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Pigeon Holed

by Olivia McKinsey
Monday, January 30, 2006. 05:59AM
1,049 Views 9 Comments

Have you ever found yourself in a position that became both extremely flattering and down right offensive all in the same breath?
Unfortunately, I think it's a part of agency life. I came into the game with direct response experience that no one else in the agency had really developed. I have strived in it and, I can't believe I'm about to write this, direct response has been very good to me.
However, the student in me wants to do branding. Get into the cool sponsorships, product integration, never been done before executions. I want to be able to hit the sky with my ideas without exactly having to measure the performance of my campaign on how many online orders I have generated.
Does anyone have any advise on how I can do this within my current agency?

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Comments

 9 shown
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 05:59PM by michael Iva
Ok Olivia, now, it's time to put the 'power of negative motivation' to work for you. It's called the, "I told to so" and/or "I'll show you" principles. No more talking or worrying or complaining, it's time to simply do it. Get your spec book and pitch together. (Or, find a big client that wants your kind of branding, and bring that piece of new business into your agency. This would of course guarantee the elimination of all stereotypes and other nonsense you might, or might not face.)
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 03:41PM by Thom Cordner
We all have to fight stereotypes. You. Me. Jim Carey. A personal injury attorney.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 02:35PM by Sara Soseman
Man, creatives really only think this stuff happens to them, don't they? We media folks can get pigeon holed too.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 02:30PM by Thom Cordner
Jumping from Direct Response into branding is a sticky-wicket because there is a perceived creative hierarchy and if you read what happened to the nasty CD in "Dry", you know exactly what branding creatives think about DR creatives. But I think to jump you need one of two things: (1) a spec book devoid of DR, or (2) a really great hybrid DR campaign that is just seen as a really innovative and creative communication. And just to be clear, I mean creative and innovative in comparison to annual-worth advertising, not just in comparison to other DR campaigns. Use DR to really illustrate a deeper insight into a product or brand. A lot of really intriguing ideas, award winning even, are kinda DR, or kinda media-inspired cooperatives.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 10:36AM by Sara Soseman
Do it! Do it! No advice from me - if you've done such a great job in one area, you'd sure hope people who decide such things would trust you to give the branding experiment a go as well. You should make your wants known.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 07:39AM by michael Iva
Direct Response and Media are both very creative, if done well. Anything, done well, is creative. I hate labels too. Labels cannot define everything that is inside. No one really knows what is inside, until they sample something. Olivia, try Branding. Branding certainly needs and can use all the direct response expertise it can get. Eventually, an image needs some type of a response, a connection to reality. Selling is what every aspect of the advertising business is all about, or should be.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006. 06:27AM by Marc Lefton
Ha I guess I didn't take a good look at your profile, but I'll still consider you a creative if you want. I consider media to be creative, at least how I do it...
Monday, January 30, 2006. 04:07PM by Olivia McKinsey
Wow! I take it completely as a compliment that you called me a creative! Thanks, Marc!!!
Monday, January 30, 2006. 02:26PM by Marc Lefton
I think in order to do anything you haven't done before as a creative, you need a book for it. Try doing a spec book of all concept/branding stuff and keep your direct marketing stuff in another book to show that you do that too. When you're good, it means you're talented enough to cross over from genre to genre but people hiring assume you are just as dumb as they are...a careerlong frustration of mine. I'm actually pigeonholed into humor/branding which makes people think I can't sit down and do a serious ad. Also, within your own company, just see if they are doing the stuff you want to, grab a brief and work on it. That's how I got a lot of my experience--just seeing what people were working on and doing my own versions. No one complained they had more ideas to choose from.

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