Back in August I met with a couple of the creative directors at the agency I had just finished interning with, Muller Bressler Brown. The purpose of it as far as they knew was to review my portfolio, give me some pointers, and send me on my way, but it was also a way of me being like ‘hey, if you like my work and you like me, please please please hire me and if you aren’t hiring then tell all of your cool, hip Creative Director friends in the area to hire me. Please.’
Well they didn’t hire me. But they did like my work. They told me I had some really good ideas, I had executed them well, and that I did a great job of showing the way I think. They told me that my book was more than good enough to get me in the door somewhere and that I should focus more on getting interviews with people rather than updating my book for the time being.
I was excited to hear that. Then sad. Then lost. Then eventually frustrated.
Working on projects for my book was all I knew. It was what I did in my free time to make myself feel like I actually had a job, even if I was in my pajamas a lot. As far as I knew up to that point, the reason I wasn’t getting any calls back was because my work wasn’t good enough so I spent a lot of time working on new, better campaigns to replace the old, weaker ones.
Now I was in a position where, sure, I could still work on new stuff, but it would feel like a complete waste of time. I was just told my work wasn’t the problem, after all. My other option, though, was I could not work on stuff and slowly go insane waiting to get emails back from all the people I contacted trying to get a meeting with.
For a while I did the latter and Netflix was my friend, but eventually I had to do something while I waited. Whether it was waiting to hear back from someone the first time, waiting to get back to them when their schedule cleared, waiting for the appointment we finally set, or just waiting for my Hot Pockets to finish, I was sick of waiting.
So I did some research. I didn’t research agencies or CDs I would be meeting with or anything like that, but I researched my own portfolio. I looked inside myself, ya know, maaaaaan? While I could write this out as if it was some big epiphany I had while watching my aforementioned Hot Pockets spin round and round chasing themselves, I know that it would read like bullshit, it would sound like bullshit; it would be bullshit.
So I’ll be honest and say I have no idea when the thought occurred to me and that even when I thought of it, it didn’t seem like a big deal. But somewhere along the line I remembered some advice one of my copywriting buddies had given me awhile back. What he had said was to know my own work as well as I knew the agency’s I was interviewing for. This seemed like common sense and frankly, unnecessary. I mean, I made all my work. Of course I knew it and could talk about it. Nonetheless, I wasn’t working on any new projects, I had finished all of Veep, and I was running out of things to do.
What I did next was maybe just as important as any of the work I had actually put into my book. I went through all of my pieces and flushed out each of their stories. After all that’s what advertising is: selling by storytelling. I should be able to apply that same principle to my work, no?
I wrote down what inspired each campaign, what the strategy was, how many rough drafts I went through, where I struggled most, and why the final product was the best possible option. I practiced talking about each one so when the time came I would be able to sell my work, sell myself, and most importantly sound somewhat smart.
It paid dividends, too, a couple of weeks later when I went to an AAF Career Day. There were creatives from local agencies doing portfolio reviews and I found that my ability to talk about my work in a non-robotic way did wonders as far as engaging the people I spoke with. It lead to ‘What ifs’ and ‘Didja think about thats’ and eventually real conversation outside of advertising itself. It was great. I get misty eyed thinking about it.
If you think about it, it just makes sense. If someone asks you why you did a certain piece the way you did you should be able to give a genuine response. ‘Because it looked cool’ isn’t going to cut it. You can make yourself sound a lot smarter just by talking about how you did the project. Should be easy too, unless you plagiarized all of your stuff. In which case, shame on you.
A couple of warnings, however. Make sure you ask the person looking at your work how they want you to proceed. Do they even want to hear your story behind the work? Do they simply want you to walk them through piece by piece, reading it to them? Or do they want you to sit there and shut the Hell up while they do their thing? I’ve experienced folks who prefer each of these and it can be awkward if you don’t realize which it is. It’s perfectly appropriate to ask, too. Save yourself the embarrassment.
Also, don’t apologize for anything in your book. If it’s in there, it better be up to your standards and if it isn’t, take it out. And if you find yourself in a position where you do have something in your book you aren’t particularly proud of and the person looking at your book comes across it, just shut the Hell up. Don’t say anything. It’ll be hard, but don’t do it. It took me multiple offenses before I finally got this through my thick skull. Don’t be dumb like me.
-Brian
Struggling Copywriter 