24. Things We Learned

The finish line is quickly approaching for us, Deb Morrison's Creative Strategist students. Projects, blogs, papers, and tests are throwing us into a triple-shot-coffee-instead-of-sleep zombie like state. Anyone would be hard pressed to walk through the University of Oregon's campus and find even one pair of eyes without luggage under them (I say luggage because bags don't cut it, I'm talkin' your headed to Paris for Fashion Week and bring any fashionable item you've ever owned luggage).


So lets take a moment to recap the learning and generosity moments. Here we go, in no particular order:


1. Brands are the metaphysical construct, while products are tangible things.


2. An example of building brands to do better: Haagen Dazs - Save the Honeybees.


3. Scott Bedbury rocks our world and tells us about how he rebranded Starbucks and Nike, among others, and for this he deserves a small sub folder.
     a. "When it is as good as it gets when it can't get any better, what does it look like?"
     b. Any function in a business is a mix of art and science.
     c. The dangers of pre-testing ads, can lead to the perfectly unremarkable. Instead, ask people you trust and find out their problem with it.
     d. When we are genuinely interested and curious, we don't miss much, so be present.


4. Watching Jon Steel tell the world that we must bring out the best in other people, be useful, create simple solutions, feel comfortable with ourselves and our ideas, and constantly work to build our real world broad frame of reference.


5. Maria Scileppi tells us to add 5 interesting things/facts about ourselves at the bottom of our résumé that will provoke a story or question. Best advice. Thank you.


6. "I want to dig your chili."


7. Make sure to have an 'other life' outside of advertising (or at least 'other' hobbies) if you want to be interesting. Being interesting = job.


8. Tracy Wong visits (at 12:06. Oh ma Gohd.) wearing a baller watch and fuckin' hot shoes and lays out a 6 point plan for success. The first point being; 'your big fat fucking ego can hijack your career,' followed by DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. The sixth point being, 'love your client like you love your dog.'


9. Kathy Hepinstall visits. Deb gets verklempt. Kathy tells us that creativity is an exchange of energy. If we can understand this, it will help us be better creatives, husbands, wives, mothers, and fathers. Also, kindness is an artistic medium. Be somebody good news in a creative way. Tells a funny story about setting up a tent at WK NY, which awarded her a tentwarming gift. I want to set up tents in random places.


10. Dave Allen visits. I take two pages of notes and draw a picture of his shoes and pants that says "everything from here up s grey, from pants to hair" (I think it's funny). He was the first person to talk with us about profits and the business side of advertising. The account people were happy. So was I. Explains that there has to be more than brand engagement to get the sale, besides, engagement is a fluffy word. Instead, strive for participation. The new 3P's: pique, provoke, participation. 

11. We Love Anne Heuer. Senior Strategic Planner, W+K Sao Paulo.

Here's what happened: I fell in love. With Anne Heuer. I saw her from across the globe on Skpye and we couldn't take our eyes off of each other (mostly because there aren't many other places to look when you're Skyping). 


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:
Facebook

Thanks Anne!

9. Maria Scileppi Leads us Towards 'Ownable Moments'

Maria Scileppi, the current Director of the Chicago Portfolio School (take an e-visit and view the school through the eyes of a snake, that's a new one), spoke to my #UOCreativeStrategist class about getting our dream job, making 366 friends (during a leap year), how to make our lives sound exciting, and why we need to write witty email subject lines. 


How I interpreted her words:

Here are the key points, just in case your reading glasses are more then a foot away:

Spelling I now know how to spell her name. Maria Scileppi. Maria Scileppi. Maria Scileppi. Won't happen again!

The Big 20 Have 20 face-to-face meetings with midlevel creatives, account people, planners, producers, everyone, before you apply for a job. You'll be better informed, know more about agency cultures and learn about the gatekeepers in the process. A great list of agencies can be found at agencycompile.com.

During the Big 20 Use these interviews and meetings to create a list of agencies you want to work for, excel style, with addresses, recruiter info, accounts, and people in the area you want to work in (ex: producers). Organize by city.

Easy Access Make it easy for people to find you. Make an e-signature with linked blog name, twitter feed, and phone number. Don't forget to title your resume with your name, instead of 'resume' so a recruiter can find you quickly. You want a job right?

The Small 5 The five most thought provoking things about you should be written at the bottom of your resume. They should provoke a story or questions. WHY NOT? This is why I love advertising. The fact that I collect vintage German toy trains could land me an interview. WIN. When being yourself gets you in the door, you have to love the industry. 

Drink Not a lot and not on a regular basis, but perhaps when you sit down to write your cover email, it would be a good time to have a glass of wine, loosen up and get funny. (Not drunk, just funny and creative).

Maria mentioned that we should be working to create 'ownable moments.' The phrase lasted only a second and I think she was interrupted by another question after she said it. I wrote it down. That is exactly what we are trying to do; make work that we want to own up to, that we want people to associate with us. We want to create a generosity moment that we can be remembered by and a creative moment that will make us sought after. Every moment should be ownable. (This could either be thought of as an inspirational moment or a branding moment for Oprah's new network, OWN. It is the former, but it feels like I am writing one of her TV spots.)

Follow her: @mscileppi

She's interesting and friendly and wears bright pink well.