Marketing
10 tips for students looking to get a job in an advertising creative department.
You’d think in an era of social networking, it would be easier to find a job. But I meet young people all the time struggling to find where they fit in and how to get their foot in the door. And I remember those days at the University of Notre Dame, when I decided I wanted to be a copywriter, searching through the Agency Red Book, trying to get internships, mailing clever things to agencies to get their attention. So here are 10 helpful tips that I have to pass on to aspiring agency creatives.
1. Be creative. If you want a job in creative, do not follow a so-called professional resume format. I have seen resumes on paper napkins and on video. Be different if you want to break through.
2. Study award-winning campaigns. Get award books like the One Show, Archive, and Communication Arts Advertising Annuals. While you can find great award-winning creative online at places like Ads of the World, I think buying old versions of these books on Amazon.com is a great thing to have, to understand what makes a campaign and what makes it great.
3. Learn the business. Seek opportunities (in class and out) to learn the business and add to your portfolio. Invent clients, do spec or do real ads for families and friends. The best way to get hired is to have a great book!
4. Intern. Intern. Intern. I had two internships before I landed a full-time job. So pursue internships whether free or paid—but only at places where you like the work they do and know you can learn from their talent. Agencies like to try before they buy. An internship at your dream agency could lead to a better future than one at a mediocre one.
5. Choose wisely. Big agencies are a great place to start as they hire more people more often. But at a mid-size shop like ours an intern could do web ads, social media, radio and get a shot at TV.
Think about what fits you and your career goals.
6. Brand yourself. Make your own brand speak uniquely through your website, business card, resume and guerilla. And be consistent with that unique quality that differentiates you from the pool of other aspiring creative. I have sent funny things to agencies over the years to get noticed. Attach a web video to your resume. Or try snail mail because in the digital world it’s a better way to break through and be noticed.
7. Understand it’s not about you. It’s about what you can do for an agency. So research different agencies online and through the Agency Red Book at the library so you can talk intelligently at interviews and show them how you could move their business forward.
8. Be patient and persistent. Understand Creative Directors and Creative Recruiters are busy. If they don’t get back to you, it’s most likely because it’s not a priority to them at that time. Find the Associate Creative Director or a Senior Copywriter or Art Director to glean info from. Any connection that can give you insight. Name drop their name (“So and so said to call you”) to get you to that next level. Stay visible so when they do need to hire, you make the list.
9. Network. Join ad clubs. Freelance for local chambers of commerce. Friend people you admire on LinkedIn. Blog. Vlog. Increase your SEO. No contact is ever wasted.
10. Stay positive! It takes time to get with the agencies you really admire but persistence eventually will pay off.
Those are the real secrets to getting a job in advertising as a creative. Take it from me, the school of life is more educating than even the best universities. Let me know if this helps. Or if there are any other tips that a young creative should try. Best of luck to you!
Target does it again with The Shops.
You can probably tell that we’re big Target fans here at Brogan & Partners. Forgive me for visiting the subject once again, but Target keeps stepping up its game, especially when it comes to marketing to women. I just can’t ignore it.
Their latest bit of brilliance? The Shops at Target. These are five actual “Main Street” type of shops—from a Boston dog bakery to an Aspen cosmetics boutique—that will be reproduced in Target stores.
I can’t tell you yet if I love the shops themselves. They don’t debut until Sunday, May 6th, but I already know the online marketing is breaking new ground for the store.
While we’re accustomed to Target partnering with cool designers like Missoni and Dwell Studio, these lines’ online presence blends right into the rest of the Big Red Dog website.
The Shops part of the website, on the other hand, looks completely different.
It starts with a chic storefront window that you really want to peek through. Then the page for each shop features the brick-and-mortar version’s colors, fonts, and vibe. The page for the Miami clothing boutique, The Webster, for instance, is sexy and lit up in neon. Privet House’s page evokes the cozy Connecticut housewares store with a fresh, green color and a romantic tree.
Here’s the best part: there’s a short documentary film about each shop. The videos are sweet, slickly produced, accompanied by jaunty xylophone music, and narrated completely by the shops’ owners, with whom we’re on a first-name-only basis.
“When people walk into Target and see our collection,” says Diane, co-owner of The Candy Store, “you’re going to feel like you’ve walked into our small store in this little neighborhood in San Francisco.”
Her other half, Brian, adds, “We want to bring a little piece of the boutique experience to Target.”
In other words, Target is letting us know: We know you’d rather shop local. We know you’d rather have unique, boutique goods, rather than Big Box ones. We also know that’s hard to do if you live in a distant suburb or you don’t have the time or money for boutique browsing. So we’re giving you with the next best thing.
With their adorable online presentation at least, I think Target is doing a pretty good job of it.
What do you think of Target’s new marketing approach?
The changing face of Point-of-Purchase.
When I take my five-year-old to the local mall, he immediately starts begging to see the “pictures that move.” This technology, in which an image is projected onto the mall floor and changes as a user touches, jumps, or steps on it (imagine bubbles popping or butterflies flying away), has captivated a future shopper and given him a reward for joining mom at the mall.
Now, it looks like that technology (or similar) has entered the ranks of point-of-purchase. In a Mashable post by Lauren Indvik, we get a glimpse of how a retail signage company, Perch Interactive, is working to change the shopper’s experience at retail. Simply by picking up a product, a user will activate marketing messages and visuals that will help him imagine how the product will fit into his life. It’s gotten me thinking about how this experience might become personalized – could it sync up to social media, so you can “like” something from the sales floor (great way to build a Christmas list)? Or could it become a loyalty tactic – driving rewards for shoppers who spend time with products?
Maybe that is a lot to ask from some lights and projectors (forgive the understatement), but who knows what is possible? We’d love to hear what you think.
Sisterhood of the magical pants.
There are clothes I’ll keep forever for sentimental reasons, like my old sorority sweatshirt and the shoes I wore at my wedding.
And then, there are the clothes that seem to be a permanent possession because they just won’t wear out. I’m referring, of course, to my Lululemon yoga pants.
Those of you who’ve splurged on a pair of super-comfy Lululemons know what I’m talking about. You stretch and sweat in them, you wash them a gazillion times, and they continue to hold their shape (not to mention flatter your shape) and look brand new.
So I was fascinated—as both a marketing expert and a consumer—by this Wall Street Journal article about “Lululemon’s secret sauce.”
With some brands, the high quality of the clothes alone is enough to draw a loyal following. When Lulu added some savvy marketing to the mix, it turned their loyal following into a cult one, giving the company a market value of $10.4 billion last year.
A couple interesting bits of Lululemon wisdom:
- Don’t try to gloss over high prices with sales. Own the fact that high quality clothes are expensive and make that part of your caché. Lulu never discounts the prices on its staple items and rarely holds sales. According to the article, 95 percent of Lulu togs are sold at full price.
- Leave ’em wanting more: When Lulu introduces new styles or colors, they’re released in limited quantities. Customers know they’ve got to grab their goods quick before they’re gone. According to the WSJ piece, “a hot-pink color named ‘Paris Pink’ that launched in December was supposed to have a two-month life cycle but sold out its first week.”
- Pay close attention to consumer feedback and don’t be afraid to act on it. Lulu doesn’t punch focus-grouped data into a computer to make business decisions. Instead, they design the stores so that salespeople fold clothes right outside the dressing rooms—the better to eavesdrop on customers and learned what they really think. Sometimes it’s Lulu’s CEO, Christine Day, who’s listening in. Another great quote from the WSJ: “Ms. Day spends hours each week in Lulu stores observing how customers shop, listening to their complaints, and then using the feedback to tweak product and stores. ‘Big data gives you a false sense of security,’ says Ms. Day.”
I like the straightforward approach of Lulu’s marketing. It’s not right for every business or every product, but in the age of search engine optimization and algorithmic everything, it’s refreshing to see a business become hugely successful by kickin’ it old school.
What about you? Do you have more examples of successful companies who’ve ignored current marketing trends to do things their own way?
Women with marketing muscle.
Here are three things I’ve noticed lately:
- When I got my summer Athleta catalog in the mail, the swimsuit models were buff! We’re talking some seriously strapping beauties. Even the models who didn’t have obviously defined leg muscles or eight-pack abs looked strong and healthy, not to mention happy! There wasn’t a broody waif among them.
- While watching a recorded episode of The Good Wife the other night, I opted not to fast-forward through three Kohl’s commercials. Each featured Olympic athletes talking about the “sport of shopping.” Mia Hamm, Lindsey Vonn, and Dara Torres looked awesome as they riffed about the thrill of the score (of a fabulous leopard print bag) but they did not look like glamorous, otherworldly models. They looked strong, sporty, beautiful—and real.
- Jennifer Lawrence. Well, how can you not notice The Hunger Games star? Her image is everywhere to promote the blockbuster flick, which I loved seeing recently. The casting of Lawrence has gotten some criticism. Is she too robust and healthy-looking to play a character in a deprived dystopia? In my opinion, the answer is no, and not just because Lawrence is great in the film. It’s also because I love seeing a strong, muscular character played by a strong, muscular actress. If it was one of Hollywood’s many delicate, twiggy starlets saving the world from the evil Capitol, would you believe it? I’m not sure I would. Beyond the movie, I’m excited to see Lawrence—with her curvy figure and pretty, round face—on so many magazine covers. It shows women and girls that you don’t have to have razor-sharp cheekbones, bony arms, and a jutting jawline to be gorgeous.
In journalism, they say “three makes a trend.” If that’s the case, then using athletic, powerful women in marketing is officially a new trend. Let’s hope it sticks around. Not only do I love seeing these inspiring looks in the marketplace, I want my twelve-year-old daughter to take note, too.
Have you seen any marketing featuring strong women lately? Share in comments!
Rah! Rah! Sis-Boom! Biz!
We love our teams. And are well-known for getting behind them. Win or lose, they can count on a loyal fan base to be there for them. Cheer them on. Believe in them.
We have another team to get behind. When they suit up—it’s dressed up. They are the mighty, fighting Business Leaders of Michigan.
The players are players at the top levels of their games. So you have the participation of Bill Ford, Steve Gorman, Mary Sue Coleman, Jim Hackett, Steve Kircher, Mike Jandernoa and 75 others of equal strength and expertise. And each is fighting for, defending a recognized area of strength and potential in Michigan. Natural Resources. Life-Sciences. Higher Education System. Mobility/Automotive. Engineering. Logistics.
They’re representing Michigan on trade missions--nationally/internationally, to policy leaders, in our communities–wherever it will benefit Michigan’s economy and job growth. They’re all over it.
Brogan & Partners is proud to have worked with our clients Doug Rothwell and Kelly Chesney at Business Leaders of Michigan to create a video Michigan Turnaround Plan: Blueprint for a New Michigan. Check it out. Maybe you’ll be inspired to get behind the team.
Lions. And Tigers. And Pistons. And Red Wings. And Spartans. And Wolverines. And Business Leaders of Michigan. Oh! My!
After you take a look at the video, share your vision for the New Michigan on Facebook and you’ll be entered to win some great prizes.
Sara Blakely, Saving the World One Booty at a Time.
Not so long ago, if you wore a girdle, you didn’t want anybody to know it. Now girlfriends (including the Grand Girlfriend of them all, Oprah) love to dish about smoothing their muffin tops or rounding out their booties with sexy, slimming shapewear.
And it’s all because of Spanx.
Founded 12 years ago, Spanx sells (and sells and sells) not just because it works wonders on women’s bods, but also because it does it with winning sass, from the naughty name to the cute cartoons on the packaging.
And that’s all because of Spanx founder, Sara Blakely. Her force of nature personality, relentless work ethic, and most of all, true understanding of women, have made her a newly minted billionaire at age 41. She’s the youngest self-made woman on Forbes magazine’s “Rich List.”
She’s also my latest girl crush. (For other strong, entrepreneurial women I admire, see my blog post on Sheryl Sandberg and check out my mentor and founder of Brogan & Partners, Marcie Brogan.)
I love Blakely’s back story. She started Spanx with $5000 of her own money. She had an idea to improve upon control top pantyhose and had to practically storm a hosiery mill to get them to make her prototype. She wrote her own patent to save legal fees. She hand-sold Spanx at a folding table at Neiman Marcus using picture of her own disappearing panty lines and stayed up all night filling her own mail orders.
Now that her company—which is debt-free and privately owned—has hit it huge, Blakely’s personality still charmingly infuses everything Spanx does, especially its savvy marketing. The company’s staff is dominated by women who put themselves out there as much as Blakely does. On the Spanx blog, “The Rear View”, for instance, staffers pose for before and after photos in Spanx nipping and tucking swimsuits.
And in a section called “Spanx-Giving,” we hear about charitable work staffers have done for organizations like the Foster Care Support Foundation’s Prom-A-Palooza.
Blakely also gives back with motivational speaking, largely aimed at women, and impulsive gifts of joy, like treating everyone in her favorite restaurant to dinner.
A cute cartoon of Blakely herself, wearing a long blond ponytail, is perched at the top of the every page on the Spanx website. It’s clear that, while her ragtag underwear company has changed immensely, Blakely has remained true to her very feminine self. And that’s the best recipe for success I can think of.
Celebrating International Women's Day.
When marketing to women it’s important to understand their influence when it comes to decision-making. Today is International Women’s Day, so we’re taking time to acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments women have made around the world.
2011 marked a huge step forward for women professionally. For the first time in history women hold more than 1 of 10 board seats internationally. This may sound like a small number, but it was less than a century ago that women didn’t even have the right to vote. What does this mean for marketers? Now, not only are women a powerful audience to target for purchase decisions in the home, but they are becoming a growing target as business decision-makers as well. Also, women are now in the position to overtake men in the American workforce. With statistics like these it’s only a matter of time until women hold even more of the boardroom influence.
Personally, I’m proud to work in an era that offers opportunities for women to thrive and grow in our careers. And remember, next time you're working on a new campaign or business pitch to keep the female perspective in mind, as there may be a woman sitting on the Board of Directors.
The Marketing Benefits of Google’s +1
We’ve all seen the little square that holds the +1 at the bottom of web sites, blog posts and more, but it’s harder to see what it can mean for marketers.
Once you +1 something, it takes a place on your Google+ page under your +1’s. Google describes these as “things around the web you like, agree with, or want to recommend to others.” And now with Google’s new Search Your World, when you search, Google shows you links that are relevant to you according to what you’ve put on your Google+ profile. The same works for your friends, family and acquaintances. If your mom (assuming your mom is hip enough to be on Google+) searches a topic that you’ve +1ed, your saved link will show up first on her search. Google does this because content suggested by friends and family is more relevant than content from strangers.
So why should you add yet another social media button to your site? Well, according to many, like Mashable,+1 buttons can increase your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) indirectly. Your site will now show up in every +1er’s Google search and will be visible on all of their Google+ friends’ searches. More people seeing your link means more people will view, share and +1 your link. Google will then highlight how many people have +1ed the link – showcasing your relevancy.
All of this +1ing and sharing means a higher SEO for you and your web site. Although the SEO benefits of the +1 button are indirect, it still provides a fresh new way to generate views and show the significance of your work.
What do you think – will people eventually +1 more than they Like? Will you add this new social media tool to your internet efforts?
Facebook fMC Conference – the new brand Pages.
Yesterday was Leap Day, but it will always be remembered as a revolutionary day in the world of social media. Facebook took a huge leap forward with the inaugural Facebook Marketing Conference. The six-hour, invitation-only event packed the American Museum of Natural History in New York, marking a day in history of its own. If you didn’t happen to make the conference, or your invitation somehow got lost in the mail, never fear. Here’s a recap of what you missed:
Mike Hoefflinger, Facebook’s Director of Marketing, announced some new features that are being incorporated with the introduction of timeline for brand Pages. (Side note for brand Pages: Timeline will launch for all brand Pages on March 30, 2012 but you can preview what your Page will look like before it launches and try the new features. We definitely suggest testing out all of the new features and familiarizing yourself with timeline before changing over your Page for good.)
Here are some key takeaways about the new brand Pages:
Cover Photo and Profile Picture – Your cover photo is your new visual status update. You should change this image as often as you’d like to set the tone for your Page. As for your profile picture: keep it simple and constant. Use your logo or and image that will be easily associated with your brand. Here’s a great example from Ben & Jerry’s, one of the brands that has been in beta for timeline.
Applications – These will now appear as rich applications just below and to the right of the cover photo. These applications will engage customers and encourage them to click more often. Starbucks has also been in beta for Timeline and has made great use of the new apps feature.
Pinned Posts, Starred Posts, Backdated Posts – You can “pin” posts (like Red Bull) that you’d like to feature as a “post of the week”. These will stay at the top of your timeline, appearing as the most recent post.
Star posts to make them double-wide on the timeline and/ or backdate posts to tell the story of how your brand evolved. Before launching your new brand Page, consider selecting 10 milestones to highlight on your Page timeline.
Friend Activity Filter – This appears at the top of the timeline on the brand Page. You can select this feature to see all of the stories about your friends that are connected to the brand (check-ins, likes, photos, etc.). You can also change the filter to see highlights, posts by the Page, or posts by others.
Admin Panel – There is a new admin panel front and center on the page. The admin panel will include notifications, insights, new Likes, page tips and messages. Now, admins will have the ability to reach out to people privately on behalf of the brand.
New Ads for Brand Pages:
Offers on Facebook-Now, brands can post offers on their pages that fans can click to immediately claim the deal. Once they click, the offer will be sent to the user’s email or to their mobile device and is immediately redeemable
Reach Generator – This feature will ensure that fans see your story, and it allows you to reach and engage 75% of fans with the content from your page. Basically, you post content on your page and then Facebook distributes it to your fans. Your sponsored post will appear on their homepage.
Premium on Facebook – This feature is the most impactful way to distribute content on Facebook. It begins similar to Reach Generator (posting to the brand page, where your post will be distributed to the right side of your fans’ homepages as sponsored stories). However, Premium on Facebook goes even further and makes your post eligible for distribution in the Facebook newsfeed (on both desktop and mobile). Premium will also give you the option for your story to appear in logout experience. This option, beginning in April, will be beneficial to brands that have a large reach campaign or an upcoming product launch.
Well, that’s the new timeline for brand Pages in a nutshell. So, what do you think? Are the new Pages going to be more beneficial to marketers?
