Lost

Take the time to explore the city on your own and lose yourself in your own thoughts.

The city is endless, full of people who each have a life as vivid as your own. It’s easy to feel a little out of place, or even lost. It’s a strange feeling to slowly walk through Grand Central during rush hour. It’s an even stranger feeling when you feel completely at home in this new place next to people you’ve never seen before.

Although simple, this time spent with myself was so necessary. It helped me declutter all the information I soaked up at the agency visits. I learned that living in the city could be an option for me in the future. The trip helped me learn so much about the industry–the people, culture, lifestyle, and what it means to create great work. The time on my own helped me feel lost in an ever changing industry, but eventually I found myself okay with notion of not knowing. Because just like the industry, we are always growing, learning, adapting, and finding ourselves in this endless city.

-Theresa 

Passion + authenticity > constant portfolio fixation

Yes, you have to be talented to make it in the industry. Generally having a portfolio showing your hard skills in which you are capable of is certainly valuable. However, one of the things I’ve thought to be true and was manifested in this trip, was that raw passion and authenticity will get you in the doors before a perfected portfolio will. It’s important to note that these agencies consist of real people doing crazy cool shit, and they want to know what cool shit you’re in to and what cool shit you like to make as well. In almost every interaction I had with either an industry veteran or recruiter, they were curious as to why I want to go into advertising, what I do in my free time, what was I passionate about and why, etc. When visiting with Matt Eastwood from JWT, he said “I’ve been using the same model for years when determining who I want to bring on the team and be surrounded by, and that’s people who are passionate about something,anything, because that tells me that they are indeed a passionate person.” This sound so simple, but be passionate about something no matter how weird it is: collecting bottle caps, obsessing over hippos, painting murals on objects that other people would consider trash: just something.

Advice moving forward:

Be passionate, show it in a way that is unique to you and your brand.

Do you homework on where you want to be and why. Really.

Don’t take the first job offer if it doesn’t feel right and/or it doesn’t align with your values.

Aaaand don’t spend more time perfecting your portfolio than being an actual human and having conversations, being authentic to recruiters, people in the industry.

Sit down, listen to people who have way more knowledge than you do in Ad, be humble.

-Macaihah

Composers & Cover Artists

As a strategist in this program I’ve always struggled with people referring to us as the “non-creatives.” I’ve pondered whether or not my role is actually creative because of it, but have always returned to the idea that while our creativity differs, it shouldn’t be discounted. If you’ve wondered this too, I hope to share an analogy I stumbled upon that I think brings to light an answer to the question: “Are we creatives or not?” The analogy came during my visit to Sound Lounge while we were having a discussion about the difference between composers and cover artists. The discussion centered around how both make music, but their creativity differs. They explained the differences like this: a composer is someone who pulls sounds seemingly from thin air. The music they make comes from within as they create unique sounds based on what they think best portrays the story they are trying to tell. While on the other hand, you see cover artists creating unique remixes and cover songs. Their creativity uses intuition when hearing different music. They pull together many sounds to create a well layered blend. Their music thus comes through discovering new and interesting ways to fit various sounds together. This, I think, is precisely the difference between creatives and strategists. Creatives design and write from within, while strategists gather outside pieces and blend them together. So just like composers and cover artists, though our processes differ, in the end we are both equally capable of creating something beautiful to listen to. Kenzie Backous

I never really cared about how small or large an agency was. I was solely interested in if they incorporated stories, human truths, and were creating good work. After visiting such a wide variety of agencies, I realized that not only does the culture of a company and work of a company matter but the size can change how you work and within the shop.

Being a part of a small agency means you’ll get to wear multiple hats.

Medium agencies give you the opportunity to improve your craft and area of expertise.

And large agencies mean you’ll be surrounded by brilliant people while (hopefully) being a part of an agency that creates tons of great work.

It’s based on personal preference, personality, and work ethics. You can either love to learn about all the different areas of advertising, or you can stick to your skills and be motivated by others around you.   

-Theresa Nguyen