A post on the Google blog gave me an idea of what we can do to make things a bit better. The post talks of a field trip taken by some high school students to Google's Kirkland campus. It is written in first person by one of the visiting students (never mind that it reeked of PR speak - indicating more than just a little help from Google's PR team.)
One of the things the people at Google seem to have done is share the current projects they are working on with these visiting students. The examples the reporting student takes are pretty timid (again probably ratified to ensure sensitive information doesn't leak out) but it made me wonder about how often (or how infrequently, if at all) do we in advertising agencies share our current projects, thinking, inspiration, our learnings with anyone - let alone a bunch of starry-eyed students on a field trip?
Is it because we don't see magic or a purpose to what we do every day? Or is it because we don't care, don't know better and don't have the time? I suspect a bit of both but I suspect a lot more of the former.
Talking to kids about your work serves two purposes. One, it clears up your own thinking on the project at hand - sharing your work and seeing it from a kid's point of view has the simultaneous effect of simplifying it and making it profound.
Two, it enables a generation of kids to know what it is that we in the advertising industry do. Maybe when they finish college, they will have their sights set not on being a software professional or a hotshot banker but instead seek to shape opinions, persuade people and, probably, inspire the next generation of children.
3 comments:
Perhaps the biggest influence is what we do, and in particular, in the media that "They" choose to watch.
Advertising was built around charismatic souls. So i suppose in one part, it's neccesary to have "heroes" - those who will champion the profession and make it acceptable to belong to it.
hey iqbal, a fine point! in small measures at TBWA, Leo Burnett and David we have done this bit of sharing our POV, projects and thinking with students. Meraj and Pooja were part of these small but significant experiences...
For all the ills of the ad world, the blame squarely rests on the short-sightedness and lethargy of the senior folks and the ones running the business!
Planners( few of them) unfortunately have noble thoughts, but because of their non-profit role, are unable to wield the power to intiate substantive changes on a larger scale...
But yes, its possible at least to attract future-planners through field -trips and other display of knowledge/ thinking.
Both thotblurb, your blog, indiadrant and other planner blogs are indirectly reaching out( hopefully) to a larger audience...
We must also continually try to make 'Planning' and 'Agency life' sexy and interesting! any lessons from Bollywood there?
I agree that blogs do some of the work of explaining what we do (though I am not sure how much my own blogs actually achieve that with non-advertising folk.) Russell's blog I am sure inspires a lot of people around the world to consider advertising and planning.
Manish, would love to hear about what you did at TBWA/Leo Burnett and what you are doing at David. As you mention it's really hard to institutionalise these things without support from senior management. Would love to be a part of what you may be planning - in whatever capacity I can.
Harshal, Prasoon Joshi is a good example of someone making a case for advertising with his multi-talented presence across the board. But I was also talking about simple down-to-earth human to human interaction, a sharing of ideas, a twinkle in the eye - simply because you love what you do and you want the person across to see it. That will convey more about our industry than 'good media coverage' - which I must confess, also has its place.
Post a Comment