Death of an Advertising Man
Submitted by Robblink on Mon, 02/04/2002 - 16:33.
I, uh, have a friend who works in advertising. He got into the business to create amazing award winning work. Unfortunately, his agency is only interested in appeasing the clients and producing crap. After two years with the agency, all he has to show for it is a ton of spec work. He mostly produces business-to-business, catalogs and junk mail. To top it off, his main account is a cigarette company!
The million dollar question is Is, uh, my friend*s career dead? confused
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Caffiene babe is right even if she makes no sense before her coffee. smile
Tell your mate to fill his book in three ways a) all the produced work he managed to get through in that agency that he agrees with (this could be tricky if he really doesn*t like doing cigarette ads) and/or that is *big* in one way or another (big budget, Big ad, new media, noticable in any way)
b) He should keep doing small projects on his own that he likes. Whatever he manages to pull off goes here. Be it a flyer for a friends party, a letterhead for another friends new company, that stuff.
c) all those ideas that rock his world but never got produced. Either because a) They couldn*t sell it as his agency or b) his agency doesn*t have that client ( in other words, spec work).
He should be fine with that, the first part shows that he can produce, and the other two parts shows what he can think up, it*s the latter they hire for, though they like AD*s/Cw*s who show they have experience too.
I wouldn*t say dead. \"He\" will just have to keep working on his portfolio and make sure that it contains only the best ideas, produced or not. Just because it*s produced doesn*t mean it gets to go in your book. CDs tend to understand that you can*t always sell the great ideas to clients. But if you*ve done some that they haven*t bought, through them in your book as opposed to tossing them out.
Geez, I make no sense without my coffee. I better make it a large one today. smile