Recently, she packed up her bags and flew from her old home at Ogilvy and Mather in NYC to her new home at WK Sao Paulo, Brazil. People asked her why, in her 30's, was she moving across the globe instead of finding a man and making screaming babies and her answer was simple; why not? She wants us to live our lives the way we want to, not taking shit from anyone about who we should be, but rather just doing what we're passionate about.
Anne has a love/hate relationship with advertising. Her job is all about coming up with methodologies and boiling down insights, which she loves. Agency people joke that "your brief was is showing" because the markets have become so saturated and crowded that some agencies think the only way to sell product is to formulaically highlight its obvious perks, which she hates.
This is Anne:
Why we love Anne: This photo (specifically her shirt), honest, generous, liberated.
More reasons we love Anne: When she feels like she is on top of her game at one agency, she wants to leave, thinks brand's tag lines have become two meaningless adjectives stuck together.
Why we don't: She's in Brazil. Not Oregon. But it's okay, we kind of want to be in Brazil.
Anne Heuer came to advertising without a portfolio or an ad degree (which greatly pleases her), but rather an English lit degree and three years of experience traveling around the world writing for an Asian newspaper. Her first industry job was at Wieden and Kennedy PDX as a planner. She was curious and observant, making her the perfect planner, but she explained that the wine was what called to her. Every night she watched planners gather outside W+K around 6pm drinking wine and knew she wanted to be a part of it.
Anne's Quick Tips for Planning:
Follow something that is bigger and broader than advertising. She wants us to OBSERVE what's around us and who's around us (reiterating Scott Bedbury's point about always being present). This will make us better creatives, planners and thinkers. She hires curious people.
Be impressed with the leadership. Seek agencies with leaders that you respect and want to learn from. It will make our job more fun and we will learn more from someone that we are personally inspired by (something Maria Scileppi touched on during her visit). Anne seeks agencies based on their cleverness.
Advertising will always be there. This one seems to be harder for most of us to grasp, seeing as we're currently spending upwards of $50,000 for an education and would like to see quick results in fun jobs immediately. That attitude generally won't get us a job. If we want to travel the world, run across the country or play with penguins in Argentina, NOW is the time to do it. In fact, it would probably help us get a job later. Her point being; follow your dreams (though she would never say something so corny) and don't only 'be' curious, 'act' curious.
This was one of her Facebook profile photos:
What she loves:
Art&Copy (so does Rob Heppler)
John Steel (so does Deb Morrison)
Mother
People Ideas & Culture
Johannes Leonardo (make sure to check this out when you go there)
Where we can find her:
Thanks Anne!
Your blog is awesome. Love all the interviews and recaps with all these awesome peeps. Super inspiring.
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