Matthew Toebelmann, art director, 10 feet tall: Admission to Adland; A guide for future creatives
By Matthew Toebelmann (left), art director, 10 feet tall, Melbourne
Whether you’re a uni student, a recent graduate or a creative/award school gun, breaking into the advertising industry is most likely going to be a challenging, eye opening yet extremely rewarding experience.
As an up and coming creative, I commonly get asked by aspiring art directors and copywriters if I have any tips, tricks or words of wisdom to help them get their foot in the door or unlock their dream job. From these recent questions, I decided to write a small article based on my experiences over the past few years in breaking into the industry. This article will hopefully give young creatives some insight and guidance for the upcoming journey they face. Everybody’s path is going to be different, but there is one thing we all have in common… we all once started at the bottom.
1. Good things come to those who hustle.
The most common thing I remember hearing around young creatives or my fellow peers whilst studying was their grand plan to land a sweet internship when they have finished their degree or creative school of choice. Don’t get me wrong, in theory this is a cracker plan… but the advertising world is one competitive beast, so you should be looking to gain a head start or advantage wherever you can. If you’re in your final year of study, get networking. If you’re in a creative school, get networking. If you’re enrolling for a creative school, get networking. My point is, the sooner you start getting to know the industry and the people involved, the easier your transition will be. Industry nights like the MADC Presents are a great starting point for you to venture out and build new connections. These nights are also great to gain insight into some of the various trending topics or discussions that are currently happening in our industry. Some say that good things come to those who wait, but I personally think Lincoln was more accurate when he stated, “Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” So get out there and start showing people you know who and what you’re about.
2. Search for a boss, not a job.
One of the most important things in life and key factor to building the strongest foundation you possibly can in this industry is good guidance. If there is one thing you take away from the article, I want it to be this. I am fortunate enough to have been brought up with amazing guidance and support from my parents, granting me this early knowledge when I begun my first steps into the industry. You’re not going to be able to do everything straight away, so aligning yourself with the best people in the industry is going to boost your knowledge, skills and direction. Research is paramount. Start researching everyone and everything in regards to your desired field or direction. Sources like Campaign Brief, Best Ads and AOTW are great early starting points for young creatives to discover and keep up to date with. Getting to know these sources will not only keep you relevant, but also help you follow creatives and agencies that are of interest to you. It only feels like yesterday that I was in my bedroom with a pen, highlighter and notebook building my industry wish list of personnel and agencies I wanted to start working with. Stop thinking and start searching.
3. Sparking Interest
So you’ve smashed out a shitload of research, made a sick list of who’s who and have now narrowed your search on where and who you want to work with. Now (assuming you have your folio/book/website under control) is the time to get your foot in the door, even literally! Creative Directors are constantly flooded with emails, resumes, links and packages on a day-to-day basis from hungry creatives looking for a break. Whether you send an email, resume, link or package the only mandatory I can advise is to make it memorable. The best ads in the world are the most memorable. The best moments in life become the most memorable. So when it’s time to spark interest and connect with the industry, make it memorable. You’d be surprised what a little effort and thought can achieve.
4. Persistence.
A few days, weeks or possibly even months have gone by and you feel like you’re getting nowhere. The response hasn’t nearly been as strong as you initially thought it would be and old mate Doubt is starting to enter your mind. If you find yourself at this point, like many young creatives will, just remind yourself of what you’re trying to achieve and definitely don’t get deterred. You want to be enthusiastic, driven and motivated but also not come on too strong or persistent. The key is to find the sweet spot and be smart about how you conduct yourself. Another good note is to always remember to follow up your calls, emails and invitations, as you never know whom you might bump into or what opportunity might arise in the future.
5. Cutting your teeth.
The hustle may have been arduous, but you can see the beginnings of light at the end of the tunnel. After a few phone calls, interviews, day trials or even some sneaky gin, you’ve convinced the CD of your choice that you’re the man or woman for the job. If you haven’t heard of the saying to ‘cut your teeth’, it means getting your first experience of a particular type of work and learning the basic skills. Internships tend to spark many forms of opinion and debate amongst society and the industry, especially in regards to paid or unpaid work. The thing is, no matter what you read or whomever you speak to, opinions are always going to be divided. At the end of the day it comes down to you, your lifestyle and the benefit you believe you can gain from the agency you’re interning at. In my opinion, when you’re starting out and building a foundation for your career, experience is worth a great deal more than a money figure. Keep that one in mind.
Good luck and we may just bump into each other in the future.
11 Comments
I’d add a couple of things to this.
Warning, these are old-school.
1. Find a writer / art director and team up. Make sure you get along with them.
2. Look at the work every agency produces and write a shortlist of the agencies who are doing the kind of work you want to do. No matter who the CD is, if the agency isn’t producing great work there might be other problems there – suits and clients.
3. Once you’ve decided which agencies you want to target, go through their client list and look at the ads they’re doing. Crack at least ten ideas for each client the agency has. Work with your writer / art director doing this. Then shortlist the killer ideas.
4. Get your book in front of the right people. Recruiters like talented, hard working people so start with them.
5. Follow it up. Keep cracking more ideas for the companies you’ve shortlisted and send them to them. But only send good ones.
6. Start at the bottom but treat every brief as an opportunity to prove yourself. Even if there isn’t a creative opportunity, use it as an opportunity to show your CD how well you can write (and edit), match a brand’s time of voice (important), spell-check, condense and grammar check correctly. Use it as an opportunity to show how clean you can make a layout look. Because the next point is important…
7. Like everything in life, you have to be meticulous. Small details mean a big deal. If the CD can’t trust you to write some social copy without proof-reading your own work, they won’t trust you to write that awesome brand script. Similar with Art Direction. Be the one who picks up mistakes and fixes them. You’ll stand out from all the other sloppy louts in the place and people will start wanting to work with you more.
8. You are there to make everyone else’s job easier. Not to win awards, be the next David Droga or pick up interns. You are there to do your job, do it well then do it even better the next day. Focus on this and you will rise up the chain very quickly.
9. Good luck.
HAH maybe you ‘be selective’ in syd and melbs, but for Brisbanites my only advice… is GTFO out of Brisbane.
There are about 50 roles in the whole city, and even then you’ll be stuck working on clients who’ll make you want to kill yourself after 6 months.
From the above, two things stand out.
1). Persistance. If you really do what to work in advertising, fight for it.
2). If you want to be a writer, learn how to write – not ideas, nail spelling and grammar first.
Be better than the rest – whether that’s simply being more persistent, more passionate, more committed, more interested, more helpful or if you’re one of the lucky ones, more creative.
for those who want to have a proper career in advertising, all you need are ideas. not spelling, cool powerpoint decks or whizzy websites. i promise you this, kids. ideas. nothing else.
A good idea is nothing without craft. Sure you might have great ideas, but if you need other people to do all your work for you, you won’t go far.
I’m curious. Why are people so fired up to get into advertising these days?
Sure it was fun and rewarding when I started out many many years ago.
But I’ve been a creative for over 30 years now. And, comparatively, the fun has gone and the money isn’t that great.
This is a serious enquiry.
Why do you young chaps and chapettes want to get into an industry that will reject most of what you do, exploit your keen-ness by over-working you, pay you less now that you would have been paid 20 years ago, and generally treat you like shit?
Is it because the alternatives are even worse?
@Old Fart With 30 odd under your belt, maybe it’s time for people like you to influence the fun, bank and drive of the younger generation to build a better industry?
You are right that ideas are king.
However; two teams with equal ideas. One has a solid design and writing background and on top of that a few examples they can carry it off in their folio. The other is fresh out of award school with no craft skills. Guess which team will be hired?
These days, designers are seen as a luxury and copy-assistants / proofreaders don’t exist. If you can’t wipe your own arse so to speak, someone else who can will take your job.
Agreed. But have a look around your agency and tell me how many unpaid people under the age of 25 are in your department. How many were there ten years ago? Twenty years ago?
How many young people have a blog / Instagram / YouTube channel and make a killing doing that instead?
Now look at money: How many agencies have alternate revenue streams that keep the money flowing in when the work isn’t? Remember when agencies would ‘invest’ in new products (pro bono work) in return for a percentage of revenue? When they owned the media agency?
The money is still there, it’s just siphoned off by greedy London / New York / Paris / Chicago bankers who’ve hustled the crap out of everyone, while the CFOs are earning more than ever.
Agree ideas are king. But if you can’t write to save yourself I will not hire you. All that tells me is that you’re either lazy or unintelligent or sloppy. None interests me.
Also I think this article focuses too much on networking and so on. Personally there’s nothing I like less than someone schmoozing me when their book is average. If your ideas and craft are strong and you’re an intelligent, nice person, you won’t need to schmooze. Just keep showing up and you’ll find a role.
Be white.