Things I learned by launching my own creative shop

I had no idea how many hours I'd spend sucking down coffees at Starbucks

Starting a business is like having a baby – you can't help but to pass yourself as an expert once you get started. This isn't one of those posts, though. Truth is, you start a business knowing nothing, and you likely close shop just as educated.

But I have learned a few things in the short life of Storm the Castle Creative; things I wish I knew going in, and things I'd have never known were it not for good friends. Since I am you're good friend, I share my new wisdom with you. 

1. Absorb the knowledge of your peers. I'd be absolutely nowhere without the insight given to me by friends in the business (looking at you Kitbash and Cody Scott Productions). From setting up my G-Suite business services to learning how to properly invoice a client, the people who have "Been There, Done That" are your most valuable mentors.
2. Stay in touch. Resist the urge to "do it on your own." Your former co-workers and clients are powerful sources of advice and excellent business leads. Call them. Invite them to lunch. Grab a few beers. And listen. 
3. Don't make stagnant hours unproductive. You likely won't start with a full portfolio of clients. You'll have stretches of maddening inactivity that will make you question your life's new direction. Rather than go completely mad, use the still hours to build your website, set up lunches, polish your LinkedIN – work on your brand. 
4. Bank. Lawyer. Accountant. You may be a brilliant creative, but maybe you're not much of a business person. (I'm not.) You need business banking accounts. You need to incorporate. You need to understand how taxes affect you. Visit these professionals and make their wisdom yours. 
5. Appreciate your worth. Your first instinct out of the gate will be to lower your worth to attract business. Don't. If you start your business cut-rate, you will have to dig yourself from a cut-rate reputation. Also, you might be tempted to divulge your ideas when putting together proposals. Don't. Your time and your ideas are your primary assets. Don't give them away.
6. Force yourself to "be on." As an agency writer, I wrapped myself inside a cocoon of creativity. Now I'm in business, and I have to be on. Don't ignore phone calls. Remember your follow-up emails. Be engaging and charming in mixed company. Your business will pull you out of your comfort zone. Embrace the discomfort and learn. 

I still have so much to learn, and I spend way too much time contemplating mistakes – real or perceived. If you have it all figured out, let me know.

I'd love to take you out to lunch.

Brands can be brave.

Jeremy Harper is Chief Instigator of Storm the Castle Creative who spends his free time staring into space. 

The many forms and legitimate function of advertising stereotypes

Recent news in advertising has centered on regulating stereotyping in advertising. I have two sons. Advertising stereotypes concerns me, especially when they perpetuate ideals detrimental to society’s growth.

A post in Adweek took on Carl’s Junior advertising as a prime example. Cartoonishly sexist with its bikini-clad models jamming enormous hamburgers into their mouths, the Carl’s Junior brand has long been “Exhibit A” for advertising’s negative use of stereotypes. It’s effort to reform and focus on food is applauded.

But there is a case for stereotypes.

For creatives, the stereotype is the launching point for a message that must be delivered quicker than a synapses can snap. For example, thanks to a decades-long diet of Homer Simpson and Peter Griffen, we’re all well aware that suburban Dads are a dopey, selfish slovenly lot with soft guts and an unending appetite for beer.

We all look this, right guys?

That single stereotype has given birth to a billion television commercials, ranging from beer and cable TV packages to deodorant and potato chips. And we’ll keep on perpetuating this stereotype. Why? Consumers seem to like it.

In fact, there are many stereotypes to which consumers gravitate: Sensible Mom, Hip Minority, Wisecracking Teen, Nosey Neighbor, Funky Grandma, Precocious Kid, Fun Loving Girlfriends, Savvy Millennial, Grouchy Father-In-Law. Why won’t they go away?

Two reasons: consumers eat them up and ad agencies find it cost effective to spoon it ‘em out. After all, the majority of advertising isn’t meant to nudge society forward. It’s designed to connect with consumers in very broad ways. To stray from stereotypes is to take a risk. Considering the cost of a 30-second TV spot, most clients are willing to exchange a stab at the avant gard for a proven commodity.

Stereotypes aren’t going way, but they can evolve. Dopey Dad can acquire a few IQ points. Father-In-Laws can lighten up and Precocious Kids can speak more like real kids. But don’t count on too many Carl’s Junior transformations. Somebody has got to sell the burgers.

Push Your Brand Forward Five Years

A couple years ago, I was working on conceptualizing a television spot for a small (but rapidly growing) brand.  Many people in the room seemed to carry a pre-conceived view about the brand, often dismissing and even smirking at concepts that placed the brand in an elite light.

Jump into your time machine and concept five years into the future. 

“Come on,” was a common assessment. “That’s not who they are. Be realistic.”

Rather than build up the client, there seemed to be a greater focus on bringing the brand down to earth. I suggested that we focus on what the brand aspired to be. Why? Because this is how we want our consumers to view our brand.

Aspired Advertising accepts that we as advertisers aren’t 60 Minutes. Our lot is to enhance the image. Though we should never embellish the brand beyond disbelief, we should proceed using the brand’s potential as the base.

Here are three Aspired Advertising tips that can accelerate the process:

1.    Move the brand up five years. Never start at the brand’s current state, but imagine where the brand could be in five year’s time. It will have grown, right? Become stronger. More attractive.  Start with tomorrow.

2.    Push to be bold. Many clients are modest to a fault, hoping that consumers will organically see and accept their beautiful attributes. Instead, be brazen and bold; as bold as your audience. For they do not wish to associate with tepid brands. 

3.    Respect a brand’s challenges. Small brands that take on the Brand Establishment are brands deserving respect. Take up the creative sword and adopt their cause. View the battlefield through their lens. Then you will work to elevate your creative to the brand’s aspirations.

Bonus advice: If you can’t be excited for the brand, tap out. It’s okay. Find a brand that stokes your fire. 

Confessions of a Macho Marketer

I can do macho. Don't let the hipster hat fool you. I've chopped wood. I've been known to eat a rare steak. I once popped my own jammed thumb back into socket and only cried for an hour. 

Are men really on the sum of that one part?

In advertising, writers are sometimes required to perform Macho Marketing, which is to fluff the chest hair of a product or service. The creative brief reads something like this:

AUDIENCE: Men, TONE: Manly, DUE: ASAP

For nearly 20 years, I've pumped iron for dozens of brands, in categories ranging from power-tools to golf tournaments, men's hair cuts to hunting. Over the years, I've noted a number of trends associated with Macho Marketing. We men are simple creatures, content with our grilling and overstuffed recliners, subservient to the intelligent practicality of the women of our lives (if secure in our belief in our superior upper body strength). We're not "politically correct," though we're resigned to be seen antiquing with our spouses if it means being allowed to watch a football game later in the day. 

We ignore our rising blood pressure, our weakening hearts, and our bad cholesterol, but place the utmost importance on maintaining an erection that lasts just short of three hours. 

We look terrific without a shirt. Except when we don't, and that's cool too. We're unafraid to show our adorable dopey side, willing to set aside all sensibility for the sake of an enormous television we can't afford. Oh, we do speak knowledgeably on the important topics: beer, sports, mowing grass, grilling. We're only made completely helpless when asked to watch our kids or to make a reasonable decision about home decor.

We go big or not at all! We admire the imagination of the dudes who transform backyards into hockey rinks. Our heroes wrestle bears and bungee jump from bald eagles. We ignore our rising blood pressure, our weakening hearts, and our bad cholesterol, but place the utmost importance on maintaining an erection that lasts just short of three hours. 

Hand us a pistol and we'll shoot you a bullseye. Send us for groceries and we'll come home with frozen pizzas. Request romance and receive tickets to a monster truck show. It's all good, because we're men, as noted by our baseball cap worn backwards.

Yes, I am an unrepentant Maestro of Macho Marketing, and I have the beer-breath to prove it. Should I be worried that I've contributed to an industry that has whittled an entire generation down to a Horrible Hagar cartoon? Should I not probe deeper into the male psyche and learn his secret yearnings, his hidden talents, his deepest wishes for his enduring legacy?

Nah. (Burrrrrp)

Courting Rejection: a creative's cruel mistress

Many years ago, as a young and dumb copywriter living in Memphis, I was hired by an ad agency whose lead writer was moving to the distant metropolis of Kansas City. We sat together in her office, surrounded by her nicknacks and tchotchkes, reviewing all the clients she would soon leave behind.

"Have you found a new agency in KC?" I asked, making polite smalltalk.

She shook her head. "Nah."

"Easing into it?"

"Nope. I'm actually enrolling in veterinarian school."

She was no hack. She had done great work in Memphis. Her career in advertising seemed golden. I was stunned to learn she was abandoning it for a lifetime of treating lyme disease.

You get older, you understand. Your stomach becomes too soft to take any more blows. The acceptance you once so desperately craved – the jealousy of peers, the praise from clients, the acknowledgment from the agency's elite – transitions to something simpler: the primal need to please yourself.

Rejection is a creative's coy and cruel mistress. She leads you one with faint platitudes before leaving you alone at the table with a sheet of white paper stained with red ink and vague redirection. A relationship with Rejection is exhausting and punishing. Early on, you endure it because you like the challenge. And because you're stupid. You think you have the energy and charm to woo her. Win her over.

But Rejection never evolves. She refuses to adopt your perspective or even try to work it out. Rejection only wants you to conform to her. There is no give and take. No 50/50. She'll toss you a scrap before taking her pound of flesh.

The sizzling relationship eventually becomes an emotionless business arrangement. Rejection keeps your work honest and maybe even profitable, but the romance is gone. You've received too many eye rolls and snide remarks to consider Rejection anything more than a not-silent-enough partner.

And that's how you endure in advertising. Rejection knocks, and you coldly open the door and invite her inside. She'll talk and talk and talk. You'll nod and agree at the right places. The things she says hurts because much of it is true.

But you can still surprise her. Every now and then, you respond with something sharp and clever and reminiscent of those days when you thought everything you wrote was sharp and clever, and a genuinely sweet smile appears on Rejection's ruby lips

You still got it, handsome. Now give me two alternatives.

When people ask me how to get a job in advertising, they rarely ask me again

About twice a year, I'm approached by an old friend or a distant acquaintance or a complete stranger wanting some great advice for breaking into advertising as a writer. When I give it, I rarely see any follow up.

Because here's the secret: you either got it, or you don't. Writing is an attitude and not a skill.  

Honestly, you have to believe you can tell a story better than anyone else. 

I'm in advertising. Ask me anything. 

I've been around a lot of great ad writers, and none of them graduated from an advertising school. A couple were bartenders. One sold leather luggage. Another was a bicycle salesman. I closed refinance loans. My brother, who's a great ad writer, was a manager at freaking JC Penney. 

How do you get a copywriting job? (Shrugs)

Hound all the creative directors in town (and out of town) and bug them for an internship. Write them letters. Drop by before lunch. Like their Instagram photos. Admit you know nothing but imply that the condition won't last long. When you get the internship, don't be a douche. 

Some will say you should find a fledgling art director and bang out a portfolio of sketch work. That doesn't hurt. I created my own layouts. With colored pencils. While drinking happy-hour beer at a crappy bar in Little Rock. 

See, I thought I could tell the story better than anyone. Writing is an attitude.

4 things advertising creatives can learn from Donald Trump's surprising presidential victory

There are three popular topics for which I cannot even fake expertise: Grey's Anatomy, The Teapot Dome Scandal of 1921, and politics. Read assured that you won't receive penetrating political analysis from this guy.

If "The Donald" knows anything, it's branding. 

But Donald Trump's election, which came as a surprise to many in the know (including, reportedly, to Mr. Trump himself) bears unexpected lessons for advertising creatives. While you may (or may not) embrace the result of the election, you can at least benefit from the outcome's wisdom.

1. Never underestimate the competition. No matter how much marketshare your client possesses, it is a grave mistake to sleep on upstarts. Do not get comfortable.
2. Behold the power of a simple message. "Make America Great Again" isn't exactly Shakespeare, but it struck a chord with Mr. Trump's consumers. Despite the criticism often hurled at the slogan, the Trump Campaign stubbornly remained loyal to it until it became ingrained into Trump's brand.
3. Market research is not always to be trusted. Mr. Trump is the President elect despite nearly every poll indicating that such an outcome was an impossibility. The election proved that the polling process is fatally flawed. Market research is useful, but it's not infallible. Question everything.
4. You are never, ever the target audience. The Democrats failed in part because they spent too much time talking to themselves and not enough time gauging the pulse of the market. Just because you fail to see value in a product or service doesn't mean that the product or service isn't valued by a great many people. Stop being an elitist snob and listen.

That's it. That's pretty much all creatives can learn from this long, messy, dispiriting presidential race. Except maybe this: never talk politics at work. That's a miserable hour you'll never get to bill.