Changes, Changes

It’s amazing how much can change in a few months. I am now happily employed in a job I love and randomly never even really considered before I applied for an internship position there in January. I’d never really understood that much about PR, and whilst I love fashion and  magazine as much as the next girly girl, I hadn’t ever seriously considered making a career out of it. But I’m now working at a small but perfectly formed PR agency, looking after several great ethical fashion brands. I’m still in the early months but at the moment, I am loving it completely.

But all these changes leave me with a bit of a dilemma. My blog has always been about my search for a job, a method of catharsis when I feel completely disenchanted with the whole process of university. But where do I take it now? Should it become another in a sea of fashion blogs? Should I continue to reveal everything about my professional and personal life online? It’s a difficult decision.

For now, I think I have to stick to my first impulse in starting and writing this blog. I started writing here, not in the hope that anyone would read it or care, but in the hope that by writing down my thoughts that I would begin to understand them. Gradually, as my job hunt dragged on longer and longer after graduation, my writing the blog stemmed from a desire to write not just for myself, but for all graduates that have found themselves in my position. Whilst being unemployed is in many ways a lonely place (filled with countless episodes of Jeremy Kyle and Cash in the Attic), I also became part of a society of graduates who feel let down by the university system, and ultimately feel that they are worth much more than their current unemployed status would suggest.

So maybe this blog will continue on in this vein. Sharing stories from graduates who are looking for their first break into the job world (and are rightly and determinedly not settling for less than their dream job) and sharing my thoughts on what happens when you do “make it”.

For now, read some of these other great inputs and perspectives from graduate job hunters and bloggers:

http://anothergraphicdesigngraduate.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.totallyvivid.com/2012/05/little-something-called-opportunity.html

And feel free to suggest others. I’ll let you know what I decide in the next few weeks.

I’m off to Thailand in June so maybe it will all become a travel blog by then… we’ll have to just wait and see.

 

The work-and-seeking-work-life balance

In my last post, I talked about the sheer amount of time it takes to be an unemployed graduate. Unpaid internships in the day, followed by ruthless job hunting at night. With tailored job applications sometimes taking over an hour to write, it seems that having both a job, and a lack of job, has taken over my life! I used to read, I used to shop,  I used to update my blog more regularly than once a month! So… is it possible to find a work-and-seeking-work-life balance?

I’ve decided to use Lent to give it a try. People have suggested giving up my daily Diet Coke habit but I’ve decided it’s much more positive to start doing things again instead. Why give up yet another thing I love to do? So over the next few weeks, I’m going to forget applying to jobs and start living life again. A Saturday afternoon curled up on my sofa with the latest Lionel Shriver book is definitely a better use of my time. Catching up on the latest episodes of Gossip Girl and One Born Every Minute is, perhaps, slightly less justifiable.

I think that word there is the crux of the matter. Justifiable. Needing to justify my every action. Not to anyone in particular, but just to myself. After all, can I afford to sit for an hour and watch my favourite TV programme? What’s that adding to my CV? How will that help me get a job? It’s time to find some perspective and realise that we can’t be super-human and that it’s impossible to work 25 hours a day. Searching for jobs in today’s job market is a dismal thing, full of rejection, confusion and is ultimately soul-destroying. But if we’re not careful, we can become consumed by it and lose ourselves in the process.

After all, I am not just an organised, self-motivated, creative team player even if that is what job applications would have me condense myself to. No, I am a girl who loves reading excessively long and complicated novels, baking my amazing Celebration brownies and going out shopping with my mum, buying things I don’t need and can’t realistically afford. And that’s okay. It doesn’t make me a bad decision maker (although maybe I should try to stop spending all this make-believe money) and it doesn’t make me any less qualified for the jobs I’m applying for. It makes me an actual person. And probably a happier one at that.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to spend some quality time with me, rediscovering the things I love. Maybe I’ll go back to that Hula Aerobics class. Or maybe I’ll take my camera out for its first proper outing on home soil. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll have a quiet evening in, cookie dough by the sofa and a box set of Gossip Girl at my feet.

So will you be giving up bad habits or taking up new ones this Lent?

Working by day, job hunting by night

The student stereotype never dies. We think of students as being lazy, disorganised and more inclined to an extra hour in bed than their only lecture of the day at 10am. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to everyone but the stereotype does exist for a reason; the most honest of us will admit that it’s founded in truth. But it got me thinking – this stereotype of the typical student is well-known, but what do we think of people once they stop being “students” and start being “graduates”? For those few who find themselves on graduate schemes or jobs immediately on graduating, the transition is pretty clear cut. Almost overnight, they stop being lazy students and become fully-functioning, tax-paying members of the working world. But what are the perceptions of graduates who don’t find a job immediately on graduating, but instead find themselves clinching at the occasional part-time unpaid internship whilst trying to fend off weeks at a time on Job Seekers’ Allowance…? We are no longer students, but we are also not yet a part of this grown-up working world; instead, we hover in this in-between state wondering exactly how to take our next step.

Maybe job-seeking graduates aren’t given enough credit. Yes, we’ve had 3 years of constant socialising, long lie-ins and extended holidays but the majority of us have also worked incredibly hard at our degrees, are several thousand pounds worth in debt and at the limit of our generous overdraft without even a whiff of a career to show for it. Finding a job is a daunting task at the best of times, but settling on a career and managing to take that first step into the working world is perhaps the hardest job of all. After all, we aren’t just looking for a job but for long-term career prospects, somewhere we can utilise the skills we’ve developed and really grow as individuals. But with little experience of the real world outside of the university bubble, how can we possibly make an informed decision? We are left with few options. Researching and assessing possible careers; applying to jobs and work placements; spending hours tailoring each individual job application, CV and covering letter; preparing for interviews and travelling across the country; or working full-time or part-time to pay off debts. But what makes being a unemployed graduate so hard is that these options are not mutually exclusive. Many of us are doing all of these things simultaneously.

For example, I work through a temping agency in a full-time position in a bank. I am also working part-time as a distant intern for a fashion brand in New York. Every day, I wake up at 7am and go to work. I look for work experience and entry level jobs in my lunch break, create a document of relevant links and email it home. I get home at 6pm, eat and then sit at my computer. Most days, I spend 2-3 hours doing freelance (read unpaid) writing work and tasks for the part-time internship. Then I set about looking at jobs again and start applying. By midnight, it’sjust about time to get some sleep.

Graduates working in stop-gap jobs perhaps have one of the hardest tasks of all. Applying to jobs these days is practically a full-time profession all by itself. A good tailored CV, highlightling your experience and relevant skills against the person specification and an engaging cover letter can take over an hour to write. But with the sheer number of people applying to each job, a quality application isn’t enough. Applying for a job is still a numbers game and will always depend on luck and factors outside of your control. Writing one quality job application is great but doesn’t guarantee a response when tens (if not, hundreds) of other just as suitable candidates are applying.

The majority of job rejections for graduates will always stem from “a lack of experience”, whether the jobs are supposedly entry-level or not. But I think it’s time that graduates were given a little credit for the difficult job that they are doing. Not only are we in a seemingly hopeless position of being unemployed in today’s dismal job market, but the majority of us are doing several jobs simultaneously. In fact, simply by applying we are exhibiting the required excellent organisational skills (you should just see my job deadline and freelance work deadline lists), time management skills and a go-get-’em initiative and passion for just about any job. It’s not easy to shoot off a covering letter and CV that perfectly fits the job description – in just applying for the job, we are showing a serious commitment to the industry and position. We are already multi-tasking, working late nights and standing strong in the face of near-constant rejection.

Sure, students can be lazy. But job-seeking graduates? They may be some of the most driven, determined and passionate people I know.

 

How to move on from rejection

It’s a funny thing, rejection. It can set you back a long way. After spending many weeks in my final year of university, pointlessly applying to jobs that I was not qualified for and didn’t want to do, I finally came to realise that it is about the quality of your application not the quantity. Each job application should be tailored, aimed specifically for that job role and emphasising exactly how you meet the person specification. I only apply to jobs now that I absolutely 100% want to be doing.

I know all the rules. I’ve applied to enough jobs by now to know exactly how it’s done. So when I applied for an internship at The Guardian, I was incredibly hopeful that I would at least get an interview. Having received the generic rejection email today, it’s clear that I did not. The email states that I am unable to reply, and unable to ask for feedback – leaving me with no idea where I went wrong. Obviously, as we all keep hearing, the jobs are very competitive, but you have to wonder what it is that is making other people stand out when you get overlooked?

At an interview at DDB London last year, us interviewees were waiting to go in for our second interview of the day when the conversation got round to what other interviews everyone had coming up. It was graduate scheme season in Advertising, and we were all comparing applications and stand-out tricks. I remember this one girl telling me that she had got an interview at JWT London by sending her application by courier, in a shoe box with an old shoe so that – and I quote – she could at least get her foot in the door. Now, if I were a recruiter, that would scream cliche, desperation as well as the fact that the girl is obviously rich enough to send every job application hand-delivered by courier. But hey, it’s not my advertising agency.

I’m very aware that I’m starting to sound bitter but I have a point, I promise. Not every recruiter would have given shoe-girl (as I so fondly call her now) an interview, and not every interviewer will want to see a job application that perfectly presents and ticks every box of the job description. Maybe in a bid to show off my skills and make them obvious and clear to potential employers, I have made applying for jobs a science, stupidly believing that I have found the formula that will get me interviews. But it’s not that simple, really, or we’d all be doing it.

In the end, I guess that’s the point. The graduate job market is tough, and as much as we don’t want to face this reality, there really are tens of people going for every job advertised. If everyone applied in the same precise and organised way that I did then it becomes much harder to distinguish between them. Job applications aren’t a science, they aren’t even an art or a talent. Ultimately, they are down to luck.

You need to be lucky to have figured out exactly what they really want you to say. Lucky to have that little bit of previous experience that you happened to mention to tick that invisible extra box. Lucky to have that person read your application just after their morning coffee, and just before reading all the others the same as yours. Lucky to have someone who finds you readable, who relates to your experience, who can follow and be drawn into your narrative. Or just lucky to have found someone that finds your old shoe-in-a-box routine original and enjoyable.

But if job hunting is just about luck, then shouldn’t we be trying to increase our odds? Surely we should play as many hands as possible, on the off-chance we might just get lucky. Logically, it makes a lot of sense, but I don’t think it’s the way to go. Better to play the hands we know, the ones we have faith in to do well and can follow through on even when the house raises the stakes. Gambling analogy-aside, it’s important that we keep focused and channel this passion and self-belief into our job search so that when we finally reach our goal, and finally find ourselves in a graduate job, that it is still absolutely the job we always wanted.

Graduates could learn from ‘Young Apprentice’

No one ever warns you about the soul-crushing, all-consuming fear that suddenly comes upon you in the weeks after graduating. It’s hinted at, of course, what with all the news features about graduate unemployment and the bleak outlook for the future, but on a personal level, it’s never really mentioned just how scary and disheartening the whole process can be.

I suppose for me, life after university was an even bigger culture shock. I’d secured this great internship for my ideal career and was working in London full-time. Pret lunches, creative brainstorming sessions and free breakfasts on Fridays; suddenly I was living the graduate dream. But just as suddenly, graduation came, the internship was over, I’d turned 21 and I was sat in my room, on the dreaded Jobseeker’s Allowance and feeling like I’d just taken a huge step back. Where were the free breakfasts and the brilliantly busy working-girl lifestyle now? But more importantly, where were all the prospects we’d be promised as we started university?

I guess that’s the bit that hurts the most – at school and throughout university, we’re told that if we work hard and stay focused that it will be worth all the money and time and effort. As someone who graduated with a good degree and plenty of extra curriculars, volunteering and responsibilities to show for my time, this was all starting to feel like a big, fat lie. I was focused on copywriting throughout my time at school and uni, worked incredibly hard and still here I sit months later with little to show for it and no further along on my path to becoming a writer.

Except that’s not necessarily true, is it? Just last month, my writing was published online at Guardian Careers. Over 100 people read and shared my article (and not just my Facebook friends, promise) which is pretty exciting stuff. But whenever people ask me about it, I play it down, telling them how simple it was to contact the organisers and offer my ideas. I think we are all a little guilty of this, especially as job-seeking graduates; we play down potentially our biggest achievements out of modesty or through our own lack of self-belief that we could actually be as good as people say we are.

If there was some kind of career food chain, I’d put myself pretty near the bottom. It’s not because I don’t believe I’m a good writer, just that I probably don’t have enough experience to rate myself higher. And yet, after my article was published online, I had several people contact me, and ask me for advice on pursuing a career in writing. I mean, what do I know? After all, I’m struggling just as hard as everyone else to find my niche, to develop my contacts and hopefully get that lucky break. But people were delighted to hear back from me with advice, and suddenly I realised that maybe I am further along my path to pursuing my dream career than I realise or give myself credit for.

Watching Young Apprentice recently, what really struck me was not the contestants’ arrogance or immodesty but instead how people so young could have so much self-belief. Each of them was responsible for a project or business of some description, but instead of playing it down, they’ve made it seem amazing, emphasising how difficult it was to achieve and cementing the idea that they have beaten the odds to become the business brains of the future. All this made me wonder just how many of them are actually only running the occassional cake sale in their school hall.

I think we could all learn a lot of good lessons from these bunch of seventeen year olds. Instead of playing down our achievements, or sharing out our responsibilities and leadership to a team, we should take hold of exactly what we did and make it the best that it can be. Obviously, I’m not condoning outright lies or exaggeration in our CVs, but simply the truth, without the modesty or lack of self-belief, highlighting the brilliance of what we have actually achieved.

Here are some examples posted on The Guardian Careers website of award winning graduate CVs. These people have all done similar things to most of us graduates and yet their CVs convey the sheer amount of effort that this took as well as a range of  purposefully selected, focused and quantifiable examples of their work experience. If I was an employer, I’d hire them in a second. They are obviously passionate, committed and focused on their goals. More than this, they just shout, “I’m the best – pick me!”

Maybe all we really need to be sucessful in the current job climate is just a solid helping of serious self-belief.

With this in mind….

“Hi, I’m Jenna – a brilliant English graduate with original work published by The Guardian.”

What employer could resist that?

Can you really be anything you want to be?

We all remember that childhood conversation with our parents. The one where you’re told that you can be anything you want to be, just as long as you put your mind to it. I’ve always believed this to be true. After all, as children we are blank canvases, able to collect and create a multitude of experiences and opinions that make us ideal for our own futures. But thinking back to our childhood dreams, you have to wonder how plausible this idea is. Surely, it must be very few people that end up doing what they dreamed they would when asked the pivotal question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

I always wanted to be a marine biologist, convinced that this meant playing with dolphins all day rather than the reality of boats, labs and seawater. But if someone offered me the chance to be a marine biologist today, I’d have to turn them down. My sister on the other hand, answered that classic childhood question with similarly classic childish honesty. When she grew up, she wanted to be able “to drink Bacardi Breezers”.

Ask a class of kids today what they want to do when they grow up and you’ll get a lot of the same answers; the lures of pop-stardom and space exploration make for seemingly brilliant career choices. As adults we know the truth. With fame comes hard work, pressure and a near-constant hounding from the press; with space exploration comes isolation, intense physical conditions and an indelible helping of life-threatening danger. Not the best 9-to-5 career choices.

There comes a point in our lives, however, when our ability to do anything and to be anyone comes to pass. It’s difficult to say when that point is, and obviously with every door that we close on possible future careers, we open hundreds more with our commitment to a set route. When I chose to take no science subjects at A-level, I firmly closed the doors on medicine (and my misinformed dreams of marine biology), but opened up a world of opportunities to careers in the arts.

But at the age of 21, just four months after graduating, I already feel like my choices are incredibly narrowed. I’m a creative person and have a passion for advertising, for branding and for communications in general. In my ideal job I’d get to write and be a little bit creative every day. I have varied experience in all sorts of jobs; from writing yoghurt campaigns to tracking down financial criminals, as well as the more standard office and admin work along the way.

You’d think that this wide range of experience would make me an ideal candidate for any of the entry level marketing/design jobs I’ve applied for so far, and yet after several interviews I always hear that I’m a lovely girl, but just too creative for the job. Apparently creativity doesn’t work when you’re supposed to be doing admin day-to-day; I guess nobody wants a spreadsheet with panache. But do companies really need to employ the same old person to file, copy, print, repeat? Maybe employers are under-estimating the passion and commitment that today’s graduates have to break into their desired field, and can bring to any level of a business. We are well aware that we’ll have to start at the bottom, but are committed to making the most out of our opportunities to ultimately get to where we want to be.

All this raises an interesting issue. As a recent graduate, I’ve tried to make myself as employable as possible and am looking for an entry-level position to get into a company and progress. Yes, I have experience as a creative but that’s not all I’ve done, it’s not all I do, and I’m not even sure it’s all I want to do. I still feel very young, know that I have a lot to learn, and just want an opportunity to develop all my skills. What if I want to work as a project manager? A magazine journalist? A book critic? I have an excellent English degree and experience that makes me suitable for all these jobs – does my passion for advertising and my creativity mean I am any less capable of doing them?

So – can you really be anything? The job market today seems to think that you can’t. I’m determined to prove them wrong. Marine biology, here I come.

Just kidding. But arts, media, design, advertising, branding, marketing, PR, magazine and literary world – look out!

As seen on The Guardian Careers website:

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/graduate-career-goals-aspirations

Is copywriting an art or a science?

Just read a really interesting article on copywriting by Samuel Palin. A lot of it is filled with fairly anecdotal evidence, not to mention half a column on the brilliant quoting from Don Quixote, but it was the closing ideas that really struck a chord with me. He ends with an idea that questions whether copywriting is an art or a science, or whether as so many people tend to ignore, it is a combination of the two.

It’s an interesting debate.

In my last semester of uni, I (in hindsight, stupidly, as it pulled my whole degree average down) took a module studying the power of language, and how langauge is manipulated in the media, in politics and most interesting for me, in advertising. We were lectured on how to spot linguistic constructs used to position the reader or listener in a certain way, which began to make it seem very much like a science. In fact, I wrote a (fairly decent) essay comparing the differing methods of persuasion in the Oxfam and Race for Life websites, which revolved almost entirely on how they addressed the reader. I collected data, I read and reread raw material, I highlighted like crazy and by the end of the essay, forgot that I was even studying English, I was so overwhelmed by numbers, calculations and graphs.

Language had become a science.

But then on finishing university, I went straight into working as a copywriter for 5 weeks at Euro RSCG. Obviously, this is about being creative, and whilst I’ve always been good at writing and using language, the science side of it threw me off. I could debate the merits of using “your city”, “the city” or “our city” for as long as I liked, but ultimately it would be what  sounded best, read best and just seemed to feel right, not where I was positioning the reader.

So the debate continues….

It’s pretty easy, from an academic perspective, to apply a set of linguistic rules to a collection of adverts, and not see it as something emotive or creative, but something based on reader position, pronoun usage and repitition of ideas. Obviously all that science-y stuff does play a part, but having been on both sides of the debate, I’m leaning towards it being an art form.

Like Samuel’s article suggests, it is important to know strategy and have more planning-like insights to frame our ideas, but I would argue that ultimately this “science” is only ever a framework for creativity. And sometimes, that creativity works just as brilliantly outside of the frame…

Do I think that one science-y language module made me a better writer? No.

Did I win a placement at a top London advertising agency after finishing the module? Yes.

Art or science? I guess we’ll never know…

 

 

A quick catch-up

I guess I must have been really busy. What else could excuse neglecting to write for 2 months? Well, at least this time I was actually doing something, rather than sitting around pretending I’m busy as a student.

Before I can talk about what’s going on in life at the moment, I feel the need to catch my little blog up to speed. A hell of a lot has happened in the last few months, and it feels so weird to read over my last post as so much has changed since then. So consider this a catch up on what’s being going on in my life, and I promise to update with more present information soon.

Easiest way to do it will be in chronological order (well, I say chronological but it will be what I remember doing when so pretty much as chronological as it can get without referring to currently non-existant diary…)

First of all, I got on the IPA Creative Summer School. The interviews went really well and despite tripping over my words several times, and one Exec Creative Director telling me I would make an excellent planner rather than a copywriter, I got on the programme. I was placed at Euro RSCG with another girl who also went to Leeds acting as my Art Director partner. More on this later…

Next up, would be finding out my degree results. Despite my earlier pledges of confidence, I did actually end up getting  a 2.1. I didn’t do as well as I could have done in the final exams, although I think I revised harder than I ever have in my life so I can only assume the pressure finally got to me. Overall, it averaged out as 67.5 which is exactly one percent of a 1st at Leeds so annoyingly close. After feeling disappointed, stressy and annoyed for a few days and trying to reject anyone and anything that tried to make me celebrate, I eventually stopped being an idiot and decided that a high 2.1 is a great mark and still something brilliant to show for the last 3 years. Besides, it’s not even relevant to the job I want to go into anymore! Of course, this does all mean I’m £250 down and my Uncle had a lucky escape…

Next, was my holiday in Valencia visiting one of my best friends Laura who was on her year abroad out there. Such an amazing city, and had a very welcome break exploring the city, eating too much frozen yoghurt and laying on the beack. It was lovely to see Laura  again and cannot wait for her to come back to England!

Immediately after coming back from Spain, it was time to start my placement at Euro RSCG. It’s a pretty big challenge working with someone you don’t know very well as a creative because the whole ideas process needs a lot of trust, team work and respect but I think we figured out how to work together well in the end. We actually got through to the next round of the TBWA Young Bloods as a creative team as well so that should be pretty exciting.

Working at Euros was a great experience, even if I did rarely get enough sleep and worked the occasional Saturday, because it really gave me an insight into what a large advertising agency is like. The office politics, the fierce competition and the obvious hierarchies are all something that I should have, but probably wasn’t expecting. More than an insight into the environment though, the five weeks there just really cemented in my mind that working in creative advertising is exactly what I want to be doing. Getting real hands-on experience on live briefs and new business pitches makes you learn so much faster about what will work and what won’t work than working on your own inventing little briefs for yourself ever will. Working in a high-pressure, tight deadline industry whilst constantly trying to stay creative and innovative is really, really hard but I love it and am definitely up for the massive challenge of pursuing it as a career.

As part of the IPA placement, we’ve also been having evening seminars each week with talks from industry leaders at different London agencies. For example, a few weeks ago we speak to the leader of Technology at Ogilvy who is basically living in this kind of futuristic lab space. Amazing stuff. And we had a talk on social media and digital advertising at Lean Mean Fighting Machine, which was really interesting. During all this, we were also being set weekly creative briefs to present at the next meeting. We did some work to develop a radio ad for a new diet pill, but the biggest thing we did was to present our ideas at the graduation ceremony for how to advertise the IPA Summer School 2012. Me and Annie worked on this idea for about two weeks, and went round and round in circles about which direction to take it in, decided and then undecided on ideas and then finally changed our mind at the very last minute when a great piece of copy mysteriously and magically came to me, as if it had been staring at me in the face the whole time. We finally went with the strategy of challenging people who think advertising is a soft option and that their current career pursuits would be more fulfilling to “Try working in Advertising.” We didn’t win, but some feedback we’ve had since then has told us that the individual ads we did were the best of the night and that there was some contention in the judging as to whether we should win so I kind of feel like we won anyway!

This was one of the executions (2 page magazine ad) of the idea:

See I told you I’d been busy…

So my next step (although all the work we did at Euros working on live briefs makes it feel like a bit of a step back) is developing my portfolio of work, finding a partner to work with and start asking people to look at my book and find a job. Feel like I’ve got a long way to go and a hell of a lot of hard work ahead of me, but am so, so excited about what the next few months are going to bring.

If anyone knows of people looking to work as an Art Director who is currently partner-less send me a message. Otherwise expect to see me hanging about at various single creative speed dating events soon…

I’ll try and keep you posted!

Writing Under Pressure

In an attempt to prepare for my upcoming interview this Tuesday I have been scribbling down ad ideas whenever I get a chance. Annoyingly, the ideas come to me when I’m in the shower, sat in the cinema or just as I’m about to fall asleep, and for some reason never seem as good when I come to write them out a few hours later. In fact, every idea always seem so much better when it’s in my head but I’m sure that’s the curse for all creatives, even when you’ve been in the industry for a while.

This got me thinking about how good branding, slogans and advertising could be inside the creative’s head that never actually get fully realised, or if an excellent producer will be able to capture these original thoughts from the badly organised, scrappy bit of scribbled paper and create the same original masterpiece. As I looked through the D&AD Student Awards results last night, two responses in particular caught my eye (although I suppose as an aspiring copywriter I’m a tad biased): the copywriting entry brief.

First of all, the winning entry which sells the D&AD Copy Book with its simple, but oh-so-clever title: “Great Copy in it. Not so great copy selling it.” In other words, it expresses the idea that any title or cover for the book will not be able to do justice to the brilliance of the copy inside it, and doesn’t even want to try. Combine this excellent basic premise with a uncomplicated and universally loved black text on white background and you’ve got yourself a winner. Ironically, by winning the copywriting brief, it seems that the “not so great copy” is great after all.

The other entry that caught my eye was the idea that “It takes work to make it work” with universally, well-known slogans such as McDonald’s’ “I’m Lovin’ It” changed to “I am currently experiencing a strong positive emotion of affection.” It’s witty, it’s clever and it somehow encompasses the nightmare of writing copy without having to explicitly say it, even as it mocks the very process. When I originally saw the copywriting brief however many months ago, this idea of the amount of work that goes into every piece of copy we see was at the top of my list as an insight and premise and it seems it paid off for these students. Congrats to all the winners – I’m definitely going to work on the awards next years when I’m not bogged down with so much uni work!

Right now, I’m working on revising the VUE cinema advertising for their £1 teenage Friday and Saturday night offer. Every time I go to the cinema (which is becoming more and more frequent in my post-exam state) I see this ad and it makes me cringe every time. Obviously, their target market is teenagers and they know it very well, but they seem to have gone no further than identifying them rather than actually aiming it at them. Even if the offer was aimed at everyone, no self-respecting adult would find this advert appealing, amusing or experience any other positive emotion towards it. It’s plain cringey. And since when did cringey, patronising advertising have a positive response in a teenage market either? As if teenagers are excited by a cheesy voice-over, magic and an overly-excited male model…

So I’m reworking it. Just for fun. And for the interview on Tuesday. It seems to me that a lot of advertising makes the mistake these days of getting too caught up in knowing their market. It’s not just about knowing it, it’s about understanding it. And there’s a big difference. Instead of focusing on the cheap price and magic of all things, I’m trying to emphasise the social side of a cinema trip with mates. Really, the cheap weekend tickets are hiding a social agenda to get teenagers away from under-age drinking and hanging out on the streets, but in order to effectively do this the cheap cinema deal needs to be competing on a comparable level. That means being able to spend time with friends and have a laugh; instead of Admit One for a £1, teenagers should be able to “buy a round” for their mates, all for less than a fiver. Objectively, I think anyone would agree (hopefully interviewers and creative directors included) that this is a much better idea, which taps into and more importantly understands the target market.

Starting to get simultaneously scared and excited about the interview on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Is this the best day ever?

So that’s it – the end of my degree and 16 years of education! For my final ever exam, it was a little anti-climatic because it seemed so unlike every other exam I’ve taken in the past 5 years or so; I even used a calculator! A part of me was wishing that I’d finished last Friday like most of the other English Lit. 3rd years but after having one of the best days yesterday, I’m officially glad that I didn’t. After all, what better way to end your degree than a lovely lunch, bottle of wine and slightly drunken but successful shoe shopping AND then come home to find an invitation to interview sitting in your inbox!

That’s right, folks – I got through to the 1st interview stage of the IPA Summer School to get a 5 week creative placement at a top London ad agency. I am so excited!! To be honest, it felt like I emailed over my application aaaages ago what with how much I’ve fit into the last 6 weeks, so I’d kind of given up hope on it and was awaiting the generic rejection email to find its way to me. In fact, when I saw the message in my email, I was so convinced that it would be another rejection that I completely overlooked the massive “Congratulations!” of the 1st line in my attempt to scan through and read the oh-so-familiar words of “Unfortunately, this time….”

So I’m pretty happy right now! I guess this just officially cements even more that copywriting – and more generally, the creative side of advertising – is what I’m supposed to be doing. My interviewers at DDB last October seemed to think Iwould fit more in the creative side because the majority of my marketing experience is creative-based. I just love coming up with ideas and concepts and that feeling of massive success when you discover (although, “discover” makes it sound easy) the idea that just fits. The ideas that are so simple they’re brilliant are the most rewarding to figure out.

Just have to wait a few days to hear exact timings and format of the interview, but I’m already planning a shopping trip to buy some more clothes. I figure, I can wear whatever I buy for this to graduation as well so can afford (or in my case, justify) to splurge out.

At the moment, I’m trying not to think about what could happen if I actually get it, because it would just be a dream come true. Besides, if I overthink it, I will probably blow it by not being myself at the interview. For now, I’m content to second-guess what the format will be like (I’m thinking a chat and a Copy Test, as well as some group tasks maybe… but who knows) and while away all this end-of-being-a-student time with excessive amounts of internet shopping.

*Fingers crossed* that I have more days coming up that will be as good as yesterday!