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If you’re white like me it’s so important to realize that we were raised in a society where institutionalized racism is normalized, and we were born with privilege. You can’t choose the color of your skin, but you can choose to put ego aside and reflect on why this isn’t happening to me, and be vocal about being anti-racist.
What is the Netflix employees email format?
Does anyone know the recruiter at Y&R NYC?
Who's got the most fishbowl points?
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This is 99% of my career. And the career of people much more famous and successful than I am.
Honestly, perseverance and irrational amounts of relentless enthusiasm are the job. It’s painful but true.
Water off a ducks back and the memory of a goldfish are what make you succeed in this job
Talk to your cd about why it’s dying. There might be more to the situation that you’re privy to.
Not privy to*
The first line of this is so melodramatic it renders the rest rhetorical and an outlet for (probably much needed) complaining.
I will admit to being a bit dramatic. It’s hard because having a team player positive cheerleader-esque mentality is an unspoken rule at my agency and if you don’t adhere you get fired. I wear my heart on my sleeve and am very sarcastic.
Rising Star
The ads that got killed would have been garbage too. Hope this helps
If you love the work make a page on your site called Graveyard to show off your almosts.
Chief
It’s part of the job. Some agencies will judge you on what you make but great agencies will judge you based on what you present. Don’t lower your standards just to make something and keep fighting the good fight.
Rising Star
👆This.
Rising Star
If your CDs and CCOs love them, don’t dumb them down. There’s no upside to producing a lot of mediocre work. Good work takes longer to sell, but it’s worth it.
There’s dumbing down and dumbing down.
Knowing how to simplify your idea writeup to make it easily digestible and easily presentable through all the layers is an extremely valuable skill.
Learn to keep the nitty gritty for yourself for when you hit production. Until then focus on the big message and why it works for your client/business problem.
If your ideas are super smart then they’re probably too complicated.
Give it a couple years and you will notice that they might be great but had some flaws that don’t allowed them to be fully sold. Many times when you are junior you love ideas so much that you don’t notice bigger picture things that higher ups in the client side do like:
a. You are selling them to the wrong client or in the wrong moment (not every client is Coca Cola or BK that loves adweek and cannes over Forbes and Wall Street)
b. ROI - Budget needed does not justify expected results.
c. Too complicated to execute without burning the team that most of the time is already burn out
d. Client already has media negotiated for the whole year and your idea does not fall into any already purchased categories.
e. Falls just under awareness but does not really drive immediate results that they need in order to get their bonuses.
f. The way you are selling them makes them notice is more beneficial for your portfolio that for their brand
Rising Star
The way you described it, it sounds like the client you present to and their boss, are not aligned and so the lower level client approves and then their boss thinks differently. If this is what’s happening, this is account services fault. They are not conveying the needs or concerns of the approving parties and are using a lower level client as a go between layer. All the parties in the client side need to be aligned, otherwise there’s always going to be conflicting feedback.
There’s not much you can do at your level, but your CD and strategy directors definitely need to push account services to dig a little deeper to understand what the parties responsible for approving REALLY want.
You’re a junior copywriter. No offense, but uh, this happens. Too young in your career to be bummed about not selling in an idea. If you’re client facing at this level - awesome. There will always be someone above someone with an opinion. Stick with it. You’ll eventually land something. Takes time.
The head of your agency needs to have a lunch with the disapproving client to see if they can come together on goals and ideas. Usually this happens when someone who is predisposed to saying no is not involved in the creative brief or strategy. You need to front load strategic thinking with this person so that when ideas come to them, they don’t feel like they were created by aliens.