4 Takeaways from Evan’s Ad Career
HOW MY AD CAREER LED ME TO START A DISRUPTIVE CREATIVE BUSINESS
Some of our clients don’t know I used to work in advertising. I don’t talk about it much anymore because it has been a (scary) number of years since I’ve set foot in an agency. But it was truly my ad career that led me to create the business I have today.
I landed a job in production design in an ad agency thanks to a friend’s referral, after five post-college years of living in Brussels and Moscow doing odd jobs. Being in that studio was the first time I experienced ambition. Seeing my colleagues’ pen / tablets (I was laughed at when I asked for a mouse), insane photoshop skills, and close collaborations with the best creative directors who chose them to work with, it was always: “I can do that.”
I hustled. I worked around the clock. The expectation was to create and design amazing, polished work extremely quickly with people standing around your desk watching over your shoulder. Photoshop comps. Billboard layouts. TV frames and storyboards. I ate it up. I loved being part of something big, creating and selling campaigns for big iconic corporate brands late at night in a beautiful industrial space overlooking the Hudson in New York City.
I was lucky that I could bring my kids to work. Here’s Sam and our buddy Calvin Junior with (tired) me.
While developing crazy Adobe skills and speed, I began to watch the art directors and creative directors. I had always been more into design as an art form, but that went out the window the moment I fell in love with ideas. I saw the creative teams coming up with big ideas that move hearts and minds and thought, “I can do that”
Soon I moved to the creative department and continued to hustle around the clock coming up with big ideas AND still designing fast with 12 people standing around my desk. I pitched and sold ideas to Chase and Marriott with brilliant teams. I traveled for commercial shoots. And I started to watch the strategists.
Strategy was so crucial to giving the creative teams a great brief. The creative teams loved to hate on the strategists if the brief was too long or not clear. But a good brief was so simple and powerful. The strategists were taking the business problem and boiling it down to a simple emotional solution, and I thought, “I can do that.”
Going out on my own, after 12 years of hustling around the clock (and three babies!), I had a major learning period of freelance and doing everything for everyone. But once I started my first real business and now Leap_year, I see these three major ways the ad career brought me here, and influenced the parts of this business that are most unique and disruptive.
Here are the learnings from my advertising career that drive how we work at Leap_year, plus the skills I picked up and most importantly what we’re NOT taking away from big advertising.
SIMPLE STRATEGY
Learning: Strategy is crucial, essential, and brilliant.
Skill: Watching the best of the best create and sell incredible strategies to companies like Chase, Marriott, Crayola, Ford, and more, I absorbed so much gold and use it every day with our clients.
Doing differently: Strategy needs to be done well but doesn’t have to take forever. When overdone it’s too hard to execute against. While there were many amazing strategies, I also saw some doozies.
SPEED + QUALITY
Takeaway: It IS possible to do great, polished work fast.
Skill: The ability to do this and to find / cultivate people who can.
Doing differently: It’s not necessary to work around the clock, scrapping everything and going back to the drawing board week after week. At Leap_year we harness the creativity and awesomeness that happens on day 1, 2, 3, and run with it.
THE BIG IDEA
Takeaway: The Big Idea is essential in a world of constantly changing tactics.
Skill: The ability to wade through the weeds of your business and see through to the essential and most compelling idea.
Doing differently: In advertising, as creatives, we weren’t held accountable to results (that was for a different department). At Leap_year, we’re obsessed with tactics that work and take responsibility for results.
VISION AND CAPACITY
Takeaway: It’s possible to pull the right team together and create ANYTHING you can imagine - from creating beautiful films, to guerilla marketing, to incredible events, to landing amazing press, to producing bus wraps and billboards and digital banners galore.
Skill: As a leader I’m comfortable holding the whole – our focus is brand but we’re the central agency with our clients and bring the right team together to do anything we can imagine.
Doing differently: We’re lean and scrappy without big ad budgets, so we’re not recommending anything that’s just for show or too risky. We are all about results and reaching your goals.
I loved working in advertising and love even more the gifts I took with me to create something new and different. I believe Leap_year is truly a unique agency with the best parts of the old school and a very radical and new way of getting stuff done.
— Evan
Leap_year founder
