Thursday, April 10, 2008

Ad School Is Not Really School

I had an interesting revelation last night, thinking about Honda Generators in one of those crazy dazes between awakeness and sleep. When all the best ideas finally poke their heads out like scared squirrels, amidst the cruel reality that you’ll most likely forget them when you finally drift off.

But this much I remembered.

There seems to be a trend here for the students to believe that this school is like regular school. I’ve fallen victim to that as well. It seems that we sometimes think of it as a place where you just have to get through and appease the professors like most of us did in undergrad, and, every now and then, we’ll have something cool to drop into our books.

But the truth is, it’s not. It’s an opportunity. And so is every single assignment.

We’re paying for the opportunity to come up with real solutions for real brands in a fake environment, and if we work hard and actually do a good job, it's something that we’ll be paid money for within 2 years, when the environment is very real.

I once saw in someone’s internship minibook (about working at their summer internship agency): “Itʼs a bit like winning the lottery only to find that you havenʼt won a check for a million dollars. Instead, what youʼve won is the chance to earn that million dollars for yourself.”

Well put.

dubs. out.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

The Shout-Out of All Shout-Outs

Snagged this one off of Ernie Shenck's most recent blog post, but for good reason. Check out the bottom of paragraph 4 in the second column and you'll see why.

It's an open letter from Charlotte's BooneOakley to the 2008 One Show judges. Wonderfully-written, funny, and very honest. (To read it click here).

BooneOakley-- My hat's off to you. I loved you when you came to speak at our school, and after witnessing you as a truly new agency with real balls, I'd be thrilled to work with you one day.

Will it make it into the One Show?

I'll bet it does.

dubs. out.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Quote of The Week, Arden - 4/6/08


The world is what you think of it. So think of it differently and your life will change.

-Paul Arden

In honor of Arden's passing, I thought it appropriate to quote him here. To my surprise, it's the first time.

This was always my favorite of his. It goes along with the idea that if you keep thinking the same things, doing the same things, seeing the same things, eating the same things, then you'll always get the same things.

Change doesn't happen by doing everything like you always do. It happens by doing things like you always don't.

This is something I've got to work on.

dubs. out.

Friday, April 4, 2008

40 Years Later...

And he's still relevant.

This is U2's tribute:



"Through our scientific genius we have made of this world a neighborhood. Now through our moral and spiritual development, we must make of it a brotherhood.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

dubs. out.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

One More Great is Gone

The author of the two books below died today. The latter of which was actually sitting on my desk when I heard the news.




If I could recommend only 4 books on advertising, they would be Hey Whipple Squeeze This by Luke Sullivan, And Then We Set His Hair on Fire by Phil Dusenberry, and these two.

The self-proclaimed "World's Best-Selling Author," Paul Arden was Executive Creative Director at Saatchi London for 14 years.

He died of a heart attack.

The man was a genius, but not just that. He was a genius who understood the fear and aprehension of young people in this business, and he went out of his way to appeal and write to them in a way that championed and harnessed those feelings.

Small and easy to read in one afternoon, his books are not just handbooks for how to succeed in advertising or any creative endeavor, they're pocketsized motivation for doing something cool and worthwile in this world, even, and especially as a junior.

dubs. out.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

An Epiphany:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High has 3 future Best Actor Oscar-winners in its cast.






K, see ya.

dubs. out.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

I Haven't Been To The Gym In 2 Months

Was checking out the Creativity Top 5 and stumbled on this new BBDO NY spot for New Balance:



I then went on to watch the rest:









Maybe I just dug the writing, particularly the last line and tag, but something in there was working for me. Something in there made me feel like going for a run.

So I did. Along with my roommate, Tristan.

What sort of world are we living in, where commercials are our (at least my) main motivation to get off our asses and go outside? Whatever happened to wanting to run for the love of being healthy and for feeling good about ourselves? For the pure joy of being alone with just our thoughts and bumping music on deserted Richmond sidewalks?

Whatever happened to not needing a fucking shoe company to make us move?

dubs. out.