I was in a meeting this week and someone asked me how long did I work for my first agency.

“Eight years,” I said.

Everyone looked up.

Judging by the expressions around the conference table, you would’ve thought I was the 2,000-year-old man.

(with a Mel Brooks old man accent): Let me tell you about 1999! Oy! The black sketch books we carried around! People listened to music on CDs! Oh boy, were they shiny! You would stack them on your desk like waffles! We didn’t know any better!

Eight years in advertising is an eternity. My next job lasted two. As a freelancer, I now count work cycles in weeks. Sometimes, in days. I guess the next logical step would be to work at a place for eight hours before moving on somewhere else.

Longevity used to be celebrated. End of year holiday parties would call out people who worked at an agency for 10, 20, 30, 40(!) years. It’s one thing to read a book by David Ogilvy. It’s another to have actually reported to him.

Ad people like to move around. We all know that many agencies don’t do much to encourage longevity any more. There’s kind of a natural flow of hirings and layoffs to keep agency culture fluid. This is not necessarily a bad thing until you realize that no one at in your department knows anyone above a certain level on the org chart, or where the damn toner cartridge is.

I once read that people under 40 in today’s workforce will change careers seven to eight times in their lifetime. I’m starting to see why.

They aren’t given much of a choice.

Unless they don’t want to eat.

Brad Mislow is a regular contributor for this site and an irregular person overall. If you see him, say hello.

What To Do With Account Service Downtime – By Josh Copeland

Note from Erik: The following is the first in series of articles written by Josh Copeland for people with careers in account service. This feature will appear every Thursday.

Some view our job as sales. A few consider us consultants. Others say we’re micromanaging pencil-pushing yes-men. Ultimately, I believe that my role as an account service person is to be part chameleon, part sherpa, part listening booth.  The skills we gain over the course of our early careers drive our ability to know clients’ business better than the clients themselves.

But if your agency eliminates your position, what do you do in the meantime? As an account person with some extra downtime lately, I might have done one or two of the following things recently:

1. Served dinner for friends, arranging every detail down to seat assignment and conversation topics
2. Followed up with a dinner “report” to those who attended, outlining key next steps for future gatherings and opportunities for improvement on menu items
3. Created elaborate excel docs comparing and contrasting the various criteria for a friend’s new HDTV
4. Provided critiques of street art on the finer nuances of primary messaging, calls-to-action, etc
5. Oversaw (project managed) reorganization of closet, junk drawer, attic, and garage with timelines detailing key milestones & stakeholders using MS Project

All kidding aside, when an account service person is suddenly thrust into the world of the funemployed, there are even better uses for free time while considering the next job option.  I’ve run across a few worth sharing:

Pro bono
The Taproot Foundation enables people with the drive & desire to help others connect with non-profit organizations that need assistance with medium-to-large scale projects. Account service professionals will likely gravitate to volunteer roles like Account Director, Marketing Manager and Brand Strategist.  The projects occur across the US and provide an opportunity for continued growth & development. Not to mention, volunteer work feels good.

Freelance
elance, odesk and guru are three well-known freelancing job websites that connect a variety of businesses with professionals who have the skills to complete projects online with relative speed & ease.  Account professionals (digital & traditional) should look at the “Marketing & Communications” and “Business Consulting” sections of the site for opportunities closest to their skill set.  But I’d caution against relying too much on these sites as much of the work appears to be extremely limited.  Still, worth a look.

In addition, you can reach out to companies like Creative Circle that have standing relationships with agencies to fill temporary positions.  And before you make the mistake (I did) of pricing your hourly rate ludicrously high or low, here are some suggestions from About.com.

Free-to-be-paid
agencynil is quickly becoming well-known for breaking the traditional agency model by charging clients only what they believe the work is worth. They’re already busy with project work and they’re seeking extraordinary candidates for freelance assignments. The revenue stream may not be steady but the work will likely be very interesting. No harm in trying.

Networking
Get out of the house.  Bypass the coffee shop once in a while.  We adfolk are a socializing bunch. Ad leagues and interactive marketing associations may be expensive, and most “networking” recommendations don’t provide much detail.  I suggest getting to know at least a few of the 2.2 million people on Twitter that have registered at WeFollow.com as a good start. Then, consider attending a Tweetup. They happen regularly across the country and don’t have an $80 cover charge.

AgencyScoop is another social net for ad professionals. There’s a forum that doesn’t seem to have a thread dedicated to account service, so there’s ripe opportunity to start one.

And finally, check out Meetup to find a local advertising or online marketing group in your region. Meetups also happen regularly (monthly in many cases) and enable true connections with other account guys & gals. And if you don’t see one you like, start one. It’s the single best way to establish yourself as an authority.

Criticize (constructively)
Think critically about brands and share your point of view with them. Look on the bright side- it’s not like anyone can fire you for having an opinion now. Enjoy it.

With all these opportunities, you’ll either retain your passion for this business or quickly find you’re ready for a change. And the enormous upside to all this downtime is that it’s completely up to you.

——-

Josh Copeland is a 10-year digital account service veteran with experience managing Whirlpool Corporation, ExxonMobil, Frito-Lay and the Clorox Company.  Josh has worked for Tribal DDB, Arc Worldwide and Elevate Studios, and his campaigns have been featured in AdAge, Adweek, OMMA, ad:tech and Creativity Magazine.

“What else you got?”

We’ve all heard it. Many of us have asked it. It’s code in our business for “the ideas you have are not fresh.” And we’ve all learned how to push ourselves to try and find fresh ideas. We know the tricks — change your patterns, force yourself into a different mode of thought, consider more perspectives. And we all know the game — the idea won’t be born until it’s ready. We’ve learned to make the uncertainty and messiness of idea generation a friend.

At least, we have when it comes to advertising.

How about the rest of our lives? How many of us fall into patterns in our lives that we never question? How many of us make a pilgrimage to Starbucks every morning? Or forget Starbucks — how many of us just drink coffee every morning? How many of us listen to the same music, or same type of music — that’s the whole idea of a playlist, right? How many of us shop at the same stores or frequent the same restaurants?

Those patterns are a prison we make for ourselves. The brain does a funny thing — it strengthens the synaptic connections around common or familiar behaviors and allows the synaptic connections around uncommon behaviors to wither. Reinforcing patterns is an old evolutionary survival trick that works for everything from food choices — familiar berry good, strange berry bad — to strengthening societal bonds — familiar people good, strange people bad. And anybody who’s ever raised a child — or a puppy, for that matter — knows how important it is to reinforce positive patterns of behavior.

But there’s a point, as we all know, where those patterns become a liability. That’s true whether we’re talking about ad concepts or, say, racial profiling. And the great thing about our brains is that they are able to recognize when a pattern has become a liability. If we are mindful about our behaviors.

So be mindful. What do you do every day reflexively, without thinking about it?

Do you go to work?

I’m not talking about your choice of a career — that should be a passion, and if it isn’t, that’s a whole different issue. I’m talking about the trappings of work. Coworkers. Lunch hangouts. Commuter routes. Work routines. A paycheck and benefits. Are you mindful about these things and the role they play in your life? Or are they habits?

If they are, do yourself a favor. Apply the same tricks as you do with your ad concepts. Look at different perspectives. Mindfully change your patterns. See where it takes you.

Find out “What else you got?”

In Ad-Job Drought, It’s Time to Think Outside the Industry

by Erik Proulx

This article originally appeared in the TalentWorks section of Advertising Age.

During sustained droughts, the yellow-bellied slider turtle instinctively relocates toward the direction of the nearest body of water. He doesn’t wait in cracked mud for a deluge that will never arrive. He doesn’t look at other dying pond dwellers and think, “Well, it may not be raining for them. But I’m different.” No, the yellow-bellied slider marches, slowly and deliberately to unfamiliar land in search of water.

Such is the choice facing some 65,000 advertising people who have lost their jobs since this latest recession began 476 days ago (but who’s counting?). We hang onto hope against hope that this isn’t really happening. Maybe the phone will ring. Maybe so-and-so HR lady will return the e-mail. Maybe it slipped the headhunter’s mind that the creative director wanted an interview.

Maybe it will rain.

Those who choose to stay put in their once-upon-a-pond are discovering just how hungry the vultures are getting. Bankruptcies in March rose 41% from a year ago. Foreclosures in the first quarter of 2009 were the highest in recorded history. In other words, it’s pretty dry out there.

So, where’s the water? In the past month alone, I’ve spoken to an account manager who is relocating his family from Connecticut to San Francisco, a writer who left Detroit for a job in Seattle, an art director who left an amazing life in Tennessee for a staff position in Pittsburgh, and another who is considering a creative director job in Dubai. Personally, I’ve moved from Boston to Cleveland to New York and then back to Boston during my own agency-relocation marathon that began during the 2001 recession. All of these anecdotes represent a major lifestyle change for their protagonists, as well as for the left-behind loved ones who can never fully grasp why someone would relocate just to write jingles.

Then again, maybe they have a point. Cross-country (or cross-globe) moves, while sometimes necessary, are only one path to water. As an alternative to packing U-hauls, many out-of-work adfolk are employing a different, but no-less drastic, strategy: skill transfers.

Embracing other opportunities
Consider the agency account planner who gets laid off after 10 years of psychographic research and focus-group moderation. Does that mean he is only qualified to look for another advertising position? How many industries are there that need his skills? Actually, I can’t think of one that doesn’t need the targeted research and insights that planners provide. The same logic applies to laid-off art directors, copywriters, account executives, art buyers, producers, traffic people — anyone who has honed their skills in our chosen trade.

Yes, advertising is a cool career. “The most fun you can have with your clothes on,” as they say. But you know what’s not fun? Eviction notices. And if people can learn to embrace an entire universe of opportunities outside of advertising, they might just discover a new love.

I share the example I know best, my own. I’ve spent the better part of 15 years learning and practicing my craft on both Madison Ave (literally) and Main Street (literally). What skills have I gained, other than the ability to turn a phrase or produce an occasional television spot? Turns out I have a pretty intimate relationship with advertising’s innards and a better understanding than most of just how much amazing talent is out on the streets. So, for the time being, I’m repackaging this experience soup into a blog and soon-to-be job site for unemployed advertising talent called Please Feed the Animals.

And I am just one of countless unemployed advertising people who are applying the creativity once reserved for clients to their own lives. Take my friend Amelie Loyot. She’s been an art director her entire career, much of it as an associate creative director at Arnold. Now, she just finished designing a book cover for a major publishing company. Then there’s Lisa Hickey, who over the course of her 25-year advertising career has won almost every conceivable award as a writer, art director, creative director and agency principal. Today, she is fast becoming one of the country’s leading social-media strategists. There’s also Matt Lindley, a former agency executive creative director who has repackaged his digital and brand-building expertise as a product manager for the emerging media company LocaModa.

You will survive
Would we all still rather be under the employ of advertising agencies? I can’t speak for my friends and former colleagues, but I know I would not have chosen this ordeal. Getting laid off sucks. Networking is a chore. Health insurance is highway robbery. (Any unemployed people not for nationalized health care, raise your hands.) But these are the cards we’ve been dealt. And with the right perspective, it’s a pretty good hand.

In Bill Bryson’s must-read book, “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” he reminds us that well over a million years ago our newly upright ancestors left Africa, navigated treacherous mountain ranges, and crossed deserts that were far more arid and precarious than they are today. (Can you imagine the appetite on a prehistoric dino-vulture?) “Yet somehow they managed to find their way around every barrier and to thrive in the lands beyond,” Bryson said.

Our ability to survive is powerful and instinctive. Unlike our ancient hominid relatives, most of us modern ad geeks can search for water metaphorically. We might find our oasis in a new, big city like New York, or an emerging town like Pittsburgh. Or perhaps, we’ll find it in a place we never thought to consider — our own talent.

Writer/Art Director Team – Freelance to FT – Ogilvy (Hong Kong)

Need an experienced, intelligent, adaptable, highly energetic, adventurous team with a Navy Seal-like approach to ideas and details – both writer and art director must excel but as a team it will be your ideas that must blow people away. You must be able to handle client meetings big and small. Though we’re as 360 as any other agency in the world, TV is still a massive part of what we do, so you must have extensive experience in this area. You must also have  an extremely healthy awards list for real clients. In fact, having awards lust would not be a bad thing. However, we know the perception of Asian scamming – that ain’t us. We want to win but it has to be for real brands. The Creative Department is king here, and it is comprise with people from Canada, America, Singapore, Holland, London, Paris, Sydney, Athens, Malaysia, Atlanta, Hong Kong and one dude from Korea. (Yup, they all speak and write in English.) They were hand-picked for their brains and they’re a bunch of really nice people. Therefore, the candidates must also be of the same stock.

The job is based in Hong Kong, one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. It is a healthy mix of east and west. It is fast paced and ultra modern. Though the base of operations is in Hong Kong, due to television shoots/meetings, there will often be travel involved to neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Shanghai and Australia.

CONTACT: Send your work, CV (that’s a resume) and accompanying awards list to andrew.reznik@ogilvy.com and marie.jenkins@ogilvy.com

Creatives, Developers, Project Managers – AKQA – San Francisco

AKQA is looking for: Interaction Designers (all levels) Senior Creative Developer Creative Developer (with silverlight experience) Art Director (with extensive experience with large-scale websites) CD (advertising) ACD & CD (digital product/application design) Copywriter (content strategy) Project Managers (Mid & Senior).

CONTACT: Send work to sfjobs@akqa.com

Account Manager, Senior Engineer, Interactive Producer – Digital Influence Group – Waltham, MA

DIG Website: http://www.digitalinfluencegroup.com

Contact: Kelly Gagnon, HR Manager, kgagnon@digitalinfluencegroup.com, 781-895-7720

I recently sat down with Ian Young for the better part of 3 hours to learn about the health insurance plan offered through the National Association for the Self Employed.

I have to tell you, I was pretty much blown away with how much self-employed people can save on premiums. Where most HMOs/PPOs jack up your rates with unnecessary coverages, the idea of NASE is that they customize the plan with only the coverage you need.

For example, when we were going over my own coverage, he was able to cut my premium for a family plan by more than half, from $1260 to $600. (However, in the interest of full disclosure, we decided not to go with the plan since one of our son’s providers is not in their network. In our unique situation, out-of-pocket expenses would have erased any savings realized with the lower premium.)

Here’s how Ian describes the plan in his own words:

As a self-employed consultant and a Licensed Health Insurance Agent, my goal is to help the self-employed and small business owner obtain the most amount of health insurance coverage for the least amount of money.

My plans tend to range 30-40% cheaper than typical HMOs in the Massachusetts, because…

- I specialize in helping individuals, families, and the self- employed get insurance at a discounted lowered rate

- We sit down and design a program based on what you actually want or need in your plan, so you control what’s in your plan AND how much you spend.

After doing tons of research and number crunching, my takeaway was that if you don’t have extenuating provider needs like we do, NASE rocks. I have no hesitation whatsoever about recommending them.

For MA residents only, you can contact Ian directly. Otherwise, visit the NASE web site to find an agent near you. (Wow, it feels like I’m writing ad copy again.)

Ian Young – Phone: 857-719-2577     Email: health@ianyoung.net

We’ve all done campaigns that have moved the needle. Maybe even won an award or two. But how well do we apply that insight and creativity to marketing ourselves? When it comes to attracting new clients, self-promotion is just as important as the body of work in your portfolio.

So on June 15th, the Boston Ad Club will hosting a workshop to help freelance creatives be their own clients.  And if you use the code “PFTA” during registration, you’ll get a 15% discount on both member and non-member prices.

Here’s a description from Adclub.org:

You can make the most amazing designs in the world but if no one knows what you did, then you won’t get recognition for it. It is a fact that marketing is just as important to the success of a creative business as the work that is produced.

Find out how some of the most well known shops have become as popular as they are (hint, it’s not just about the work!). This session will focus on the various techniques we can all use (from studio to freelancer) to market our work, promote our skills, and attract the kinds of clients we want.

We will also discuss the role that awards play in the art of promotion, as well as some ways to make yourself a guru in the eyes of your clients.

Click here to register. And remember to use the code “PFTA” to get a 15% discount.

]]> http://www.pleasefeedtheanimals.com/2009/06/03/learn-to-promote-thyself-with-animal-discount/feed/ 1 http://www.pleasefeedtheanimals.com/2009/06/02/would-you-turn-down-a-job-offer-right-now/ http://www.pleasefeedtheanimals.com/2009/06/02/would-you-turn-down-a-job-offer-right-now/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 13:03:31 +0000 Erik http://www.pleasefeedtheanimals.com/?p=1380

With more bad news from BBDO, The Richards Group and the entire media industry, the pink slip craze is alive and kicking. Layoffs still lurk on every corner. Hiring agencies are still hard to come by.

So if you’re fortunate enough to get a job offer, by all means, pop some champagne. Hundreds of thousands of us want what you’ve got. You are the few. The proud. The employed.

But let’s say, hypothetically, you lost your job in that last March wave of quarterly cuts. Over the course of the last few months, you may have picked up a contract gig or two, organically expanding your network while searching for a full time job. Maybe you connected with a project manager, and instead of solo freelance assignments, your team started getting gigs. Then, just as you were gaining momentum and feeling confident in your ability to earn a living (and dare I say, be happy), BLAM! … an agency fucks it all up with an offer.

What do you do? On one hand, you’ve proven to yourself that you are in control of your own livelihood. You’ve been able to thrive in one of the recession’s hardest-hit industries. Calling your own shots. Making your own hours. You are the few. The proud. The self employed.

On the other hand, a job offer gets you back in the game. Health insurance and paid holidays. Projects with creative opportunity and real budgets. Semi-predictable hours and frequent flier miles.

It’s a tough decision, but don’t allow either scenario to lull you into a false sense of security. Self employment is a hump. You have to hustle for every dollar, attend every networking event and glad hand every potential source of revenue. You’re only as secure as the amount of work you’re willing to put in.

Whereas full time employment is only as secure as your relationships and accounts. If nothing else, this recession has proved that quality of work is only one factor when deciding who gets got. Even if you take another full time job, odds are fairly certain that your new agency will have to make cuts during your tenure.

So pick your pois…er, opportunity. Personally, I’d rather rely on my own ability to generate revenue than on the whims of agency wins and losses. Sure, it’s a constant, frightening race against my dwindling bank account. And at the moment, self employment seems anything but secure.

But then again, neither is looking over your shoulder as one account after another pulls its business in house.

The second I tweeted about the PFTA film, I got about a half-dozen replies from people referring me to Cards Of Change.

The premise of the site is simple: If you’re one of the unfortunate many to lose your job, scribble what you’ve been up to on an old business card. Take a picture of that card and upload it to the site along with your contact info.

Not only is the act cathartic in and of itself, but you also become part of a collective of talented, hungry and available resources for project work. See my upload here.

As one person said, Cards of Change is like the still version of the PFTA film.

I’ve written dozens of client manifestos over the years. Just never for myself.

It’s a decidedly different experience to manifest your own beliefs. I don’t have to figure out what my client stands for because I am the client. I don’t have to research the target because I am the target. Writing a manifesto for Please Feed The Animals is forcing me to consider both sides of the coin, and it’s fantastic. (I highly recommend writing one for yourself. If nothing else, it solidifies your core beliefs and strips away those  planted in your brain by your survival instinct.)

The economy plays a significant role in how this manifesto takes shape. There are signs of better times ahead to be sure, yet I keep hearing the phrase “jobless recovery.” With the enormous growth of the independent workforce and the anecdotal success many people are having as freelancers, Please Feed The Animals must position itself as a resource for those trying to get a full time job and those who want to continue in self-employment.

A few months back, I asked the question: “What’s our brand?” I think most of what you wrote was spot on and still applies. But if you have a moment, I’d like to hear if anything has changed for you.

In the meantime, I’ll keep writing this manifesto. When it’s in a good place, it will be available for all.