Telling the Truth in Advertising: a Good Thing!

I’ve been told that anyone who works in the ad world should be familiar with Luke Sullivan, the advertising veteran/author/SCAD professor/leader of the resistance against Mr. Whipple.

In all of his spare time, Mr. Sullivan writes a blog. One of his most popular posts asks “What is the truest thing you can say about your product or brand?” He advises agencies to answer that question and run with it.

Now, I don’t know if you know about Kevin Durant, but he’s good at basketball. Some people say “Finals MVP” good, but people also said the Earth was flat, and they were wrong—except for Kyrie who, obviously, can say whatever he wants.

Durant is also a very controversial figure since he sold his soul left the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the Golden State Warriors. ESPN commentators, anyone with a Twitter account, NBA fans, dads across the world; they all have an opinion on this move.

Nike (who, when you think about it, is kind of the Warriors of the athletic gear world) capitalized on Durant’s notoriety with their ad “Debate This,” which ran in the first commercial slot after Game 5 of the Finals when…well, you know.

The ad features a round table of people criticizing Durant for, among other things, being a traitor, for being too soft. They determined he was all-around overrated. But then the Warriors are declared champions and the table goes quiet as the screen flashes to a final card: “Debate this.”

Nike took hold of the narrative and literally silenced the critics. Like Luke advises, they took the truest thing about Kevin Durant this season—his infamy—and shaped their ad around it. It’s bold, but it makes its point.

All that being said: boo Durant, go Cavs.

Thank you, Brokaw!

For the Most Exciting Summer in The Land!

Summer 2016 has quickly come to a close and the sun is setting on my summer internship at Brokaw. As sad as that may be, I have gained invaluable skills in different facets of advertising (and life) that I will never forget. This summer has been FILLED with learning and opportunities that I never even imagined. Before interning at Brokaw, I was intimidated by advertising and having a full-time, fast-paced job as a whole. Now, I can confidently say, pursing a career in advertising is my true passion!

Whether it was calling RTA partners, interviewing employees at GLBC or creating text for UH Facebook ads, I was constantly busy, but in a good way! I learned how to manage my time between different clients and internal agency work. I also learned as an Account Service intern how valuable the relationship is between the client and agency. Staying organized and on top of tasks for clients is essential to creating great work and building genuine relationships.

What am I going to miss most? The people.

Everyone who works at Brokaw has welcomed Lindsey and I into their huge Brokawesome family. Everyday, I looked forward to working just so I could get to know each team member a little bit better. I LOVED the employee internviews! The internviews allowed Lindsey and I to get to know everyone personally, plus we always ended up laughing at everyone’s silly answers. In their defense, we had very weird questions. I mean who asks, would you rather fight 1 horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? I made the best memories during those internviews.

I am so thankful that I had this opportunity to discover and deepen my passion of advertising at Brokaw. The internship program is truly one of a kind, as everyone cares so much about the interns! Zorina with her bubbly personality and contagious smile was the best mentor. She always was looking for new assignments so I could gain as much experience as possible in different areas of advertising. Jess Thompson was an awesome partner in crime for the GLBC account, I learned how to build a brand platform and laugh along the way during our GLBC interviews.

Interning at Brokaw has been one of my dreams since I was a freshman in college when Brokaw’s name was brought up during an advising meeting. I studied Brokaw’s work and immediately fell in love with the culture and humor. I dedicated months to creating a Brokawesome application, which was worth every second. When I got an email from Brokaw to set up an interview, I was jumping up and down with happy tears streaming down my face. Looking back, I had no idea how much I would grow personally and professionally.

Thank you, Brokaw for believing in me from the start and helping me excel way beyond my original expectations. Thank you for the most invaluable summer spent building great friendships and challenging myself along the way.

And, hey, I’m not that sad yet because we’re totally going out with a bang for our “Brokrawl” Bar Crawl later today!

Don’t Be Socially Awkward

As millennials, we’re expected to be the all-knowers of the digital world. We’re on the pulse of social media, and we’re expected to keep up with the downloads and be down with the uploads. It’s pretty crazy – no wonder those Boomers would rather us do it. As tail end millennials and Gen Z-ers are becoming old enough to enter the workforce, it’s easy to see that many of us have difficulties with social etiquette.

For starters, a lot of younger folks struggle with giving away all the information they possibly can share about themselves online. (We’ve all been guilty of it one time or another.) Being comfortable with yourself is a great quality, but it’s important to keep some personal things off the web. My simple test is: Is it something your future employers or grandparents would want to know about you? If the answer is no, don’t tweet about it. I’m glad you’re having a great time on Saturday at 3:17AM, but alerting everyone online that you’re blacked out and can’t find your shirt is not the best call. That’s a story to tell where no one can screenshot it – like in person.

It always makes me laugh when people say “I post what I want, it won’t stop me from getting a job!” I’ve talked to a plethora of employers, and every one of them goes to the fabulous tool we know and love: Google. It takes 2 seconds to type in your name and find out everything about you online. If you don’t have a personal page, odds are your Twitter or Facebook will be the first thing to come up. If it’s not protected, keep it PG-13 – use the employer/grandparents test if you’re not sure. It’s only going to get worse as tech savvy people step into positions of power. No one finds online information faster than millennials with a bone to pick; imagine one as your boss.

So the lesson learned is to be responsible, but that doesn’t mean you have to act like a robot. It’s good to add some personal flair to your social media pages and show people you are a real human. Let people see that you coach basketball in your free time and you love sharing pictures of your dog. Just don’t share everything because “Revealing too much leaves you with nothing.”

Anyone who needs to clean up your social media accounts, here’s a great link: http://www.tweetdelete.net

…you know who you are.

Week 1, or as I call it “Digital Knowledge Explosion”

It’s my first week interning (ever), and my brain is so full of analytical knowledge. When I shut my eyes, it’s like the matrix code on repeat. Just kidding, but really, I’ve never crunched so many numbers. Even though my brain has processed so much information, digital analytics is still fun. I’ve learned so much about different analytics resources and how to use them. Reporting data is neat because I can tell a story with numbers. (Phrase credit to Jack.)

In addition to analytics, I’ve gotten to sit in on several meetings and learn about Brokaw’s clients and do some media research. Overall, I’ve been enjoying it, but my favorite part of working here is the people. Everyone is so nice and fun, and extremely helpful. I’m learning from everyone, and it’s great.

Since moving to Cleveland and starting my internship, these are the top lessons I’ve learned:

1. For future ad majors: REMEMBER YOUR ACRONYMS. Seriously. Flashcard that stuff. You really use them. (CTR, CPC, CPM, etc.)
2. Cleveland traffic is terrible. I’m used to small town traffic, so Cleveland one-way streets and the amount of people is chaos. Leave early to be on time.
3. Ask questions. You learn so much from asking people with experience about anything. You might think you look like this:

But you don’t.

4. Check the weather before you pack. Cleveland may say 75 degrees, but there’s a negative 15 wind-chill even in the summer. Always carry a hoodie.
5. Take an analytics class in college and learn different programs, even if you don’t think you want to get into social/digital analytics. It’ll help a ton.
6. Brokaw has a pretty good volleyball team. #TeamworkMakesTheDreamWork

A Delicious End

I did it!

It’s my last day at Brokaw as an intern and the time seriously flew by! I jumped the gun a tad and wrote a “wrapping-up” post last week about how amazing my time here was (check it out), so this week I’m just going to recap one of my favorite experiences of the week.

Yesterday, I got the opportunity to head to BurkleHagen’s downtown studio for a food shoot! Their space is seriously so amazing—It’s the perfect dream apartment space with a great view of the city, and it’s decorated flawlessly:

   

Brokaw teamed up with BurkleHagen to do some food photography for a BBQ joint. I was a little amazed that It took all day (8:30-6:30) to get 5 shots in! It’s crazy how much fuss is made over the perfect angle of a piece of chicken, the right amount of glisten on a bbq sauce-drenched piece of brisket or a drip of cheese down the side of a ramekin of macaroni.

But that’s the kind of stuff that makes creatives so great. We have that eye for the perfect shot. We can spot the little details that a normal restaurant-goer can’t.

I loved being a part of the shoot because this environment wasn’t one that I have ever stepped foot in. I always dabbled in photography and wished that I had spent more time behind the camera while I was in school, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out that much because of opportunities like this that designers get to help out on. Gabes and Mike (an awesome designer and an amazing designer/digital guru combo) were the lead creatives on this shoot and it was so great to watch them intently staring at every detail. I learned a lot from them as well as from Andrew Burkle on the shoot.

My favorite part of the day was getting to leave my mark (in bbq sauce) in a social image:

Thanks a ton for having me, BurkleHagen!

To Brokaw,

Thank you, again, for giving me the incredible 10-week opportunity to immerse myself in everything you do. I’ve enjoyed every day of my time here, and I am so grateful that you took a chance on me. To everyone that mentored me (Steve, Mike, Holly) and especially to Tim and Gregg, thank you.

I’ll be back, Brokaw.

coming to a close

My time as a ‘brotern’ was life-altering.  No, I am not going to over-hype the experience just make a better story.  It simply was.  I remember my mindset on advertising before I knew about Brokaw.  I classified all of today’s advertisers into one group, only reflecting on the bad perpetuated by ads in our nation’s past.  This isn’t to say my classes didn’t teach an appreciation modern day advertising.  Rather, my mind couldn’t move past the industry’s historical injustices.

And then I met Gregg Brokaw.  As Gregg light-heartedly told me the in’s and out’s of him and his brother’s agency, my worldview on advertising was shaken a bit.  I finally met an honest group that was only interested in doing great work and having fun.  What I loved most about how they run things at Brokaw was they never take themselves too seriously.  Their work is edgy, hilarious, and memorable.  Most importantly, they’re passionate about outwitting their competition, not outspending them.  I was thrilled to be given the opportunity to intern as a junior art director up in their creative department.

Over the course of the past ten weeks, I have gotten my feet wet in such a diverse set of work.  Just to name a few: University Hospitals, First Merit Bank, Cayman Jack, Great Lakes Brewing Co., American Greetings, RTA, and a myriad of decks for new business pitches.  I’ve gotten to search through imagery for commercials, layout print ads, and mockup product proposals.  The faith Brokaw has in their interns was astounding to me.  It takes a lot of courage and confidence in your staff to be able to treat your interns like any other employee.  Because of that trust, my admiration and passion for great advertising has grown tenfold and I can proudly say that I now have what it takes to work at an agency. Thank you Brokaw.