It's off to work we go
After staying at work until 11:30pm working on a project with the rest of my team, my boss turns to me and says, "Welcome to advertising."
My hours really aren't all that bad, though. I know the pay is terrible, but it's really easy to pull at 45-50 hour work week. I have friends working 115 hours a week, and we're all still only interns.
I think one of the things I really like about this industry is how flexible everything is. I don't have set hours. I can come and go as I want. A lot of it is my decision. My previous job was very accommodating of my schedule. If I had somewhere I needed to be, I could just tell my boss. It wasn't about asking her permission, it was about letting her know where I was going to be so that she would know not to come looking for me. It's almost the same way now. I left work at 2pm on Wednesday because I felt like I had pulled a lot of hours on Tuesday. I had a friend staying over, and I hadn't had time to do anything with him yet because of work. So I left.
It's also very important to learn how to work professionally at a job. A lot of interns that I've seen still treat work as high school. They're constantly asking their bosses about what to do. They don't know what to do unless someone specifically tells them. They're constantly asking permission for things. They spend their time either procrastinating on work they have to do or fooling around when they're not given any work to do.
Now I'm not say that happens with all interns, nor am I saying that I'm not guilty of those things occasionally. I do have fun at work. I will goof off occasionally as well because I don't want to get burnt out. But I also have asked for long term projects that I can work on. If I don't have anything to do, I'll read things online to catch me up with what's going on in both the advertising industry and the industry of the client that I work for. I like being knowledgeable about the company that I'm working for.
I feel like I've gotten so much more mature since I've started working sophomore year. I wouldn't give away this experience for anything.
Digital Ponderings
Listening to a Chief Digital Officer's approach to digital marketing was much more interesting than trying to stumble my way through the concept by experimenting online. While I enjoy reading Digg posts, blogs, Facebook feeds, magazines, and newspapers, it's really hard to find time to actually do all of that. So to have it all summarized in a presentation was really helpful.
JP didn't touch upon anything I hadn't already heard, but the passion in his voice about how things are turning digital really made me want to get back into the digital world. As much fun as traditional media is, and as much as I like trying to help come up with 'new media' ideas for my company, I miss the interactive experiences that I've had since sophomore year. I've tried to keep up by almost overloading myself with information on the subject, but it's not the same as being totally immersed in the field. This traditional media stuff is holding me back from the digital world.
I always try to think of a good question when listening to presentations like this. I wanted to avoid the usual questions about where the future is headed and what the effects of having to measure everything means. Those questions just show that you're not familiar with the field because those are the most common questions that everyone asks. I have always wondered something about the digital advertising process. A lot of traditional advertising is used for brand building. I see digital advertising a lot more like direct marketing in that if results are not seen almost instantly, then the campaign gets changed or cut. But in such a fast-paced environment, isn't it more difficult to build a lasting brand that people can relate to?
JP answered my question really well. I've been looking at this whole digital thing the wrong way, and I now have a new perspective. Digital is not going to be replacing traditional media any more than television replaced the radio. We still listen to the radio, and we're still going to be watching television. It's more about the when and where. Digital advertising should be integrated into one's overall campaign in order to target the population you want to reach. But if you choose to do an entirely digital campaign, yes, it will be like direct marketing. However, it's important to use many different digital mediums like blogs, text ads, banner ads, microsites, etc. Then if one doesn't work, money can be taken away from it and fed into one that does work.
Generous Nation
It's a strange hour to start talking about campaigns and things, but I was walking home from a fun night out, and I saw an ad for dontalmostgive.org. I wanted to post about it before I forgot.
The 'Don't Almost Give. Give.' campaign is one of my favorite campaigns. Whoever came up with the campaign was really in tune with the fact that everyone usually wants to do good deeds. Everyone thinks about how they can help others. But fewer people actually act on that idea. There are all sorts of excuses floating around. I won't go into detail about what they are because I'm sure everyone knows and has used those excuses multiple times. I know I have. And this campaign addresses that fact. It plays on emotions like most other nonprofit/charity campaigns, but it also knows that you
want to do something about the cause.
Then it takes it to the next level. It says, "Don't just think about giving. Go out and do something about it." And though I don't like using the term, I think it guilts people into doing something other than picking up a pamphlet or listening to whatever activist knocks on your door/stops you on the sidewalk. And the call to action "Give" tells people that even though you felt like you may have done something, it's not enough unless you actually donate.
I'm curious to see what the results of the campaign are - what the numbers are like. I'll look them up in the morning.
Smile for the camera
It's always so exciting when you feel like you've been let in on a secret. "Welcome to this exclusive party," these secrets seem to say. This feeling of elitism is exactly what befell me a few days ago when I watched food stylists and photographers hard at work.
I never realized how much work goes into taking pictures for print ads. The photo shoot took the entire day for just one chocolate bar and shots of the packaging. The day started off with the two food stylists Michelle and Julie carefully cleaning up the chocolate. I've would've imagined that only surgeons were capable of such careful precision, but the way Michelle handled her knives made me think that she was handling the most vital of organs.
The photo process was just as interesting. I was probably the only person there who hadn't seen the process before, so I was able to watch everyone do their things the entire day without getting bored. I've wanted to learn photography for some time now, but I've just been too busy/lazy to read up on the process. Thus, watching a professional at work was incredibly thrilling, to say the least.
I can't help but wonder if food photography for ads borders on being a sham. It's almost like some sort of trickery is involved. The actual foods
never look as good as the photos in the ads or the packaging. But then again, no one would've bought fast food if they thought it looked the way it does in reality.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to watch that photo shoot. It reinforces my decision to be glad that I never got into being a creative. My life would've been wraught with tedium, and while some people enjoy being creative even if it means going back to the drawing board multiple times, I do not have that kind of patience.
