Agency Life: Creativity, Where Are You?

 By Dan Hartshorn, Sr. Art Director

So, since I'm the new guy here at 97 Degrees West, I figured it was a chance for me to start things off by giving you, the reader, an idea of what inspires me, and helps with my creative process. Sometimes the 'ole brain doesn't want to connect point A to point B and point Z is nowhere to be found. In these instances, I turn to some trusted sources for help in an attempt to put something on paper, or screen, that I'm actually satisfied with. Usually, I do 10 versions of whatever I'm working on, throw them all out, and wish I had kept the first version. All that aside, here are a few artists and things that help me organize all the static inside my head:

Aaron Draplin

This designer is the epitome of a bitter, sarcastic, jovial, intimidating and unbelievably talented artist, that just wants to do the best work possible, and not get caught up in design trends, faddish styles and the flavor of the week piece of art. He's dedicated to solid design, exceptional use of typography, color palette choices, and he has a sense of humor that will make anyone smile. Well, that is, unless you're offended by copious amounts of profanity – if that's the case, you might not like him. Watch his video.

David Choe

He's a huge inspiration to me in regards to painting, illustration and graffiti. He is one of them most prolific, volatile and charismatic contemporary artists, and his story about getting arrested, and thrown into a Japanese jail for more than three months is pretty entertaining as well. 

Shane Smith

Shane is one of the founders of VICE magazine, and subsequently has turned this small magazine into a worldwide media outlet. VICE reports on some of the most dangerous, heart-wrenching, terrifying and hilarious pieces of news that most main-stream media won't even approach. He's traveled to places like Afghanistan, North Korea, the SOFEX arms conference in Jordan, and has risked his life many times in an attempt to go beyond the surface journalism that most networks participate in.

Todd Hido

This photographer uses medium and large format film, and takes extremely long-exposure photographs at night, mainly of houses and apartment buildings. The long exposures allow for unparalleled detail, and the amount of light that is captured during this time (sometimes up to an hour), gives each image a surreal, un-earthly quality. Most of these images are of nondescript, normally un-impressive structures, but somehow his process of taking the photos changes them into dreamlike memories from a past life that you can barely remember. 

Radiohead:

Music has always been a big part of the creative process (I hate that phrase) for me, and Radiohead is one of those bands that will always be there to put me into the right mindset, or at least push me in the right direction, for whatever project I'm working on. This band has evolved from an early 90s alt-rock outfit to an international, god-like group of musicians always surprising their fans with an intensely saturated and painstakingly crafted sound. 

Red Bull:

I feel like a total scumbag admitting this, but on many occasions, when I have very little drive, or I'm falling asleep from waking up in the middle of the night several times to help my infant son go back to sleep, Red Bull has helped me get through those last few hours of the day, or helped me finish off that last bit of a painting. Their marketing is incessant and caters to Axe-Body-Spray clad frat boys who want a little kick with their vodka. But apparently it works, because I'm drinking one right now.

Four Mid-Level Resume Red Flags

By Vera Fischer, President of 97 Degrees West and 97incubator

Hiring new talent is a critical component to any business regardless of its size. There are countless hiring strategies that companies implement in order to weed out the good talent from the great talent when it comes to college graduates and more senior level talent (Director and up).  However, the mid-level range of talent seems to get lost in the mix.  

How I define mid-level talent is a candidate with five to seven years of experience in their particular skill set. This is enough time for the candidate to have some experience with confrontation, strategic thinking, time management and working in a team environment. They have weathered, and hopefully succeeded in, getting through work challenges that are uncomfortable yet have made them better equipped to advance in their profession.

Here are the top four red flags I look for when reviewing resumes for mid-level new hires: 

1. Does the applicant clearly state the position they’re applying for and how their skill set applies to that specific position? If not, this tells me that the candidate does not possess mid-level reasoning skills.  If the candidate can’t make the connection from their skill set to my job posting, why are they making me find the connection? 

2. The candidate has had three or four jobs in five years or less. I have heard all of the rationale about why this is okay. “It’s common in our industry to move around from position to position; it’s the only way to increase salary and responsibility, etc.” For me, this is a big red flag, as the sub-meaning of moving around is “when things get tough at one job, I move on to the next honeymoon phase with my next employer.” 

3. The candidate’s resume is a running list of responsibilities. What about the results? Did the candidate get any results at their previous positions? An example might look like this: “Grew and managed the <insert company name> online presence.” That’s great! But by how many? One or 500? How did they grow the online presence? If you look at the candidate’s resume as if it were a report on project performance, there’s missing information. Information that gets my attention looks more like this: “Grew <insert company name>’s online presence by 40 percent utilizing an integrated approach consisting of social media and promotions.” 

4. Dare I say it? Incorrect and misspelled information on the resume. With mass resume submissions, forgetting to remove another company’s name where mine is supposed to go is an automatic delete. Typos in a world dominated by content? I’ll pass, thank you.

The Power of Answering Your Own Questions

By Jono Moore, Intern, First-Year Graduate Student at the University of Texas

Being an intern creates a lot of dissonance. You should know what you’re doing; after all, you have a couple years of school under your belt, you get good grades and you think you’re brilliant. Then you walk into an agency as an intern and all of that information seems useless.

Taking on something I’ve never done before:

How do you apply things like Elaboration Likelihood Model to doing research on local credit unions? (You don’t.) Not everything you learned in school is immediately applicable. Your internship lets you see a different side of advertising, enabling you to take your academic knowledge and turn it into real life, professional knowledge.

Once you get over the I’m-so-smart-I-don’t-need-to-ask-questions phase, you’ll end up having a lot of questions. A lot of questions. It’s fine to ask, but before you drag your feet over to your supervisor’s desk to interrupt their work, try and answer your own question.

The most important thing I have learned so far as an intern at 97 Degrees West is that nine times out of 10, I’ll find the answer to my question somewhere in my noggin. But when I do have to ask my supervisor something, I phrase it like this: “I can’t figure out PROBLEM A, so I tried SOLUTION A, but that didn’t work. Should I try SOLUTION B?”

Chances are, that will work. If not, you have at least tried to solve your own problem.

In fact, that’s a pretty standard rule around here. Never ask a question unless you already have a solution in mind. After all, this is a creative profession and, inherently, our job is problem solving. That’s all creativity is really.

Apply this principle to everything, not just work. It may seem obvious, but most people are so quick to ask questions, they never take the time to try and solve their own problems.

How it feels to solve your own problem:

Homework assignment:
Next time you can’t remember something (like who played The Soup Nazi), think about it for 60 seconds before you Google it. Chances are, the answer you are looking for is somewhere in your noodle.

Pretty sure it was Larry Thomas.

The Things I Learned in Advertising

By Briana Chenkin, Account Manager

As a mid-level account exec, I often meet with soon-to-be college grads looking to get into the industry and wanting the lowdown on advertising life. They show up all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, expecting me to tell them how incredible and hip agency life is. I show up 15 minutes late (usually because a client had a last-minute revision to the print ad that had to be trafficked by end of day) wondering what I can say that will provide a realistic, honest insight into this crazy business that won’t completely discourage this student to run for the hills (or a sales position, to be more accurate). 

That got me thinking: What do I wish someone would have told me 4,150 working hours ago when I first started? Obviously, I turned to my agency friends for some help and posed the following question: What do you wish someone would’ve told you about working as an account manager at an ad agency before you started? Below are the top responses:

• You probably won’t get to work on sexy clients at first. However, you will learn a lot of things that will be more valuable to you in the end than that whiskey account you wanted to work on. 
• Don't be fooled by agency happy hours or rep lunches. You're still expected to be productive after the cocktails are consumed. 
• If you don’t have the answer, it's okay to say, "I don't know." But make every effort to figure it out. 
• Your unofficial job description includes “glorified babysitter.” Embrace it. Order pizza for your team if they’re staying late. It won’t go unnoticed. 
• Nothing is ever your idea, but it's always your fault. 
• When you buy shots at happy hour, your supervisor will judge you. They might also partake. 
• Don't throw around buzzwords just to be cool. It's annoying. 
• Be nice to everyone. It's a small, incestuous industry. Really, it is. 
• Be a team player. When there's a mistake, don't point fingers. Last minute revisions? Stay for an extra 30 min while your creative team gets it done. 
• Don't follow the money. Follow the experience. The money will come. 
• There's no such thing as a 40-hour workweek. 
• There is such thing as a stupid question. Be resourceful, and try to find the answers on your own before asking a supervisor.

Here’s what I can add to the list: You will work with incredibly talented people who will absolutely drive you insane. Your team and clients will continuously push you past your limit. And though you will make an impact, you’ll feel as if you’ve barely moved the needle. 

If all this sounds like fun, then you may be just as crazy as we are… Welcome to Advertising!      

Functionality Obsession

By Ramón Villarreal, Production Artist

One of the things I like about furniture design is the ability to give an object functionality, comfort, simplicity and style. The object by itself already has a purpose and function, but when the designer adds a little extra, it makes the object more attractive. 

The following tables are two of my favorite designs. Both are extendable in different ways. 

The Vidam Extendable Table (head)

The Vidam extendable table is made with metal, wood or corian, and offers a simple design. It’s an excellent yet simple table that seats four people. But with a simple pull, the table extends to seat six people. It’s a clever mechanism and a simple design. You can see more info about the table in the following link:

http://www.vidamecreation.com/php/collection_table_extensible.php?lang=en

The Fletcher Capstan Table (head)

The Fletcher Capstan has a unique mechanism capable of automatically doubling its seating capacity while keeping its circular shape in the process. The operation is pretty simple and the beauty of the table is the mechanism. Expansion leaves are stored within the table and are self-positioning as the table changes from one mode and appearance to an entirely different one. For more information about the table, click the following link:

http://www.dbfletcher.com/index.php/furniture/capstan-table/

Process is not a dirty word. It’s an infographic.

By Vera Fischer

See (or read?) the word “process” and you’ve lost the majority of your audience in the first sentence. At one time or another during a person’s work tenure, we’ve been subjected to 3-ring binders filled with policies and procedures. Depending on the chosen industry, this binder could be minimal or take over an entire bookshelf.  

Fast forward to the new days of entrepreneurship. The shackles of corporate minutiae have been cast aside and buzz words such as “pivot” and “paradigm shift” have taken hold. Neither of these buzz words scream process and, in fact, appear to be the antithesis of process. So why the bad rap?

Most of us associate process with rules that can’t be broken. As creative beings, breaking the rules is part of the game of innovation. Invariably, the entrepreneur staunchly opposes such rules in their new organization, determined to rail against the machine. Until the organization has more than two or three people, then miscommunication rears its ugly head.

As knowledge workers, we wear many hats in our workplace. How many times have you heard this: “I can’t help you because so-and-so is out and they do that. I don’t know how they do that.”  When we’re in smaller organizations, our entrepreneur boss most likely doesn’t ask us to define our rationale and the specifics of how we got the work done. It got done, right? So what’s the problem?

Process, when clearly defined, is the step-by-step blueprint for efficiently accomplishing a task – not conquer the world. Processes should be simple and time saving without sacrificing quality. Processes should also be scalable. Can the process be adaptable as you grow? If one or two key people are unavailable, can anyone pick up the process and still reach the desired result?

Example of a clearly defined "step-by-step."

Defining processes will get you:

1.     Less communication headaches. Now the expectations of how your organization delivers have been defined.

2.     Less ambiguity. Believe it or not, employees do not like ambiguity. Breathing room, yes.  The complete unknown, no.

3.     Early detection of the ability to deliver. Simply writing down the process will identity the pitfalls of getting from point A to point B.

Let’s face it. How many times did you actually read through the 3-ring binder? Exactly.  As marketers, we wanted something pretty to look at. Enter the infographic. Easy to look at, fun to read and pleasing to the beholder. It’s the 3-ring binder, made pretty.  

Am I a Name or a Branding Strategy

By Russ LeBlanc

What’s the most important thing to understand when building a brand for your company? First, it’s crucial to realize that a brand is not a name, and branding is not a communication tactic -- it is a business strategy.

The confusion starts when people think they are building a brand when, in fact, they are merely creating name awareness. Having a name that everyone has heard of yet no one knows what it is, what it does or what it stands for doesn’t have any great intrinsic value. Even if everyone in the universe is aware of the Acme Widget Company, they don’t have a strong brand unless everyone knows what they do, what they stand for, and what it’s like to do business with them.

How a company -- its products, services and people -- comes to life is another thing altogether, and that is the difference between a name and a brand. This is where the value of having a strong brand is derived.

Determining the parameters of your branding strategy is as important as deciding on your pricing strategy, your product strategy and your distribution strategy. In fact, branding is often the driving force behind all of the decisions made when it comes to pricing, products, promotion, packaging, etc.

Another way to think about brand versus name is this: are you spending “promotional dollars” to drive immediate sales or are you investing in the future. The two are not and should never be mutually exclusive. Every effort should sell today and build your brand over time. But that is for another blog…