word of the day: grin

(v) the inexplicable upward curl of both sides of the mouth occuring upon reading the satirical truisms of my 9 to 5*...errrrr, 9 to 9 life.

*In reality, life at my current gig is mercifully honest and non-pretentious. And, as much as I yearn for surfboard tables and putt-putt courses with the 9th hold located directly underneath my very own desk, I very much enjoy the fact that we really are all about the work.

I am not going to lie, though. I have actually worked in a place that had a conference room called the Barn. I have actually worked in a place where my copywriter domain was referred to as "The Cave." And, I have actually worked in a place where the benefits package included 'cold beer in the fridge'. But that, of course, was pre- my post-traditional career.

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WELCOME TO OUR
BRANDING HOUSE.

BY FRANK FERRI

- - - -

You sure look the part. Short beard, tight-fitting thrift-store shirt, slim-fit jeans and large-framed glasses that scream "I'm hip!" I should hire you on appearance alone. But legally, I can't. Besides, there's a lot more to our shop than how we look and dress.

Our culture is very important. We have a culture. No red tape. No corporate layers. No bureaucratic bullshit. But it's not anarchy. It's a meritocracy, with tons of optimism and zero racism. We like diversity. My girlfriend is a pansexual black woman who was raised by Nepalese parents on the Stockholm Archipelago. She was educated in Perth before coming to the States via pneumatic tube.

We're a shop. Not an agency, not a firm − a shop. Other acceptable terms are "boutique interactive solutions studio pad," "branding house," or "post-branding branding garage."

That's another thing, we add "post" as a prefix to words − especially when interfacing with clients. Post-media, post-Internet solutions, etc. If you can't do that, then you're post-employed. Kidding. I'm a creative-type, I say creative things like that.

We drink coffee all day. We brew it in our retro-style kitchen, which is ironic. Post-ironic even.

We're post-Internet web strategists. And we only use Macs. We've got one PC, spray-painted silver. While working, we wear earphones and listen to post-stringed guitar neo-punk by an obscure meta-artist.

Our business practices are closely aligned with the Republican Party's way of thinking. But every pod (we don't use cubicles here, they stifle creativity) must have a picture or some figurine mocking the GOP. It shows our post-subversive, post-dissident, Post Cereal mindset.

Creative meetings − meetings! Listen to me. When we're in a creative sesh, we'll think of the same ideas as any other agency. But we sell our ideas like this: For a pedestrian website, we'll say, "This post-digital highly calibrated online meta-experience is a nod to the analog age, which guarantees a viral effect among the decision-makers in your industry and beyond by making sure your brand stands out in a world of post-font, post-blue, Post-Its." Doesn't have to make sense.

We'll create a blog on their site, a Facebook thingie, and talk about it being "a post-blog, post-social networking platform that inspires and spreads ideas so that your message sticks to your inter-generational, minimally attentive demo. But also reaches, bestrides and orbits other industries to capture the attention of a post-captive audience."

I like this talking point: "We drive traffic to clients' sites in a post-traffic, post-public transportation way in a highly post-visual, post-gustatory, pre-olfactory world. You'll notice everything we do stays true to the client's identity as our post-branding brand extension cords extend that identity into post-new media media post outlets."

Our seshes take place in the carport we built inside the office. Post-ironic, right? We used an aerospace-grade epoxy to adhere forty-five surfboards together for a table. Says, "Yeah whatever, brah, we know life's too short to worry about stuff." But it also says, "We still worry about stuff enough to build a table."

The indoor barn is also ironic. We do our visionary reviewages there. We stand and look at print ads, billboards, whatever, and say, "I think the one with the finer vertical line speaks more to the frontal cortex of the end-user because of its PoMo post-sovereign influence."

Or, "The Pantone color conjures a post-cognitive experience, which could foment a post-interpersonal meta bond between the consumer and the brand."

I like to bullshit in the barn. I'll say something uber-cultured like, "The ad is very Pierre Auguste Cot, while the billboard is so Abraham Mignon. Neither will register on a post-conscious level with our client's audience. They'll have a negative effect."

Everyone in the barn will agree with me even though they have no idea if the artists mentioned exist. One will say, "Totally, Mignon-esque. Can't believe I didn't think of that." Another will say, "I thought I was going too heavy Auguste Cot. Damn."

That cave? That's where the copywriters work. I know, you probably think all post-branding boutique branding neo-interactive podshop houses all have the stereotypical copywriters: the ones who sit there and write their destined-to-fail screenplays in Movie Magic. Not here. Our copywriters use Final Draft. Or Celtx.

The cave is where you'll be creating brilliant copy and concepts. Just one important rule: if our copywriters decide to sit outside for lunch, they must bring this copy of Finnegans Wake. Relax! You don't have to read it. You just have to look at random pages and pretend. Every few minutes nod and chuckle aloud, "Oh Joyce, you devil!" It sends a message that says, "Yeah, I write copy for the establishment, but I also read books that no one understands." Gives us a bit more intellectual cred.

If you're interested, I'd like to see if you have what it takes to write copy for our branding den/ad grotto − and our progressive, independent-minded clients. We need a postcard written for a little neighborhood grill that just opened. It's called Applebee's®. They want to promote their Carside to Go™ service. Go crazy with it. Have fun. Push the envelope − and get some papercuts doing it. Ha-ha. But seriously, just make sure you adhere to "The Applebee's®. Corporate Guidelines and Branding Policies," which is a huge document. I'll email you a PDF instead of printing it so I don't have to write a post-Earth Earth posting on my blog. Damn, I'm clever.

word of the day: website experience

(n) http://www.dayswithmyfather.com



Lately, I’ve been spending every waking – and I think, possibly sleeping – minute busting my brain to create more than just another website. To inspire even a few souls swimming through the worldwide web to see something bigger than themselves. To move someone to do more than simply send the link in an email to a friend. To provide an actual human experience through something as sterile and mechanical as an LCD screen.

Basically, I’ve been trying to figure out how to create this.

It helps me realize that digital stickiness is not always about Facebook apps and ringtone downloads. It’s not even about the simplicity and coolness of the navigation. (Though I love the way he did this.)

It’s about a feeling and an understanding. It’s about tapping into something deeper and more important than the fleeting impressions of a product or brand – and achieving a sense of true understanding and appreciation for the richness of life at large.

Thank you, Phillip Toledano.

word of the day: gen Y

(n): the class of kids entering the workplace who, quite simply, have no tolerance for the workplace.



A couple of years ago, I was featured as the poster child of Generation Y in an article in the Dallas Morning News. The article was so popular, so profound and so pioneering that it was syndicated in publications throughout America and ran for months. It hailed my then-employer as a true visionary in doing what it takes to reign in - and maintain - the talent of this enigmatic generation. My firm's success in satiating the hungers of the spawn of the Boomers and Xers was attributed to their 'company living room,' 'youth-friendly spaces' and 'personal rooms.' Tara Kirk, as the world read, was thrilled to be in a place that coddled her deep-seated need for the latest electronics and an appropiratley feng-shue'd 9 to 5.

Three months after the article hit the newsstands, I left the agency for greener pastures - proving that I, too, was just another casualty of my radically mobile generation.

Since that article's release just two years ago, I have changed jobs three times - proving, at least, that the DMN was onto something in casting me as a true ambassador of this finicky collective.

And as said ambassador, I can say with great confidence that placating my own emerging class of 20-somethings in Corporate America is so much bigger than throwing a plasma TV into a break room or adding really hip lighting in the hallways or allowing employees to play foosball after their cigarette breaks. These ornamental perceptions of youth do not even begin to address the fundamental chasm between the way WE have trained ourselves to work and the way the workplace has operated for years.

We Yers grew up in a world where we changed the channel with a remote control, meaning that we never had to disrupt our comfort to achieve an instant result. Stores were always open on Sundays, making it easier than ever for us to do things - finish school projects, go toy shopping, hang out with our friends - on our own timelines. Cordless and cell phones meant that we could talk about our own agendas, and always within the privacy of our own space. The advent of computers gave us endless reprieves from type-os and spelling errors. And, by the time we reached college, the internet was so prolific that we were never, ever faced with the constraints of a library's operating hours or the limited resources provided via the archaic system of Dewey Decimal.

We learned that our time was our own. That the end product was all that really mattered. And that if we don't like something, we are both entitled and expected to change it. For years, we have thrived under these pretenses. They got us through our high school and college educations.

And then, we walk though the doors of a salaried kingdom still run by our dads and moms, and we find ourselves alien to a world we were under the impression we were supposed to shaping. We go from a system of fluidity afforded to us by laptop computers, iphones and all-night drive throughs, to a world where we're supposed to be at our desks promptly at 8:30 and stay chained to them until 5:30. We're supposed to be able to turn on our brains when we punch in and ignore the distractions we've been trained to indulge. We're supposed to adopt a a regime of home--> work-->home that is an inherent affront to the merged view of productivity and personal time that we've thrived upon for years.

This system is not new. Business men and women have been assimilating into it for over one hundred years now. The people coming into this system are, however, new. And we can't change them. So we'd better change the system.

My charge to all the perplexed, gen-y-seeking firms out there is to cancel your orders for astro-turf laden conference rooms and state-of-the-art cappuccino machines. To abandon hope that Eurway sofas and industrial-style buildings will persuade us that your shop is the best place for our brains. To understand that an employee rock-climbing wall may get us in the door, but will just as promptly repel us.

And, instead, allow flex hours. Appreciate that an employee who comes in at 10am and works until 2am is far more valuable than an employee who works a clean 8-5 sharp. Don't pay a senior three times what you're paying a junior, just b/c that senior is 55 years old. And, above all, give us a chance to prove that we are not an inconsolable bunch unable to remain static. We're the future of your business, and the more you do to provide us the psychological equivalent of in-office PlayStations, Pool Tables and Herman Miller furniture - the longer we will be able to stay put.

word of the day: tenure

(n): the most valued key to becoming wise, successful and indispensable at my place of employment.



Today marks the completion of my 5th month in the 8th pod of the 14th floor of 8750 N. Central Expressway in Dallas, TX. That's a big deal in the history of Tara Kirk's agency tenure. And though I can't even begin to compete with the many writers (upon whom I've developed major career crushes) at this fine establishment who boast 5..15...20...30 year tenures, I'm pleased to celebrate mine with a whimsical look back at what I've learned since joining the ranks of the "smartest, most creative people in the world of advertising"

1. Sneaking into the parking garage is an offense punishable by sharp curbs that will, in fact, rip up your tires and destroy your alignment, leaving you sitting in the parking lot at 5:25 on a Friday while everyone drives by and notices that you are immobile and most likely, a huge loser. (which, in this case is true, because let's face it - you just got in an accident with yourself.)

2. There's a code to the stairwells, but they don't tell you that until you decide to take them as a shortcut to the meeting you're already late for and end up missing said meeting all together while concurrently fearing that you are going to pee your pants from a mixture of embarrassment and way too much coffee.

3. When they say you can't park there, they really mean you can't park there.

4. The building sways in 70 mph wind. The building evacuees travel down the stairs at -70 mph, resulting in one frantic copywriter pushing a lot of very overweight people out of her way.

5. There are many fashionable things here - designer jeans, luxury shoes, hollywood haircuts, purses that cost more than my car- but lateness is definitely not among them.

6. It's best not to be in the Walker or the Jones fishbowls when your shirt accidentally pops open in a meeting, exposing you to the entire group, because the entire group quickly becomes the entire "Groupers" and you end up providing everyone with a personal "Peak of the week."

7. David Culp is not a sweet young freelancer out of college. He is a seasoned Grouper who helped write the Peaceable Kingdom with none other than Stan Richards. Oops. Sorry, David.

8. If you're staying at the Oceana, you should be sure that you have at least $4,000 in your checking account. Don't ask. It was a really awkward experience, okay?

9. Even if you think it's cool to subconsciously present your work in a British accent, it's not. It will bite you in the butt every time. (I've only "tried" it once, but that was enough for me. I'm totally cool with hasty conclusions)

10. Playing practical jokes on total-stranger Account People is unofficially frowned upon and officially a really good way to earn a reputation as a "crazy."

With these great lessons behind me, I look forward to another 5..15...20...30 months of befuddled bliss. I've never loved a job more - flashing, falling, lock-outs and callouts included.

word of the day: target audience

(n) the whole world, if the marketing superstar continues to unleash brilliance like this.

word of the day: proactive

(adj) a monolith energy company taking the initiative to reach out and make a difference in the little ways - from education to e-cards.

I love this website. I feel like it’s my vision for Chesapeake Energy, realized. We’ve been hounding them to roll out something this interactive, this warm, this informative, this compelling – for awhile now. What I love about the execution of this is that, while Chevron clearly has pretty big fish to fry, they’re taking the time and energy to stay approachable and human. I believe the public opinion will be won on this front.

And this beautiful little site passes all the tests, too. It’s relevant, entertaining, approachable and comprehensive. Most importantly, it’s optimistic. And at the end of the day, or even the end of the world, that’s really all the people want.

word of the day: thirsty

(adj) 1. the desire to create iconoclast visuals which defy all form and function.
2. feeling the need to find the next silly piece in the joyful campaign.

My New Yorker best friend saw these ads by Ogilvy and Mather in a subway and was both impressed and inspired at the absolutely terrible, yet endearing look of them. In portfolio school, my esteemed professor Sean Thompson often mused at how some of the illustrations in the class (mainly mine) were so bad that they almost came full circle to morph into good. And, as engaging and whimsical as these little pieces are, they are actually pretty conceptually strong, too. Three cheers for illustrator Andrew Rae, who unlike me, is actually quite an accomplished artist. I guess it's true that you have to know the rules before you can break them.