Creative Meeting

Well, unannounced to me the Poker Campaign has been cancelled. So, I have nothing to do. 

On the upside, today is Friday. And as is customary on a Friday at MeringCarson, lunch is usually an event. On this Friday a majority of the creative department went to RoundTable pizza for a lunch buffet. 

I ate pizza and played air hockey. It was great. 

But now there is a Creative Meeting that goes on for 2 hours. It sounds scary to me. What am I suppost to do? I feel unprepared. Are we going to get yelled at? Aw geez. I'll let you know how it goes.

See yaa.

Poker Face

My apologies again for the lack of updates. I promise, and this time I mean it, to keep you on the up-swing of things. 

Since the big success of my first campaign I have been specially requested by our creative director (Greg) to participate in this Poker Room project. The look of the photography is there, it is my job to come up with lines to stick into them. 

And knowing nothing about poker, this is hard. I am feeling the pressure to perform well too. As my internship is coming to the end, I feel that a potential job at MeringCarson is riding on this campaign, on my kicking ass on this one. 

I was told on my birthday, while having a birthday beer with my boss, that everyone here likes me. He is 75% sure I will get hired, except it is a matter of budget. I have to prove that I am worth the money. I think this is stressing me out and closing my mind to creativity. 

I just need to relax, and let it come to me. Poker. Poker. Poker. Poker. Sacramento's Premier Poker Room..... Poker. Poker. Poker. 

Send me your creative vibes.  

The Presentation

Today is totally Friday the 13th, not a particularly good day to have your first client presentation on.

But we dominated. Went in and owned. We presented our three concepts : My Backyard, I am Sierra, and Keepin' it Real. All included my copy. My headlines and for keeping it real- it was my concept.

Guess which one they loved?

Yes that is right. Keepin' It Real is (unofficially as of now) the campaign for the 2010/2011 Winter Season for Sierra at Tahoe.

I hope I am not jinxing this. It is Friday the 13th after all. But a very good one!

Now what to do with the rest of the day?

Mad Men and Mentors

After learning that AMC's Mad Men is about advertising I had to watch.
I rented the first season from work and.... finished the entire 13 episodes in one weekend.
I was hooked. I knew exactly what they were talking about and I knew the thrill they were feeling when creating something spectacular.

Anyways. I view my office totally differently- well not really. I don't expect to be chased around and forced to show my underwear color or have sex with anyone here. But still, where there were people in the office before, now there are characters.

Also my "mentor" aka Senior Copywriter here at MeringCarson has shared some gems with me that I would like to note.

"it's better to continue to think in campaigns. always do that"


" this gem won't really help you right now, but it's good advice. I always keep a running list of sayings. 
If I hear a popular saying or truism, I write it down. Because they ALWAYS make great formulas for taglines or campaign themelines. 
so, if someone says to you 'To each his own' or whatever. write it down."


My notebook is going everywhere with me now! Before you know it I will be a Donald Draper of my very own. Minus the sleeping around and smoking.

Now What?

The problem with having a stroke of genius one day is that people now expect you to deliver the goods the next day.

Which is exactly the opposite of what I did today. I played Angry Birds all day. Like the ENTIRE 6 hours. Oh and I looked up some synonyms for "real"
- genuine
- bona fide
- unaltered
- untouched
- natural
- perfect
- kosher

There, see I did work!

Hopefully tomorrow proves to be more inspired. I need to rock this campaign!

Ta Ta

Post Meeting

I survived. In fact I did more than survive, I thrived.
Our creative director loved my copy. I was practically beaming from the inside out. But I had to keep my cool, there was a lot of people in there- which, of course you could imagine, added to by supreme nervousness in the beginning.

But I will just gloat in my success.... now off to make them better and lend my currently inspired state to another client.

But for now I think that I proved myself a little bit. I can play with the big dogs- or at least the medium sized ones.

The Meeting pt. 2

Our second "internal review" has been pushed back to today. ten minutes from now. 

I am nervous. Like just as nervous as I was the morning I woke up to present the State Farm 101 campaign. But i'm not sure why. I feel unprepared I guess. Yep that is it, and I hate feeling unprepared. but whatever. here it goes. 

The First Meeting

Well, the meeting actually got pushed back to Tuesday morning. So that was a couple more hours to refine my ideas and maybe even invent new ones. But did I? no!

In the meeting I said not one single word! I let Jeffrey ( another copywriter) do all the talking. He presented his concepts with summarizing paragraphs and sample headlines and pictures to further his ideas. They were all online so that everyone calling in to the meeting could see them.

I had scribbles in my notebook.
I had no summarizing paragraph
I had no images
I had no way to explain my ideas and have everyone else follow along.

I felt like a deer in the headlights. So I didn't talk. I felt so embarrassed, like I let everyone down.
However a lot of Jeffrey's ideas were similar in nature to mine so I let him take the beating when they were shut down.
Later that day Jeffrey, Brandon (a designer) and I met to share other ideas based of the concepts that our Creative Director did like. That is when I shared my "Keeping it Real" concept.
And guess what.....they loved it! I just wrote a concept paragraph for it yesterday so its official- my ideas are on the table, up for judgement. Our next meeting is tomorrow, so we'll see how that goes.

As for now, I'll share my legit concept paragraph.

"Sierra is classified by the people who visit its slopes. The hip, chill, snow lovers feel a special bond to the resort’s back country runs and bunny slopes alike. These people know Sierra is the real deal and therefore they keep it real, because there is no place they’d rather be when the snow starts falling. "


Aww ya! Keep you posted!  

Concepts Due

I'm really nervous today. Like first day of school nervous. At 3pm there is a meeting going over our ideas for Sierra at Tahoe- a client I've been concepting for my entire time here so far.
I'm nervous because
1.) They won't be impressed. "You've been doing this for three weeks and that is all you came up with?"
2.) My ideas suck. I'll get a bunch of blank "I don't get it" stares
3.) This is my time to shine, to see if I'm any good. So if I'm not... then what?

AHH!!! Then again, as the intern, they may not expect much out of me. That still doesn't mean I can't exceed expectations. So today I will be thinking thinking thinking.

I'll let you know how it goes....

Wish me luck

The Notebook

No, not the movie. I noticed at all the meetings my co-workers are going to they carry sketch books. So I knew that if I wanted to feel official here- I needed one. So today I sit down and notice a large pile of sketch books being sorted through by everyone else. Being the quiet person that I am, I assume that those are for employees only AKA not for me.

So I get invited by a couple of people to go get a bagel and coffee. And the first thing one of the girls asks me if i got a notebook yet. SCORE!! I'm in.
Here it is:

Its like a dark blue faux crocodile skin one. Ya totally trendy hipster. But I am currently filling it with concepts for a snow resort. Which is harder than I thought it would be. We share our ideas on Monday- so I am going to have to dive in the think tank seriously this weekend.

But that was my day today! Concepting and a badge of approval.

My Apologies

Well I'm sorry it has been a couple of weeks since I've posted. Believe me the world has not stopped turning in my absence- things have been happening.

My "mentor", Senior Copywriter at Mering, Scott informed me that this is a slow time, since they just  wrapped up a big account. So last week I spent perfecting my Internet surfing skills as well as daydreaming about shoes. However last Wednesday we took a little trip to San Francisco to check out a recording studio that we might use to do our radio and things like that.

This place was crazy cool. It was a legit (and when I say legit I mean like 'Too Legit To Quit" could have been recorded here along with all of Lady Gaga's songs and any other major songs in the past decade). It had an incredible recording equipment and booths on one side and the other half of this place was a house (to accommodate the talent and their posse-Entourage style). It was a beautiful half house.

I told Tony Horton (p90x Nazi) to suck it while indulged on chocolate croissants at the studio and beer/ a delicious flat-bread with fresh mozzarella and cherry tomatoes at Universal Cafe down the street. The guy Chris who we went to see was really laid back and cool in that "I skipped college to get drunk around Europe" way. Although he does have his masters in something... I was too distracted by the beautiful back yard of the studio to pay attention to that part.

Rewinding further to the previous Friday, it was my first MeringCarson BBQ experience. I made some new friends and spread my Kirby-ness to others. However I learned the next Monday that I wasn't successful when the lady I had had the longest conversation with forgot my name (Her name is June- I remembered hers! Why couldn't she remember mine?!)

Anyway this is all getting a bit confusing, so I promise I will update on a regular basis as things are starting to get exciting.

Yesterday was my first concepting meeting. I felt pretty cool hanging out with the team discussing media and getting assigned to work on concepts with some of the other people in the creative dept. I was honored to be recognized as more than just "the intern" but rather "Kirby".

Stay tuned to what happens next.

Day 1

Moment of bliss. I love my job, even if I am just an intern getting paid minimum wage.
Today's schedule was a little weird since I don't work tomorrow or Monday because of the 4th. But I basically met everyone, leaned how to do housekeeping things and studied Advertising Annuals for hours on end. Then after lunch my boss and I came up with concepts for  Sutter Health radio spots (a client which I've already written 2 TV spots for).

It
Was
Awesome.

How can you go wrong in a career where everyone wears what they want, there's always beer in the fridge to drink whenever you want, a BBQ every Friday and music bumps every second? Oh and you get paid to chat with your colleagues about different products and create beautiful ads.

The first day was pretty uneventful, yet inspiring. I'm inspired to be great and inspired to create the best ads possible. Cheers mate, to new beginnings.

kirby is my real name

Ok here's the rundown- I just graduated college and now its time to start working. Tomorrow is D-day.
I am a Copywriting Intern at MeringCarson.
I am starting my career in the advertising
Which is something I've been waiting for for, like, ever.

So that's it. This blog will be a documentation of my adventures in advertising. My adVENTURES.