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Producing in the arctic tundra.

So I’m currently sitting inside this warm and cozy production house watching all the final versions of our Chevy Cruze commercial. It’s currently like 9 degrees outside with a butt load of snow on the ground here in wonderful Michigan. You would not believe how crazy it is trying to pull this thing together in the very tiny amount of time we have! It’s a whirlwind of emails, phone calls, script changes, music changes, a kick-ass editior, peoples’ inputs, and divine will that’ll get this baby produced! And legal?!? Jesus! Well, that’s what you get I guess when you want to make a safety commercial showing crash test… :) Well the spot’s funny, and sounds looks/sounds great! I’ll let yall know when it’s supposed to be on the air! 

The D-mented D Show

So last night, Jason, Jae, myself and like 300 other advertising knuckleheads crashed the Fischer Theater for the annual D Show. It was a pretty snazzy affair – all felt kind of underdressed…but it’s ok. We owned it. 

One criticism of the evening was the general “sloppiness” of the actual award ceremony presentation. Tons of missed cues, presenters awkwardly reading the teleprompter, weird song choices and cuts, etc. And they would play the winner’s same 8-minute long integrated campaign videos like three times in a row while the presenter would just stand there not knowing how to react. 

Meanwhile, the real party was going on in the lobby during the actual show. I excused myself halfway through to check out the bathrooms, and the lobby was bumpin’ with hordes of industry professionals boozin’ it up! There was rumored to be an open bar, all the drinks I tried to order were around the $10 mark…guess I gotta practice my bartender-schmoozing techniques! It’d help if I had boobs… 

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…

Ladies and gentlemen, not sure if you’re aware, but Christmas Day is 25 days away and I have started NONE of my Christmas shopping yet. And, very very soon, I’m going to start getting questioned about what I want for Christmas…I’m getting to the point where I seriously don’t want/need anything except gift cards or cash. (Actually, I’ve been there for several years now.) But it’s true! Everything I “want” is way too expensive for anyone to actually get me, so instead of another sweater or a calendar or a book I probably won’t read, gift cards. Cash. Easy peezy lemon squeezy. It’s no less of a gift. I won’t feel like you’re being lazy or don’t care about the presenting process… you seriously can’t go wrong with money and/or gift cards. (Unless the gift cards are to a stupid store like Babies R Us or something…) 

So, remember this this holiday season: the best gifts aren’t from the heart – they’re from WalMart or Best Buy or Target or Meijers or GameStop or McDonalds or Shell or Mobil or Coldstone Creamery or Buckle or Macys or CVS or, hell, even Krogers in the form of plastic cards. :) 

“W” Rant

If you didn’t know already, I’ve got a weird obsession/fascination with license plates. My collection is up over 100 and counting, from lots and lots of states/countries. And my own, currently running plate is lovely – I splurged on the Michigan $5 beautiful green “Spectacular Peninsulas” plate over 2 years ago, with the most wonderful alpha-numeric combination: 6JN B73.

Your license plate sort of “defines” you on the road, so I’m very picky about the letters and numbers on my plate. And that’s the thing – when you go to the Secretary of State, or the DMV for those outside of Michigan, and receive a new license plate, you have no idea what you’re going to get. Your new random three-letter combination could be vulgar, or insulting like “BUB” or “CAN” or “ASS” or worse… it could have a “W” in it!! I thank God everyday that my plate sequence is sans-W. The letter W is seriously the ugliest letter in the English Language when it’s on it’s own. When it’s the beginning of or part of a word, it’s cool (Westward, Awesome, Washington DC, etc.) But when it’s nasty points are emblazon on a license plate for all the road to see, I can’t help but cringe at the ugliness. 

So, if you have a “W” in your license plate combination, I’m sorry. 

The Goodby Story: The Conclusion

So, three days later Jason & I were flying out to Detroit to meet with Goodby recruiters, Creative Directors and our ECD. It was cool because it was more of a casual get-together than an “interview.” Everyone was really nice – they even gave us awesome Tiger’s tickets! But there was no definite “You’re Hired” yet… 

After flying back to La Guardia the next day, making our plane by seconds because the power went out in the airport as Jason’s bag was in the x-ray machine, we were back to work at BBDO by 10. AHHH!!! SOOO TIRED!!! 

The next few days, things at BBDO started to wind down, and we were getting nervous about what was going to happen after the internship terminated… UNTIL… we get a call from Goodby with offers!!!!

And that was it. They wanted us to start ASAP, so 5 or so days later, we were done at BBDO and driving out to Detroit to look for apartments. Found schweet ones in Royal Oak, moved in, and started working that next week. (Seriously, it felt THAT fast!)

And now it’s a whirlwind of the awesome craziness that is Goodby Silverstein and Partners. All Chevy-related of course, since our office handles the Chevrolet account. But you’d be surprised as to the variety of assignments we get… daily! (too al the nay-sayers out there who’d frown upon working on only one client.)  And we’re doing it all, from commercials, to everything you see at the dealers, to fun NASCAR Team Chevy projects.

We got to see our new office this morning… the top 3 floors of The Fillmore theater in downtown Detroit. Um, we can basically look down into Comerica Park and watch the Tigers play! Moving into there hopefully by December 1^st. Much more to come!

The Goodby Story (pt. 2)

I show up at Jason’s place on Long Island and he quickly hands me a Starbucks brief. Chills. My first real brief after two years of fake ones at The Circus. We worked our butts of on that brief – had some kick-ass ideas, and of course, Starbucks decided to go in an entirely different direction. They’d get back to us in a week or so with the revised brief.

We never heard from Starbucks again.

Then began the lull…

Jason would get an AT&T banner ad or two to work on… with basically the only copy decisions being “do you go with the traditional ‘click for more,’ or do you do something daring, like ‘for more info, click here.” oooooo… exciting.

This was Baby Fight! We were fighting for actual, full time jobs at BBDO! We had no idea how we were being judged. Were they keeping track on what we worked on? Were there hidden camera in the walls? So Jason & I emailed just about everyone at BBDO, introduced ourselves and asked to help with anything and everything. I felt like that kid in David Copperfield asking for the soup. “Please sir, can I have some more?”

It worked! Soon we were working on BBDO’s new acquisition – Duncan Hines. We thought up tons of cool ideas for their new frostings and glazes. And of course all Duncan Hines wanted was a banner ad. But it’s all good because we got in good with the Duncan Hines Creative Directors, who were also the CDs for M&M’s. And, long story short, one of our M&M’s scripts made passed BBDO’s ECD, passed the client presentation, and passed the presidents of M&M’s and Mars Global. There’s one more round, which is apparently God. 

Then there was the password campaign that wouldn’t die, (an internal campaign to get employees not to share their passwords – but it’ll going to hang in all the BBDOs all over the world) and some sweet HBO an AT&T projects, and a perpetual stream of little projects and people asking us for help on stuff. Weeks would fluctuate from being so busy we’d forget what day it is and being so bored I’d almost memorized everyone Facebook status updates.

But all the while, we kept our eyes on Goodby. One day in September, out of the blue, I get a call from Carol Vick, telling me to expect a call from the Goodby Detroit recruiter. She calls, we chat, and she wants to Skype with Jason & I. 

It wasn’t till halfway though the Skyping that I realized she was actually interviewing us… 

The Goodby Story (pt. 1)

One week from today I’ll be off to my first day at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in Detroit.

I’ve told this story a million times, but now it has a happy ending :)

(And since you already know the happy ending and I’m ridonkulously tired and can’t see myself completing the story tonight, we’ll do this in a semi-Tarantino Style.)

It all started in New York back in May at the Art Director’s Club portfolio review. Publicis had just won the Chevy account and were looking to do some mad hiring.

Being from Detroit, growing up immersed in all the American auto industry has to offer, and having a secret obsession with American cars, um… yay? May I please come work for you? Pretty, pretty please?

It was set. Recruiters liked me, liked Jason. They’d acquired about 70% of Chevy thus far, about to receive the rest. Nothing could go wrong…except for a teensie weensie little matter that good old Ad Age brought to my attention.  .  .  .  .  .

A week later, GM’s brand new VP of marketing decided his first order of business would be to strip Publicis of its recent win and award Chevy to Goodby.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHBUT WAIT! After another week or so, rumors started popping up on the internet that GS+P was going to open a Detroit office to handle the Chevy account. My interest re-perked :)

I began bugging the GS+P recruiters for more info about this potential new office, and was told I’d have to be patient to find out more. Play the waiting game. I am not a fan of the waiting game.

And, having graduated, it was to be “The Waiting Game: The Home Version.”

My belongings and I were off to my Mom’s in Grosse Ile, MI, and I began anxiously looking for a job somewhere. Anywhere! I just wanted to work SOOO bad! And with like $5 in my checking account and my credit card maxed from May’s trip to NYC and the 68947692690480 trips to Sam Flax, I needed cash! (Oh, and if you find yourself in a similar situation, don’t go snooping around on Craigslist in the ‘gigs’ section… people post some nasty things that they’re willing to pay for!)

The first week of July was spent nervously pondering life’s questions, pestering Team Detroit to let me work on Ford, resisting the urge to snoop around Craigslist, talking to recruiters I’d met in May… but then, Jason calls & says to expect a call from BBDO NY. They told him to bring in a writer. An hour or so later the call came & was quite short… no interview, no questions about my portfolio. Basically, when can you start? You’re already a week behind in your internship!

So, without further ado, I was off to NY…

Tales from NJ Transit

I’m getting used to my commute from NJ into NYC each morning. It takes about an hour to get into the city, and I usually get a seat all to myself, except for this morning. In Newark, a Halle Barry-esque woman with a huge purse sat next to me, which was fine since the train was quite full by this point.

Now what I HATE is when the mode of transportation reaches its final destination (this holds true for planes as well) and your aisle-blocking seat partner is taking his or her sweet time disembarking. I am not a patient person, but Ms. Barry decided to let the entire train car leave before she even started tidying up her purse items… and I had to pee like a mofo… and there wasn’t enough space to squeeze… AHHH!!! MOVE IT BI-ATCH!!! 

Ok. Venting complete. 

I <3<3<3<3<3 NY!!!

So I’ve been in NYC for almost three days now and am still overwhelmed by how amazing this place is! BBDO NY is so cool- basically my morning walk takes me from Penn Station, right through Time Square, past Rockefeller Center, NBC Studios, Radio City Music Hall and tons of Broadway plays I’m dying to see! The only thing is that of course we’re in the middle of a heat wave and it’s been 304038698686975958 degrees, but hopefully it’ll cool down as the work load piles up. 

Working at BBDO… :) I’m so happy I made the decision to go into advertising. 5 years of school finally paid off! FUN FUN FUN!!! 

Ok, back to work!!!