Experience is king.

At one of my favorite agencies on this trip, Sparks & Honey, I heard that exact line. As a millennial and a lover of experiences that involve doing interesting things and making human connections, I really took this to heart. Experience can bridge the gaps within culture, within yourself. Experience is something you can’t take back, you can only gain. Experiences build you up. Experiences are one of a kind because no one else has the same, exact one. Experiences are purely unique. Isn’t that cool? Isn’t that what we want to have and to share with others? So go share! 

-Meg Winters 05.16.17

privilege + the creative class

“At the end of the day, we have the incredible privilege to offer an informed opinion on something and get paid for that.”

A few months ago, after a class visit from 72andSunny’s Alex Morrison, I wrote about the privilege of the advertising industry. This profession isn’t easy, but it offers an incredible opportunity to shape culture, communicate and learn.

Listening to 72andSunny CCO Glenn Cole discuss “the creative class” on Friday morning, that lesson took on a more complex meaning.

What is the creative class? It’s the fast-growing and powerful group of professionals who deal in ideas. Advertising, design, and technology are culturally and economically powerful industries. They’re also overwhelmingly white. 

As Glenn told our group, “the access to the creative class is where it’s broken.” Opportunities like this past week of agency visits aren’t available to everyone.

It was incredible to hear that 72andSunny is committed to improving that access problem and that throughout New York, agencies are pushing at the conventions of advertising to better its cultural impact. It’s an exciting time to be entering the agency world.

As I do, I’ll remember my responsibility not to mistreat the privilege of this industry, nor to forget the privilege that got me here. 

Rachel Benner. 05.14.2017.

Keep it simple.

If I were to choose one professional takeaway from the past week, it would be this. At R/GA, creative directors reminded all of our pitching teams to do the minimum required to share ideas, especially in a presentation format. If you include too many unnecessary details, you lose your audience.

The same goes for a strategist briefing creatives. Later in the week at 360i and 72andSunny, I had two different conversations about the importance of a straightforward, strong direction. Research is complicated, but the ability to distill it into a single strategic direction is the real challenge.

As a student, this is difficult. Academia rewards pages of subheads, diagrams and theoretical explanations. You have to tell your reader that you know what you’re doing. Not the case in advertising. Here, you’re judged by your ability to show your direction and move the team forward – simply. 

Rachel Benner. 05.13.2017

Connect Four

At the digital marketing agency 360i we learned how to connect four key components to derive a strategic insight and identify the tension. The 4-box method transforms the research beyond and pushes strategies further. The categories include culture, consumer, category and company. After brainstorming and identifying specifics in each category, it is important to find the provocative, surprising truths and beliefs in each one. From there, the insight and strategy can come to life what the mindset shift is (to/from) and figuring out what role the brand can play to move forward, creating momentum. During our visit at 360i we received a brief and had the chance to practice this strategic way of thinking. I have appreciated the learning by doing moments - where connections are made. 

-Meg Winters 05.12.17

Printing and Pirates

Duggal is the industry leader in marketing installations and advertisement printing. Their state of the art facility is located in Brooklyn’s US Navy yard on the East side of the river. This 200 acre jetty has a rich history in the success of World War II and still provides anthropological insight to what life looked liked during those year. 

 During the World War the Naval Yard employed over 70,000 people to work on ships throughout the day and night earning its rightful nickname as the “The-Can-Do-Shipyard”. The Navy Shipyard also housed the United States oldest hospital. From the American Revolution to World War II the hospital was responsible for the most cutting edge innovations in medicine and even employing some of the first female nurses and medical students.  

Today they yard is closed down to shipbuilding and is now used for 200 private manufacturing facilities, one of them being Duggal. The remnants and history is not lost amongst the modern facilities. Each building is numbered, however they are in no sequential order. We were told that this was for confusing the Russian spies. 

 I wish I was able to see the production and workforce, of that time period that essentially help made New York the thriving international hub that it is today. However, the place is still full of hard working passionate people and the employees of Duggal were no exception. They still know that even in this digital age there is nothing more sacred than human precision and innovation.

-Rachael Laage

Water and Jeans

The Color Purple might be a famous Broadway musical, but it is the color blue that keeps showing up on this trip.

I had the privilege to attend visits at both Boxed and Shareablee. These startups could not be more different in company deliverables, however they both share the common logo color of bright blue. I wondered if the similarity in color was a trend amongst other start ups, and if so what is the significance of blue logos.  

A 2011 post from DesignBuddy.com, reviewed that top 100 most profitable brands and 33% of the top brands used blue in their logo design. Additionally 28% of the top 50 New York startup companies to watch in 2017, according to BuiltinNYC.com, also incorporate blue into their logo design.

Blue, in western culture has taken on a masculine role that also portrays depth, expertise and stability. Dark blue specifically is preferred in American corporate culture. Light blue can often take on a more calming, purification and cleanliness and is often used in the medical field and in airline companies.

It is important when thinking about business messaging, especially a startup, to consider how you want to come off to the consumer and how color can help accomplish that. Both of these brands offer a service and therefor blue can evoke a feeling of trust and reliability to new consumers.

-Rachael Laage

sparks&honey is everything I love about academia and everything I love about the agency world all crammed into one colorful office on Madison Avenue.

On our visit yesterday, I was blown away by smart, thorough research methods and culturally relevant communications strategy all in one place. To see trend spotting without guesswork and good research without bureaucracy was inspiring, to say the least.  

As I embark on my own independent academic research over the next year (yikes), I hope to translate the colorful, curious energy of sparks&honey to my own work. For my thesis on cultural movements in advertising, I’ll build a relevant structure to organize my thoughts, then analyze signals from culture in a way that will actually be useful for people working in the field. 

It’s a daunting task, but I’m ready to explore.

Rachel Benner. 05.10.2017

A metaphor to consider:

Agencies are in the business of brand health. Sometimes, we prescribe painkillers; our advertising seeks to solve serious business problems. Sometimes, however, agencies are tasked with producing brand vitamins. From time to time, we need to create things that enhance or strengthen a brand where a clear problem doesn’t exist. That can be challenging, but it’s extremely important.

A little cheesy? Maybe. But when someone at AKQA articulated their work in this way yesterday, I just had to scribble it down. Just one of many takeaways from an insanely smart shop. 

Rachel Benner. 05.10.2017.

What is “dark social”?

This term has come up in conversations and presentations in the past few days (AKQA & shareablee) so I decided to do a little research because I was curious. Dark social is social sharing content that occurs outside of what can be measured by an analytics program. It does not appear publicly. Dark social often shows up in analytics as “direct” or “bookmarked” traffic but does not give specifics. For example, many branded Facebook posts are targeted to a specific audience. However, not everyone sees them. Another example is Instagram promoted posts. It’s hard to measure the data behind the posts because it’s difficult to see everything a brand is putting out into the world. Another aspect of “dark social” is sharing content privately by cutting and pasting making it hard to track website traffic and engagement.

-Meg Winters 05.10.17