10 Years of 10 Things

A list of ongoing truths I’ve learned as a writer in advertising.

A lot can be experienced in 10 years.

Take Marvel Studios for example: 20 films, starring nearly 50 outstanding actors, weaving a narrative together to create one historical story.

Me? I’ve got a list.

A list of things I’ve absorbed from working in the offices of six advertising/marketing agencies in Toronto. A list of things everyone should be aware of. A list of things I won’t forget.

10) It all starts (or ends) with strategy.

Strategy is the powerful spark that ignites new thinking to make a difference in how a brand is perceived. Or the spark that lights the flame that burns the soil to prevent daring ideas from growing in the first place.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some extremely talented strategists/strategic planners and Creative Directors that see the value they provide. Distilling research down into an actionable spark is just as important as coming up with a thrilling new idea.

If the strategy makes a difference in the client’s brand first, then every single idea that is doodled onto a scrap piece of paper or scripted onto a painfully bright laptop screen will no doubt make a difference too.

That’s the whole point of strategy. To keep things good. So, starting with something good, because it makes a difference, always helps.

9) Bullying exists.

Yep. It’s present in many workplaces. Even in ones that claim to be socially conscious and committed to ensuring mental health is a priority. It still happens. Sometimes leaders like to flex their authority or put their junior staff through the wringer. That’s not an excuse. It’s never worth it.

Compassion is better for everyone.

In advertising, bullying can also take shape in the client abusing the agency. Unreasonable deadlines, a lack of collaboration and/or respect, and a lack of overall openness. Some say that’s just the job.

No.

When clients only want agencies to serve—instead of explore and discover— the business relationship is pretty unhealthy and the client’s brand ends up suffering just as much as the agency does. When clients care about the bigger picture, how the brand and agency benefit, then everyone wins.

Compassion leads to exponential success.

8) More women need to be in leadership positions.

I’ve seen thousands of briefing documents that state a female consumer target, yet women are rarely the decision-makers when it comes to what ideas are best suited to engage and entertain this prime consumer.

Really.

Women are the primary purchasers of almost everything in the average household, so why not let female agency and client leaders have their say?

Well, when they do, usually some old guy trumps their choice, direction, or comment. Because he needs to. You know, to flex his authority or whatever.

7) Advertising agencies save clients from themselves.

If every client had their own internal creative department, writers, art directors, and designers at advertising agencies wouldn’t exist. No one would be dedicated to having an outside perspective on the client’s brand, or to breathing life into the consumer data client’s in their tall business towers like to drool over.

If clients did everything themselves, there would be less humanity. And fewer risks.

Now that I think about it in detail, an alternate future might not be that farfetched, or that far away, considering how many brands have grown their own internal creative departments. I’ve learned that creative resources are valuable to clients but when they come from within they lack an essential outside perspective.

Advertising agencies are so strong because they work on a variety of brands and specialize in helping every one of them engage people in the best ways. A brand’s internal creative department doesn’t get that exercise because they’re stuck working inside their own brand.

6) Not everyone is aware of the value they offer.

It’s unfortunate.

When everyone is scrambling for the idea that’ll win over the world, people tend to forget how effective alley-oops are. Picture this: A chain of client folk and agency folk following a process that uncovers insights, then discovers ideas that best express those insights in convincing ways. It sounds simple, elementary on paper—but in application—it’s sometimes forgotten.

When everyone has a clearly defined skill set they all do what they do, kind of like an assembly line, in a certain sequence, to get to something great. There are very few things as thrilling as individuals coming together at different stages to add pieces to a whole.

That’s teamwork.

5) Playing music throughout an office creates life.

If people are overworked and feel dead inside, music is the solution.

If people are pleasantly working away on enriching people’s lives through creative advertising, music is the soundtrack.

It’s kinetic. It’s emotional. It’s something that should be in the air. No. It is air. Music is oxygen. That’s how essential it is to the offices of advertising agencies.

It’s also something that I wish I had realized at my first agency instead of later on, because I missed out on sharing a lot of great music with co-workers—especially between 2010–2013—through collaborative playlists.

You’ve heard of the studies. You’ve maybe even read the exact stats. Nice background music actually increases productivity, lowers stress, and creates important discussion on which newest album or track is, in fact, the best on any given week—no matter what that hipster digital graphic designer thinks.

4) Originality is just as important as relevance.

Determining what matters most to a consumer target is great, but if every other brand speaking to that consumer target is also speaking to them in the same way, the message is lost.

Advertising shouldn’t be spam. It should be a declaration. Or, over time, a conversation. At its best, you could say that advertising is a declaration that starts a conversation.

Yeah.

I’ve learned that every project has an opportunity to make a difference in people’s day-to-day lives. No matter how small. It’s all about determining the right perspective to cut through the mass amounts of other stuff thrown at consumers by other brands. Ultimately, a brand can achieve attention, respect, and trust if it shows people that it understands them in a unique way.

What always blows my mind is rethinking context in a competitive sense for brands. A brand can be the best at doing what many brands do. Or it can be the only one doing what it does. The latter is what really continues to excite me.

3) You don’t have to romanticize alcohol to get by.

The Mad Men era, and its culture brought back into mainstream minds by the TV series, had its spectacle. Saying that late nights or stressful scenarios go hand-in-hand with beer or whiskey is evidence of double-fisting unhealthiness. The sheer fact that alcohol is widely used as a coping mechanism for work stress proves that the nature of the work is mentally straining. That’s true for any industry.

I’ve become vividly aware of how habits brought on by environments become lifestyle changes.

Like I said about music breathing life into an office, choices can be made to change things. To not fall under the allure of after work drinks, working late drinks, drinks over lunch drinks, drinks while you’re working anytime drinks and drinks while you’re drinking drinks.

You don’t have to be drunk to get to the ideas. You don’t have to schmooze with coworkers you respect as you witness them slur their way through their past agency anecdotes (and who they’ve either slept with and/or are planning to sleep with).

Because unless you’re an intern, you can actually choose not to drink.

2) ‘Busy’ is sometimes another word for ‘inefficient’.

Busy is a status.

Busy means you’re set. You know what your tasks are and you are deep in them. No outside interference.

Busy is also a status symbol.

You’re busy because you’re important. You have responsibilities. Real ones that no one else can handle. Even if they are realistically the exact same responsibilities that many, many other staff members handle.

Being busy means you’re amounting to something. But, really, if you’re busy you are either lacking support or you might not be managing your time effectively.

So, why isn’t EFFICIENT a status? Why can’t we set ourselves to EFFICIENT? Why can’t we work towards that as a status symbol?

We can.

I’ve always wanted to have someone tell me that they’re too efficient right now. They CAN talk. Right away. No apology. Just a Thank You for noticing how efficient they are.

When the job at an advertising agency feels easy it may not be because you aren’t being challenged. It may because your direct team or department or, in some cases, entire agency, is extremely efficient.

Hey, it should feel easy sometimes. Maybe we should strive for it to feel easy all the time. There’s no shame in that, because efficient is better than busy.

Efficient goes places that Busy only dreams of. Efficient is sending Busy funny, heartfelt memos that it never gets.

1) If you don’t have fun, then what do you have?

This is a big one.

The question above was asked of me by a woman I passed by on a late-night walk home once, after an industry party hosted by my favourite music/sound studio in Toronto. It was more than her missing teeth, revealing clothing and her focus on a specific type of pleasure that made her question stick with me. It was how universally applicable it was. Definitely applicable to more than what she was offering.

She was, at that moment, whether anyone realized it or not, advertising at its purest.

There’s a lot of fun to be had when working in advertising and I’ve had a lot of it across multiple agencies. The fun is comprised of a combination of things: opportunities to exercise creativity, a variety of happy challenges, and a collaborative multi-disciplinary array of people who are obsessed with popular culture. A perfect recipe for fun, in my humble opinion. *Raises hand and kisses fingers like a chef*

The opportunities to exercise creativity are rooted in the playfulness of ideating. Teammates and I have often asked ourselves what the straight, expected idea is (the first idea) as a basis, then what the exciting, creative twist for it would be. Coming up with ideas no one would expect and then rationalizing them in ways that make them hard to professionally disagree with is incredibly rewarding.

Happy challenges come from new information. Technology is constantly changing so communication methods and the relevancy of communication is changing, too. Clients are also coming up with new projects, offers, and business models that consumers need to be made aware of.

Being presented with new information, sometimes when you least expect it, adds to the excitement of the job. It also validates the fundamentals of sharp strategy combined with a thirst for daring, meaningful ideas. Because if your foundation as an agency is strong, it doesn’t matter what clients or the industry or popular culture throw at you. You can handle it with style.

Agency People (as I call them) are drenched in style. They are extreme versions of Actual People (as I can them)—whether it be their deep interest in things like fashion, food, nightlife, or even general pop culture. They have to be obsessed if they expect to relate to consumers.

But it’s not just a job requirement. It’s a joyful indication of how naturally passionate they are as people.

I might be overly free-spirited in saying this, but sometimes just forgetting that a job in advertising is impacted by the way Regular people live, and going about your day, night or weekend just plainly living as “research” is rewarding.

When Agency People-watch Regular People, fun commentary always occurs along with some equally funny over-analysis. This stems from a knack for recognizing patterns and then making over-the-top predictions of what people at a coffee shop, bar or restaurant do regularly. You can even predict what a distant conversation is about by taking turns voice dubbing in words with a friend. Try it sometime. It definitely won’t feel like work to you.

It’s a blessing to work with professionals who specialize in recognizing people’s behaviours. It adds a heightened sense of what’s around us every day. That’s not to say that the non-analytical Agency People are non-interesting.

They are interesting.

There are so many disciplines at advertising agencies, each residing in the hearts of talented coworkers, regardless of whether an analytical mind is required in their craft or not: Creative Directors, Brand/Account Directors, Strategists, Video Producers, Video Editors, Copywriters, Art Directors, Graphic Designers, Production Artists, Image Retouchers, Proof Readers, Office Managers, Custodians.

Agencies are utopias of interesting people who all believe in the goal of creating things that are, without a doubt, interesting.

If the perfect recipe for fun is made up of opportunities to exercise creativity and the joy of happy challenges as a base, then the secret sauce on top is the array of multi-disciplinary people. Through the ups and downs of agency life, I’ve had a lot of fun because of this recipe. It’s one that works, which is part of why I’m able to share it. The other part is, of course, because I’m eternally grateful for that woman of the night whose question inspired the thought that went into articulating it.

Inspiration really can come from anywhere.

Recap: 10 Years of 10 Things 10) It all starts (or ends) with strategy. 9) Bullying exists. 8) More women need to be in leadership positions. 7) Advertising agencies save clients from themselves. 6) Not everyone is aware of the value they offer. 5) Playing music throughout an office creates life. 4) Originality is just as important as relevance. 3) You don’t have to romanticize alcohol to get by. 2) ‘Busy’ is sometimes another word for ‘ineffective’. 1) If you don’t have fun, then what do you have?

I hope my list makes you aware of what I’ve been made aware of. It took 10 whole years for it to really set in for me. If I’ve articulated things well enough, it should only take about 10 minutes for you.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a new playlist to breathe new life into an office environment of multi-disciplinary people.