachers gave us the assignment of advertising ourselves. It was the worst work I’d ever seen my class produce. We were dreadful. Sometimes we can’t see our own strengths, just like a client needs us to point out something they’ve overlooked about themselves. So don’t be too hard on this kid Dave.
Cal - 14 May 2012 3:40 pm
I always sell my self short.
rachel carroll - 14 May 2012 4:49 pm
Rachel,
I guess that’s nature 1 nurture 0.
john p woods - 14 May 2012 5:06 pm
True dat, John.
rachel carroll - 14 May 2012 5:11 pm
Cal,
If no one is hard on him now he’ll never learn.
And the real world will be a lot harder.
Dave Trott - 14 May 2012 6:15 pm
Dave,
Are you saying you aren’t the real world?
Maybe the greatest trick you ever pull will be convincing us all you don’t exist!
john p woods - 14 May 2012 6:27 pm
You’re right Dave. A good shock about the real world wakes people up pretty fast. Still, I’d hate to do an ad for myself. I’d tell my art director to write it.
Cal - 14 May 2012 6:29 pm
If you are worrying about yourself and your strengths, then you maybe missing the trick about what the CD is worrying about. Plus you’ll end up sound like everyone else, me. me me, I am this I am that……
Jim - 14 May 2012 8:02 pm
Dave,
So the first rule of Ad Club…tell ‘em what they wanna hear?
john p woods - 14 May 2012 8:58 pm
Dave,
When I say ‘they’, I mean ‘the customer’.
john p woods - 14 May 2012 9:30 pm
I think it goes back to what you said earlier Dave, about people needing permission to be creative.
Our young copywriter here has been trained to work/think inside the box. It hasn’t occurred to him that he can step out of his job description.
That natural sense of mischief, curiosity and a healthy dislike of rules, all requirements for being a good creative, has been trained out of them.
Omair - 15 May 2012 7:42 am
Cal,
The job is to sell yourself to your target market, not to do an ad for yourself.
Please read Jim’s comment and Omair’s comment.
They are saying exactly what I would have said.
Dave Trott - 15 May 2012 8:55 am
Cal,
We’ve all had that assignment at college.
This is the difference between doing it on auto-pilot and having the guts to be really creative:
http://www.cstthegate.com/davetrott/2008/07/how-creative-are-you-really/
Dave Trott - 15 May 2012 9:08 am
Omair,
Please read tomorrow’s post, it’s very similar to your comment.
Dave Trott - 15 May 2012 9:44 am
Look forward to the next post, Dave. These days, there are so many agency-imposed restrictions. Copy, for example, has to be written in a certain style, the layout has to conform to a certain grid. Yeah, I know, Robin Wight used to demand the same for BMW ads. Of course, the difference is, the BM ads were great.
The old guidelines seemed to be about ensuring quality. The new guidelines seem to be about making sure no one experiements.
Robin. - 15 May 2012 10:24 am
‘It’s been trained out of them…’
And whose fault is that?
Back in the swinging era and earlier it seemed there wasn’t much about coming from the right college let alone pretty much any college if you wanted to work in the applied art world. Now it’s all about accountability and we all know what happens to magic when it’s revealed. Maybe agencies should stop recruiting graduates but then again if the bean counters dictate then I can’t see that happening anytime soon… if ever again.
How about if everyone only gets a basic wage and then gets paid extra by the idea with a small bonus if it runs? Maybe that will stir things up a bit creativity wise.
john p woods - 15 May 2012 10:28 am
It’s not about going to College.
It’s about being made of the right stuff.
SFX: Jumps off precipice screaming.
Kev - 15 May 2012 5:57 pm
I think Rory puts it best, when it comes to talking about how the bean counters have become too pervasive.
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/bulletin/campaign_daily_fix/article/1132723/ogilvys-sutherland-makes-stand-marketings-third-eye/
john p woods - 18 May 2012 12:37 pm
Don’t worry Dave, we’re not all like that. I’m currently applying, I gave up just filling in forms a while ago and loving it. Will be a shame when I get a job because I’ll have to stop!
Jordan - 18 May 2012 8:11 pm