“If you love something…”
I’ve heard this sentence since I was about 15. People use it a lot.
We used it when we are dumped, when we are in love with someone and that someone is in love with someone else and the chain continues…and in every cheesy moment that you can think of. That’s how we burnt out a sentence and became it obsolete.
Until someone found a new insight into it. Thanks Miguel & Theo. Beautiful.
August 19th will be an important day: My Graduation. Usually good things happen to me on the 19th, no matter the month. I don’t keep looking forward on the 18th to see what will happen the next day, but when the events happen they like to appear on that day.
Anyway, believing or not in signs, I am about to finish my Masters. Therefore I started thinking about the best way to find the job that I want. Even after 6 years of experience, I still feel like it’s the first time that I am going out to find a job.
Going back to prehistoric times, specifically 2001, I was graduating from University. In those days you couldn’t send a link of your portfolio; you had to go there and show your book, everything nicely printed.
Professors used to encourage you to be as creative as you could be. You heard stories about weird and original objects created to surprise Creative Directors. So I came out with this idea: a dynamite model made of cardboard straw. I had ideas all the time, so it was a symbolic BOOM, hahaha nice! Inside you could find different prints selling “Martha, the Creative”.
I was trying to sell myself by selling a product: me. And that was a mistake. People found it egocentric while I found it like any other campaign -simply extolling the benefits of the product.
Unfortunately, when you get a job you realize that people laugh at agencies about such models. Sometimes they work but most of time they don’t. And don’t take it personally; try imagining if someone showed you something funny. So don’t waste your time thinking about HOW you present your work (You can waste 3 weeks of effort blending cardboard like me) Think about WHAT you are presenting.
It doesn’t matter if you are going to call, send an email, an original package, start a campaign online or even visit them. If you have something good to say, they will get the message.
Yeah, yeah, yeah! It happens all the time and in many ways. When you work in advertising even more often; you think you have this amazing idea that none in the world can conceive in his head and while you wait for client’s approval or production schedule…. BANG! Someone in Shangai or Australia had the same idea.
That perturbed your relaxing morning. You were sitting in front of the computer, navigating all the ad websites and blogs that your daily routine dictates you. And suddenly find out that your idea is out there!! How come? Someone else had it, produced it and told the world: “I was first”.
You can tell the Art Director next to you…”Charly, remember that idea I told you…… they did it…” You tell your Creative Director, of course, he needs to know how talented you are and that your ideas have an international dimension. You tell the girl at the Coffee Shop and everyone that gets in your way. So far 3 people, although you have to tell to the maximum of people you can, just to clarify that you were the one that had it FIRST. And what’s the point? While you were wasting your time mourning, others were thinking.
So, start again! Nobody is stealing ideas from you, you are stealing your own time.
