#admerica

[gregkihlstrom]

AAF National Technology Advisory committee with Chair Greg Kihlstrom, SVP Digital Yes&, a marketing agency in Washington DC.

[carousel30-blog]

AAF National Technology Advisory committee with Chair Greg Kihlstrom, SVP Digital Yes&, a marketing agency in Washington DC.

[yaboykeyes]

I'm in the doctor's office, and a commercial of the news comes on (tv's on channel ABC). They show what will be shown later like always, then get to a clip of a cop beating up someone on the ground. You can see them pounding away at them! And as the newscaster was about to describe the type of person he was hitting, they cut to a commercial of Anderson Cooper dancing with a host on a morning show lol....

[thebrandternexperience]

Pizza and Pop Culture

Yo internet creepers. Cole here. Account planning brandtern/office mooch, and this is my first blog post.

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to attend ADMERICA in Las Vegas. ADMERICA is where a bunch of advertising professionals get together and recognize/award some of the best work in the industry. I heard from one of the weekend’s keynote speakers: Jared Drinkwater. He’s VP of Marketing at Pizza Hut, and he talked openly about the realities of the marketing and advertising industries. I furiously took notes during the presentation and outlined some of the key points he had to offer below.

Nobody Gives a Cattle Cookie About What You Say.

No one cares.  It's true. People are busy. They have a million voices yelling a million things at them every day, and they don't care about what we, or our clients, have to say. Drinkwater said it sucks, but that's just the way this industry is.

You’ll create statements and guidelines and brand theories that won’t exactly solve world peace. See below:

https://vimeo.com/46314038

You’ll spend time doing stuff that might make you question the value of your college degree.

Drinkwater went on to tell a story of how he spent six hours at a commercial shoot for Doritos. The entirety of his time on set was spent watching the same guy eat a corn chip and then proceed to exude confidence. Six hours of trying to get the perfectly crafted emotion post-Dorito swallow. Drinkwater said he questioned his professional existence the whole flight home.

You’ll be working 24/7 365 with little to no breaks.

Your brain never shuts off. As a marketer, you’re constantly looking for insights to sell your brand, and in this age of constant connection, those insights can be found literally everywhere, forcing you to always be on your toes.

But Don’t Panic.

Marketing is awesome.

You’ll get paid to dream big, not just perform a series of tasks. You’ll get to truly unleash your creativity every single day.

You’ll be at the epicenter of pop culture and help drive it.

And you have to be. It’s part of your job to know who the trending YouTube celebrity of the week is. This is as close to the fountain of youth as you’re going to get. Drinkwater shamelessly plugged Pizza Hut’s recent viral video on the dangers of the selfie stick.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fmQs37YqXg

Tooting one’s own horn? Absolutely. Showing how the best marketing people are helping drive pop culture? Even more so.

You’ll become a master communicator/storyteller at work and away from it.

From telling your kids a bedtime story to negotiating for a car, marketing is going to help you grow as a communicator. This benefits you as a professional and in the social realm. You’ll be like Michael Chrichton or J.K. Rowling, only less famous and not as rich ($175m and $1b respectively).

You’ll have the chance to reinvent yourself and your personal brand every single day.

That’s exciting. This industry is constantly evolving, and as a marketer you have to evolve with it.

If this sounds like a lot of fun, then you’re in the right place.

This speech validated why I’m working towards breaking into the world of advertising.

I want to create/disrupt pop culture.

Pop culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture. Culture is the way of life of a group of humans. What is Gatesman+Dave’s motto? Hacking Human Behavior.

Gatesman+Dave is the ultimate starting point for my pop-culture-disrupting journey. I’m looking forward to hacking human behavior while doing all of the things listed above (including being known for the best beddy-bye stories of all time).

[mintsocialmattobrien]

Vegas baby! #admerica (at McCarran International Airport)

[btown2boca-blog]

Day Three at Admerica/REcap

When you got past the pink walls and La Alhambra-influenced halls, your unfettered, childish excitement began to take a backseat to professional blinders that let you really appreciate the core of the American Advertising Awards.

The weekend didn't just revolve around the scenery of harbor/beach-side resorts with the white Atlantic waves crashing in on the perfectly manicured beach front.  Nor did it center around the presentation of the three-course meals we dined on accompanied by diligent servers who might as well have been refilling our glasses with gold.

It went deeper than that.

You could say the weekend was all about the influential keynotes speeches  that graced our ear holes with deep industry knowledge and touched our chest ticker with such moving words.  You could even say it was the impressive work honored at the awards ceremony.  Maybe even the unifying voice of the AAF bringing all of advertising's best together.

But who's behind that voice?

Who's the producer behind that brilliant, gilded work?  Who are the visionaries behind the speeches and keynote addresses?

The people.  When you boil it, bake it, stick it in a stew, the weekend was all about the people.

This industry is chock-full of eclectic misfits that make every day a new and weird opportunity.  Advertising is fueled by the kooks and creatives that make us want so badly to be a part of it.  And we got to meet them!

We were lucky enough to meet people who vocally criticized terrible typeface decisions on the bar menu where we were ordering drinks.

We also lightly debated the utility of the oxford comma in our rare poolside downtime.  These were the same people who could tell a good joke and share loyalties of Big Ten teams.  And above all else, we were fortunate enough to meet these people who inspired themselves to strive for good advertising great advertising.  And all the while these were the people that flirted with our intelligence and creativity...what a feeling!

We didn't just make business contacts and exchange cards.  Nay!  We made connections on an oddly professional-personal hybrid level.

In the near future, these people will be our coworkers, colleagues and (if not already) our friends.

[audreyberglund]

AAF District 11 HOTTIES!!! #admerica #aafposse #aafseattle #aafnational #aafdistrict11 #tcgseattle #tetherlife miss you @georiddell @aafseattle (at Boca Raton Beach)

[btown2boca-blog]

Day Two at Admerica

Recap in five sentences:

We heard more important people speak from AOL, Facebook and Coca-Cola.  Even though Indiana lost to Miami in the playoffs, another Indiana rep won the NSAC this year: Purdue!  We met some cool cats from the University of Texas on the bar crawl we took part in.  Also, met a Heat fan from Miami who had been to Kilroy's once upon a time.  Meow!