This is How You Make an Ad

First, a disclaimer:  I am not expert on this, I am still learning.  That's why I am called intern and not actual worker.  But I have accumulated quite a bit if information, and not just from watching Mad Men.

After reading How to put our Book together and get a Job in Advertising by Maxine Paetro (as recommended by two ad guys I've talked to) and working with the creative team here, I've figured out where you start.  And it's pretty simple: an idea.  A good, interesting, engaging, emotional idea.

That's the hard part too.  Coming up with a good enough idea to carry a campaign, be clever or witty or emotional, and stick with the consumer is difficult.  Of course this is the main challenge in advertising, so if it sounds uninteresting or too hard, don't look here for your career.  Developing great and successful ideas is what makes a great advertiser, most importantly (for me right now) an employed advertiser.

So this is what I've been working for the past few weeks,  creating ads for my book that have a nice, big idea.

This skill is something that I've seen requested in many job listings and talked about in a number of articles and books.  They call it the ability to be conceptual.  And if you can demonstrate it in your portfolio, you're as good as hired. (So they say.)

Going along with this ability is being able to adapt this idea into any medium. Paetro says that if it really is an idea, and a good one, this should be fairly easy.  This also makes it a little easier to test the strength of your idea.  If it can adapt well to a number of platforms usually means it's a winner, so slap that baby into your book!

Another surefire way to make an ad meaningful and therefore effective is to make it emotional, as a woman in advertising I met with recently said.  When looking for this ad idea, delve into why people would by this product.  What do they want to feel as a result of its purchase?  Then morph it into, how can you say this interestingly?  And boom - you've written an ad.

Or at least my limited understanding of how you make an ad.

The most succinct version:
    come up with a good idea
    make sure it's adaptable to any media
    make it emotionally engaging (memorable)

I'm hoping these make the cut.

Commuting

The Good, the Bad and the Long

Since I work all the way downtown and live in the suburbs, I have a pretty long commute.  An hour both ways.  Part of this length is due to the fact that I'm just physically far away.  The other part is traffic.  If you've ever had to sit in your car, stopping and going only to stop 10 feet later, you already know how obnoxious this is.  If you haven't count yourself lucky; I envy your not having to work/ working at home/ living in the middle of nowhere situation.

Yesterday's trek home was particularly bad.  There was an accident on a bridge 28 miles away.  I reached the traffic when I was still 26 miles away.  Okay, to be fair there was one part of that stretch that was a little faster.  It was only for 3 miles though.

After being on the road for my allotted hour, I was still 12 miles from home.  I called my parents to look up alternate routes.  (That's when I learned about the accident.)  And I took a technically longer, but actually moving route.  I arrived home twenty minutes later, decrying the evils of commuting and the stupidity of other drivers.

Lesson learned?  Bikers should not be allowed to ride on the road, unless they think they can take on that half-ton vehicle with their ten-pound alloy frame.  But seriously, if I continue to work downtown I think I'll have to live much closer in order to keep my sanity.

Have any commuting horror stories?

Photoshop Fun

Last week, I began a real foray into the world of Photoshop. I had used it before and watched other people use it, but mostly to crop down pictures. This time I used the application do do more of this but I also used it to create a background for some of my ads.

Since my jewelry company name is Green Dragonfly Designs, I found a neat picture of a stenciled dragonfly. I then used the select tool to select just the outline of the dragonfly itself. It took a couple tries, with a zoomed in page and a smaller highlighting pixel to get just the outline selected. It's nice that Photoshop has a tool to de-select as well, since too much was often selected.

I proceeded to take my outline and copy and paste it three times into another Photoshop doc, making a nice pattern for a background. I increased the lightness to make the dragonflies look more like a watermark, and presto - I was using Photoshop successfully.

This may not seem like a good or particularly interesting triumph. You might be so well-versed in this application, that some of the terms I used are not exact or whatever. But since I've taught myself how to use Photoshop, and InDesign for that matter, I'm pleased with the fact that I'm proficient enough to make backgrounds and stuff.

Have any awesome hints for using Photoshop? Anything that I could be doing better?

Photo Shoot

I've been making fake ads for my portfolio over the past few weeks. This has been a learning experience, since I've had art directors and another intern give me feedback and suggestions for how to improve them. If I can figure out how to post small ones on here, I can show you the progression. In any case, they look a lot better now.

At the suggestion of the creative director, I also began making a series of ads for my custom jewelry business. Okay, it's not actually a business, but I make jewelry or am commissioned to make a specific piece and then sell it. This is really more of a hobby than anything, but of course I would like to grow my little business and perhaps put it online. And where better to start than with ads?

We have a light box in the office, which is a fairly large box-like thing with a light on top, that provides good light when shooting small objects, like say jewelry. I brought some ribbon to play with the display and here's a sampling of the result:

Not bad, eh? I liked how the ribbon looks like the breast cancer ribbon. And the earrings don't look bad either! They are made of sterling silver chain and earring backs with Swarovski crystal and cubed red coral accents. Here's another one:

These are Venetian glass, also with sterling silver backs and beads.

The production guy at the agency used the large, fancy camera that we have to take these shots, as it is very expensive and I have no idea how to use it. I also took pictures on my own (still nice but not as large or expensive) camera, so I'll have to put those up later if I find some good ones.

So do they look good enough to buy? In an ad, I'm hoping they'll look good. And, as a small plug for my jewelry business, the second ones are available for purchase (however, the red ones are my mother's, though I can replicate their style) if you're interested.

As my first photo shoot, this was a fun experience. Especially getting to tell the production guy what I was visualizing for him to do for the shots. I know as a copywriter, I wouldn't really be doing stuff like this but it was fun pretending to be an art director for a day.

So Far

I've been at the ad agency for three and a half weeks now, and already I've learned a lot. Like if someone calls and that person just doesn't want to talk to that someone, they are 'unavailable' or 'busy'.

Seriously though, I am a part-time receptionist here in addition to the interning as a earnest young creative. And I've been doing more reception-y things than creative, but I'm still working on my book and getting feedback for that.

Some fun receptionist lessons:

- You will have to figure out how to transfer the phones yourself, because the person who did it before you left incorrect instructions.

- Don't let the nice people looking to speak with the HR director on how to plan better meetings or something in to see her. She doesn't want to see them. Even if they have cookies.

- Take notes when you learn how to make P.O.s (purchase orders) on the ancient computer stowed away in the back of the office, so you don't have to ask the same questions the next time you have to make one.

- Always make the coffee when you first get in to work. People are less cranky that way.

- Pretending you're a spy or even double agent while listening to the important meeting in the conference room across from you desk as you report on it via iChat to a fellow employee is not only acceptable but encouraged.

- The login to buy office supplies that the previous receptionist left you is incorrect. Guess away.

- You may have to eat at your desk. When doing so, let the phone ring until you've swallowed your food, then answer.

Don't worry, I'll add more as I learn them.

Go.

Hello, there. As I'm sure you've deduced by now, my name is Shannon and I'm an intern at an ad agency. I've had an internship before, but since I have now graduated from college I feel like this one is the stepping stone to my 'real' job.

I'm going to post things that I learn here, as I try to develop my copywriting skills for the agency. Follow and learn with me!