Dear Baby Creatives,
I have never, not once, regretted going to work in the advertising industry. (Other people certainly feel differently. This is just me.) Has my experience in the industry sucked? From time to time, yes. It’s inevitable in the entry stages of any job. I’ve had to work on boring campaigns for boring clients, done tedious and repetitive and occasionally weird scut work (lord, do I have stories), had ideas shot down, and watched as other people did cool things that I didn’t get to be a part of and think about how unfair it was. I’ve never had to get coffee or make copies — I don’t know if that’s really a thing anymore (others, feel free to jump in) — but it hasn’t been all exposed-brick offices and golden pencils.
I’ve also gotten to be a small part of big things. I’ve gotten to contribute ideas that make good concepts better. I’ve gotten to walk into my boss’s office with a brilliant thought I had in the shower that redirected an entire project. (And Then The Whole Restaurant Started Clapping. No, for serious, this really happened.) Because I paid my dues. The scut work taught me how to function in an unfamiliar environment, the watching other people taught me how to hone my creative skills, and the getting shot down taught me how to come up with ideas that actually work.
Dues-paying can be frustrating, and it can sometimes feel like it’s just abuse for no reason. But just because you can’t see the reason doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Here’s why, when your dues come due, you should take a deep breath and dig down into your rhetorical pockets and pay up.
Full disclosure: I, personally, didn’t actually spend a lot of time working my way up the industrial ranks. I started out at assistant-level, and then I was kind of a desperation-hire at an in-house firm for a senior copywriter position for which I may or may not have really been qualified. But that first job was a doozy, and even coming into the next one at a senior level, I remained The New Kid until I was no longer… new.
It’s going to be great and also suck a little, is my point. And that’s because:
You aren’t there yet.
You aren’t there yet.
You’re unproven.
Yes, you might come in with a portfolio of great student work, or even impressive intern work. You might legitimately be an advertising wunderkind. Your new agency still knows essentially nothing about you — particularly about your as-yet-untried ability to function in an agency environment. They aren’t going to trust you with huge projects for huge clients right out of the gate. They’re going to have you updating fliers and palm cards, and then, once they know how you work and you know how they work, they’re going to move you up to writing fliers and palm cards, and then they might even move you up to writing local newspaper ads, and then you’ve arrived, baby!
I know, it’s still not sexy stuff. But it’s going to happen, because…
You’re cheap.
You’re new, your title has “junior” in it (or even “intern”), and that means your agency can charge the client less for your work. They’re not going to blow your project hours on a massive campaign concept when they could be charging senior-creative bucks instead. They’re going to devote your comparatively cheaper hours to fliers and palm cards. That doesn’t mean, of course, that you’re never going to get to work on any cool campaigns — there’s always room for juniors on the creative team.
Probably writing fliers and palm cards. Because…
The people you’re working with already paid theirs.
It’s the perpetuation of an ancient cycle, but it’s also a fact: You have to pay your dues because your colleagues paid their dues, because they started out working with people who paid their dues. Your more experienced coworkers have generally worked their asses off to get where they are, and you don’t get to jump the line just because your copywriting professor thinks you’re super talented. Talent isn’t everything. Experience is a thing. Teamwork is a thing. Knowing how to work within a system is a thing. Humility is a thing. And they’re all things that come with time.
And that time is very, very important, because…
You can’t effectively break the rules until you know the rules.
You’re probably coming in with grand ideas about how to revolutionize the industry, change the way agencies work, inject new ideas, and disrupt… something, I don’t know, people never say exactly what they’re proposing to disrupt, but I guess it’s a thing. Anyway: You have revolutionary ideas.
Sit on them. Not forever — just for a little bit. Because you cann’t effectively change something if you don’t understand what you’re changing. Think your CD is an overly cautious stick in the mud for toning down your language in some web copy because the audience wouldn’t respond positively to it? It could be — or it could be that your CD knows the client better than you do and understands the potential fallout of pushing the brand like that. Think the brief is unreasonably restrictive for what the client is trying to achieve? They frequently are — and if you present a second, revolutionary concept in addition to one that satisfies the brief, you could talk them into taking a chance on your idea. But you have to know why they asked for what they asked for, and what the creative is trying to accomplish, and how your concept can make that happen, before you try talking them into it.
Advertising is all about breaking rules — sometimes, it’s the only way to stand out in a sea of messaging that’s all following the rules. But the first step is understanding why things are the way they are, so you really know what to change to make them not just different but better. At which time you can, and should, do that.
They aren’t just dues — they’re an investment.
As you get your start in the industry, you’re going to work with some creatives who love helping the juniors along, and some who resent having to include it as part of their many duties. I happen to be one of the former, and I try to make the experience as enriching as possible for the noobs. But I also try to make it as realistic as possible. And sometimes, that means you get to watch me do stuff and trust me when I tell you that someday, you’ll get to do them, too. Because someday, you (probably) will.
Agency professionals, feel free to jump in — is there anything I’ve missed? Anything you disagree with? And baby creatives, I want to hear from you, too. Let me know if you have any questions about what to expect and why you should expect to expect it.
Up next
Is your entry into advertising going to be, on occasion, stressful and/or boring and/or frustrating and/or dispiriting? Unfortunately, yes. Is it going to be scary, abusive, or threatening? It damn well shouldn’t be. Tune in next week for the flip side of dues, looking at things that aren’t part of the dues-paying process and that you shouldn’t have to endure just to survive in the industry. (Seriously, this is an important thing not to miss.)
XOXO,
Caperton
Former baby copywriter, now wildly successful in the industry