timothy dyer

Marketing Innovation

Why I love This Business

Thu, May 3 2007

This is a very quickly, probably poorly-written response I wrote to one of my buddies' high school students. He's a teacher who challenged his kids to touch base with someone in a field that they'd like to work. I had a lot of fun responding to it and it was refreshing to see the biz from a whole new perspective. Some simple truths emerge.

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Patrick,

Thanks for the email. Hope it's not too late to respond.

1. What kind of people work in the industry? - Generally speaking there are two sides to advertising. The account side and the creative side. Some agencies allow you to cross over, however. People go through school to be trained as an account exec for the more "business side" -- Usually includes type A personalities who manage everything from budgets to relationships, the process, the timing, etc. It can be a very successful route to go. The other side is creative. People who've gone to school to be either a copywriter or designer and then work their way up to a Cretive Director role (not in all cases, but that's the case for a lot of creatives). These people are of course, creative, laid-back generally and are not quite as A personality. Although I'm a little different myself. I'm sure each agency is a little different with a different set of people, but generally speaking... self-starters, aggressive, fun-loving and sometimes the party people. Those are some of the types of people in this biz.

2. Is there much traveling in this line of business? - Depends on what you do. If your on the account side and your client is in-town, chances are you won't travel. If you work on account that may be in a different city (HQ) there's a good chance you'll travel. And depending on the size of the agency, whether it reaches local or national clients -- that'll all effect whether or not you travel. Generally speaking, creatives travel less than account people. But as you move up the ranks, you may be required to travel more. A healthy amount, I'd say. I'm doing new business pitches about once a month, etc.

3. I like playing sports and I'm a pretty laid back guy, would I still have time to relax and have fun?. I have now worked for 2 sports marketing agencies comprised of people who live and breathe sports. If that's something that interests you, consider doing a sports marketing program somewhere. Or if you want to do creative, just hang on to your love of sports and become a copywriter or designer, etc.

4. When creating an advertisement for a company does the company come to you or do you go to the company? Both ways. Most of the time, however, the company comes to us. That's because we're established. We do have a lot of new business guys on the prowl for opps. Which often result in business. So it really is both ways.

5. What methods like programs or applications do you use when creating the advertisement? For account people - Power Point is their Bible. If you get stuck doing budgets, etc. just knowing your MS programs like word, excel, etc. is the best. For creatives, the designers use Adobe products like Photoshop, InDesign, etc. and I as a hybrid, use power point, MS word and a couple of huge dry-erase boards to put down my thoughts and ideas. That's my weapon of choice.

6. What are some techniques you use when creating advertisements? Techniques. I was just thinking about this today. If you want to do this, remember the word "DRAMATIZE." That's what we do. We take something -- A brand -- and make it a little larger than life dramatizing its benefits, its essence, something about it to the public. Here's an example. Take a pencil for example. Really simple. Nothing crazy about it. But when you begin to think about it, a pencil can rival a pen in certain situations. Like space. You may not be able to write with a typical pen in space, but the pencil can go anywhere. So perhaps your entire ad campaign is about people using a pencil, the universal writing instrument of ease, anywhere, anytime. Mt. Everest, Space, Bathroom wall. Whatever. That's just an idea that popped into my head. I'm sure you get it.

BRAINSTORMING - that's one I use everyday. And if you can master this, really master it you will be very successful. Leading people through process-goal oriented thinking is essential -- and really fun.

7. How have you learned all that you know about advertisement? Learned? I've learned from everyone and everything. I've gleaned much of what I know from studying what's actually happening in advertising and have become a student of it. I make connections with people everywhere I go, because this is an industry that is driven by who you know, not always what you know. I've read books "HEY WHIPPLE SQUEEZE THIS." That's a good one. Read it if you can. "THE TIPPING POINT," etc. - Learn. Learn. Learn. Observe. Everywhere. Everything.

8. What are the positions involved in the advertisement business? Touched on this earlier. But starting out you've got account and creative. Here's the natural progression. Account coordinator to (potentially) Assistant AE, account exec to account director, account director to account supervisor, supervisor to VP, VP to President, President to CEO. Okay, so hardly anybody makes it to president or CEO, but you get the idea. Here's the other side. Jr. copywriter (possible to start there) to copywriter (also known as copywriter 1), senior copywriter (for me, I became a creative manager), associate creative director, creative director, executive creative director (depending on agency or organization's size), VP creative, Chief Creative Officer, etc. Gets a little hairy up there, but you get it.

9. What made you think of, or spark, your interest in the advertisement industry? My spark. I wanted to make commercials -- to make mini-movies that entertained people. So far, I haven't made many. Most of my stuff is what we call "below the line" or perhaps more segmented marketing. Often times a brand will produce an ad (say JC Penney -- I recently worked on the back to school campaign you'll see in July) -- Anyways, they'll have an in-store promotion that won't get media time on tv, but when you go to the store it's there. So a lot of things that are NOT on typical TV is what I do. Stuff that pops up in front of you. Stuff that engages you with the product. But the original inspiration was making commercials. Perhaps I'll get back there.

10. What keeps you in the industry? I have fun. Every day is a blast. Sometimes I sit and think that I am the luckiest guy because I get to do something I love. Sure there are challenges, but I love what I get to do. I love thinking about huge world-wide brands and shaping what their communication to consumers looks like. I enjoy knowing that you are entertained, engaged and moved to action by what I do. Very cool.

tim

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