Category: advertising

3+2 Things: The +1

Karen1 Comment

I haven’t been blogging about my 3 quantitative and 2 qualitative goals for the year of being 32 very much, but I’ve been working on them behind the scenes. Remember the first qualitative goal?

+1. Be happier in my work
This is qualitative for now because I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to be happier. Just an attitude adjustment? Some internal changes at my current job? A different ad gig? A radical career shift? I’ve been pondering this for a while now, but I’m still “living my way into the answer.”

Well, Rilke will be happy to know that I finally found the answer: As of Monday I’m starting a new job as a writer. I’m leaving ad agency life and software clients (and downtown SLC) behind and going to work in-house at a craft company. It’s a big change, but I think it was time to shake things up–and I’m pretty excited about it. 

Friday Unrelated Information

Karen

1. Here’s a fiesty (and profane) piece about the benefits of working in advertising if you’re creative. The writer makes some good points:
You can try to make it with your band or be a novelist in your free time. But during the day, you may as well learn about how to work creatively with other people, and how to accept rejection and outright failure, even if you still think that Verizon catalog copy you wrote was a masterpiece.

2. Being Easter weekend, it’s time for my annual religious experience: listening to Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

3. It’s also this guy’s first Easter (and nearly his first birthday)! I had to resist buying him the bunny ears costume I saw at Target.

Because obviously he doesn’t need ANY clothes to be cute!

Friday Unrelated Information

Karen2 Comments

1. Have you seen Animals Talking in All Caps yet? ALL CAPS MAKES THINGS FUNNY! (OK, no always, but this one makes me laugh so much. It’s how I feel about IKEA, too.)

2. Recently, I noticed that Jack Daniels had changed its bottle shape and label a little. (Hey, I buy whiskey pretty frequently.) Here’s a case study of the brand refresh by the agency that did it. Nice work–I especially love the new copy bits on the side panel (under “A Refined Identity).

3. And speaking of advertising, how about some Don Draper nihilism to kick off the weekend? You’ll have to click through and wait through an ad (how meta!) but it’s worth it to hear him say, “What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.”

I Want To Write For The Ball Cookbook Company

Karen

Thanks to generous family and friends with fruit trees, I have both peaches and pears to can this week, which means I had to break out the canning cookbooks. Before this, I’ve skipped the chapter introductions in The Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, but now I know what I’ve been missing. From the chapter introduction to “High-Acid Foods”:

As you gaze with pride on the colorful jars in your pantry packed with nature’s best, the sense of accomplishment you feel is rivaled only by the sumptuous goodness you’ll enjoy when you unseal them–for one delicious meal after another.

Or consider the lead to the “Soft Spreads” chapter:
Preserving is about more than food. When your home is filled with the fragrant aroma of sweet spreads simmering on the stove, you are preserving memories that last a lifetime.

Questionable use of “sumptuous” notwithstanding, well done, Ball Cookbook Writer. You are selling the hell out of the concept of home canning. Maybe I need to join your team, because I haven’t been able to muster that sort of enthusiasm for technology, hotels, or insurance benefits in a long time.

Wouldn’t That Make A Cheesy Mess?

Karen3 Comments

Over the weekend I read the most head-scratching headline I’ve ever encountered:



In the words of Inigo Montoya, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Smite” of course has the Biblical/archaic usage of “defeat or conquer,” but according to the dictionary it also means “to strike with a firm blow.” But does that meaning make this headline make any more sense? NO.

I mean…how does this get approved and go into national circulation in the Sunday ads? I’d love to have heard the copywriter explain this.

It’s OK To Be A Cat Guy

Karen

I think people should just own their crazy cat lady (or man) tendencies, but apparently there’s still some barriers to overcome. That’s why I like this series of ads for a California animal rescue telling us, “It’s OK to be a cat guy.” No, they’re not subtle. But there are cats. And guys.

My Job Is Great, Except When It’s Not

Karen2 Comments

Writing for a living sounds difficult and mysterious, but the truth of the matter is, it’s pretty easy for me. Except when it isn’t. My agency job is usually great, but there are times when writing for clients is like the most dreaded and tedious school paper you’ve ever been assigned–if that school paper went on for weeks and you had to make sure the paper made your professor money and you had to act really excited about the whole process and your ability to pay your mortgage depended on the grade you got.

Which is why I was so happy to see this last week: a graph of the levels of fun involved in the writing process. Let me tell you, it’s 100% accurate–especially that last step.


(click for bigger–from the Not Exactly Rocket Science blog, found via BoingBoing).

In Which I Gave A Presentation And It Was OK

Karen2 Comments

In maybe the most “professional” moment of my career to date, I went to a college marketing class last night and talked to them about brands. I had a PowerPoint prepared–with animations! I had speakers notes! I brought in a 1995 J. Peterman catalog as a prop! I answered grad students’ questions!

I was afraid it would be like this, but it actually went pretty well.

There are four kinds of business. Tourism. Food service. Railroads. And sales.