The People You Meet in Advertising
Tell anybody you work in advertising and they will ask you about the glamorous and eccentric people you work with. Sure the people we work with are more likely to have brightly coloured hair or only wear Converse shoes, but then there are these people…
The creative director who makes Kanye West appear diplomatic
Plus Kanye’s ego is probably a little smaller because he’s never won anything at Cannes.
The copywriter who thinks big words = better writing
You know, the guy who would have phrased Nike’s ‘Just do it’ as ‘engage in resplendent behaviour’.
The account director whose favourite words are ‘It was his fault!’
Then again, can anything be your fault if you don’t do anything?
The art director who believes an idea cannot be good unless it came from them
The person who makes you question whether you are supposed to please the client or the art director.
The account executive who thinks staring at your screen while you work is somehow helpful
In fact, staring at your screen sometimes gives them magical art direction abilities.
The managing director who thinks it takes an average of 3.6 seconds to come up with a good idea
Yet, they want to you to work overtime.
The HR manager who says public holidays don’t apply to people in advertising
If they had it their way this whole concept of sleeping for 8 hours would also be done away with.
The senior writer (next in line for CD) who thinks fiction is a waste of time and doesn’t read anything longer than a Facebook post. But he was, once upon a time, a poet and writer.
But how will we understand our target audience if we don’t lower our attention spans? 🙂
Haha yes there’s a certain beautiful logic to that. Ad people can rationalise anything. Like investors and bankers. Oh, but that’s mixing races now.
I’d say politicians win that game hands down
I’m a copywriter and there are people who prefer the resplendent wording. Not me, though. I happily live in the “keep it simple” camp.
It comes down to target audience I suppose and unless it’s some sort of literature club I wouldn’t count on most people understanding complex wording…
I hear ya on that one. 😉
Are you saying they actually let you sleep for 8 hours? 🙂 Good blog! I did an internship for 2 months in an ad agency (sooooo long ago) after my under grad, and sad to note that things are the same!
I can’t blame you for leaving 🙂
A very funny post but no truer words have been spoken. Thanks for the smile and the painful reminder that the more some things change the more they remain the same.
We’re you smart enough to get put?