I recently got a chance to speak to the UGA Ad Club on some of the things I do, who also asked me to answer some questions for them in the interest of helping out some aspiring adworld students and the Grady College of Mass Communication. In addition to passing on some bits from the helpful Joshua Woolery, I answered their questions in bold and would like to share them here as well:
1. What kind of networking have you found to be beneficial or wish you had participated in upon graduation?
One is of course Twitter. Most people I know who have been great contacts/will continue to be great contacts in the future I would never have known without it. Interesting thoughts are valuable to everyone regardless of your position in the industry - if you're putting good ones out there, people will take notice and follow back. Many very approachable people out there willing to send a message or two back if you pose an appealing question.
Outside of that: comment every now and then on someone's blog with something interesting or insightful. Something personal, even. Not everyone will respond but the important ones will want to get to know you.
2. What is the best way to get your foot in the door at a larger agency?
Not really my area of expertise, since I'm interested in a lot of the increasing amount of great stuff coming from places other than the old giants. Their approach sometimes seems to be: "Problem: we want to understand these emerging new ways brands are being successful at interacting with people. Solution: buy up a smaller shop that gets it." It may be my lack of exposure, but even outside of that I'm finding that the larger you are, the more you're expected to reach a lot of people - and reach isn't always the solution to the real business/strategy/product/human behavior problems at hand.
That's not to say that there aren't some good ones out there doing great things. One thing that comes to mind is the @theBKlounge experiment/hijacking, where Caleb Kramer posed as the King - he did it well and definitely got the good attention of Cripsin Porter + Bogusky and Edelman.
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of larger agencies vs. boutique shops?
Looks like I covered this a bit already. In short, I'd say boutique shops are good for addressing strategy and marketing, not just "advertising." Advertising's going away in that sense, or at least the idea of "buying media to reach and convince an audience." is. Consider reading Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet - Eric Clemons' TechCrunch article here does an excellent job of explaining this.
You likely won't make a name for yourself for easy recognition on a resume somewhere small, but if you do good work, have great ideas, understand what really gets attention - you won't need it that recognition because you'll be able to speak to it. On the other hand, you'll get a good name for yourself having a large agency on the resume but you'll likely need those just listed things to be there anyway.
Plus, consider the environment. It's hard to describe work environments and cultures, but at least be aware that there are two kinds of environments: there's the day-to-day (the kind of people an organization attracts), and then there's the corporate structure. They are definitely related but one can be excellent and the other rough.
4. What is the most bizarre question you’ve been asked in an interview?
A lot of people try to start things off by making you comfortable, which sometimes can be something silly or something that tries to get to know you personally. Definitely be prepared to have an interesting way to talk about what who you are and how it's led you to really aspire want the position at hand (or at least what you expect to get out of being there).
For me this usually starts with my growing up in Utah, at which point every question gets a little bizarre.
5. If you could change one thing about the way you approached finding a job, what would it be?
Definitely start earlier. There's a lot of decision-making that has to be done sometimes, and even that alone takes a few weeks. Consider time to schedule interviews, pushing back those dates when one/both parties have to reschedule, and understand that there are likely going to be a couple rounds of decisions/interviews - it's going to add up. That's just one potential employer. If you've got 4-5 on the radar, you're looking at months going by. (btw huge piece of advice I think is accurate: never ask about money the first time around. don't even bring it up.)
6. How important do you think online and mobile advertising are to this industry?
I'm taking this question in consideration of the difference between paid and organic advertising. In terms of paid: it will continue to be something people spend money on and it will continue to be a big part of the industry (read: there will be jobs there), but in my honest opinion it's not going to be something that brands that are doing things right (read: people actually want to give them money) are going to find themselves needing to spend much on. Online and mobile will of course be important vehicles for spreading messages for smart brands, but it won't look anything like "paying someone for space on a platform to put a message."
7. What is your favorite current ad campaign and why?
I did *really* like Snickers and their Snacklish stuff until they forced snckrz.com to shut down (Scrabulous, anyone? come ON). Hmm actually the first thing that came to mind was Alpo, with quickgetthatdogsomealpo.com and their video. I feel like theres a lot of great stuff out there that doesn't come immediately to mind. I very much liked that Deadmau5 used the iPhone app store to release his album via stellar remix studio app.
8. How did you decide on which division of the industry you wanted to pursue (i.e. account management, planning, media, creative, etc.)
I'm pretty sure that somewhere around 90 percent of people going through Grady come in thinking that they want to be creatives. And I think that's mostly because it takes a long time for all of us to figure out what that thing that really clicks with us as individuals is (I'm talking people/university students in general). Longer than you think. I think the reality is that some people never figure it out, for better or for worse. Spend some time getting to know what that thing is. Know that it's going to come slowly - be open to a lot of things.
A lot of agencies feel safe starting people in a media buying or account/campaign management position, since there it's easiest to get a feel for how the industry works - the specifics of how clients and agencies actually end up working together.
As for me and strategy, it was an understanding of what planning really is in a marketing context. It isn't about "numbers and data." Those things help (and I genuinely do enjoy good/interesting research), but ultimately it's about drawing patterns that point to the ultimate reason any given situation exists. This is often nestled deep in fascinating human behavior/beliefs/fallacies/reality and planners exist to draw it out. Razorfish strategy VP Tom Lynch was saying that planners are like the old Greek astronomers, looking at an enormous sky of information and putting together patterns that help us better understand the world.
9. What is the one thing you have learned about agencies/marketing companies since you started that you weren’t expecting?
Grady only has so much time to get a lot of things out about advertising and agencies, so the focus usually ends up being on full-service agencies. One thing you figure out is about the range of agencies and organizations out there that do everything small and big - media buying, creative work, concepting, research, etc. who basically partner with and serve other full-service (or not) agencies.
10. What is the social scene for employees of your company (i.e. do they go out together, have dinners, never get together outside of the office or does the company have parties for employees)?
We've got a happy hour every Friday at the end of the day, drinks and food provided for the office. That usually gets almost everyone together. We've got some people with a lot of ultimate frisbee league experience, so this year we've got a company team for Atlanta's spring league. About 10-15 people involved with that which is still a pretty good turnout. During the height of the NCAA brackets last month, we held a Beer Madness bracket over the course of the week pitting two beers against each other at a time; I had a blast as one of the judges. I'm told there's a beach weekend each year but I haven't been to it yet. Each Thursday a group of about 6-10 meet up for drinks after work but I'm not sure how many people get involved in that since I've never actually gone. All in all I'd say that a good majority of people there have a good friend or two they hang out with outside of work; maybe not all the time but occassionally.
11. What is the best part about your job / agency
Getting an excellent feel for how a lot of different organizations in the industry work together during campaigns. The piece our organization contributes faces only a small handful of other competitors, so we ultimately end up working with a huge number of creative agencies. Knowing and working with this wide range of people in a good number of agencies is invaluable to me.
Have any of your own answers to the above?
Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 10:54AM 
Project: Nostalgia