Forget about the conseque…

Forget about the consequences of failure. Failure is only a temporary change in direction to set you straight for your next success.

Words to live by.

Repost: The Masochist AE

I truly believe that people who enter the esoteric world of advertising [public relations] are the truly insane.

Those who leave the industry have VERY good common sense and a sound sense of self- worth; those who leave and come back are certified nuts; and those who stay forever (and do not even entertain the thought of shifting into another field) — or for a long, long time, at least — are the ones who love to suffer.

But the inherent, unarguably 100% purebred masochists are the ones advertising people call the AEs. They are the Account Executives, the so- called unsung heroes of product launches and successful market performances since time immemorial, or, to quote a recent essay on a similar subject, the quintessential advertising/pr person.

The AE has a thousand definitions to his name, but allow me to narrow them down into five:

1. Your parents do not understand your job description. Excerpt from a real-life dialogue between an AE and her mother:

AE: Hey, that’s my TVC!

Mom: Really? You mean ikaw ang nag-isip ng idea for that commercial? (You mean you were the one who thought of the idea for that commercial?)

AE: Uh, not exactly.

Mom: But you did write the script, didn’t you, anak? Idea mo lahat ‘yon diba?

AE: Erm…well, it was more like I orchestrated the entire production, Ma.

Mom: Honey, I don’t understand. Ano ba talaga ang ginagawa mo? (What do you really do?)

In a nutshell, parents don’t understand that advertising is more than just being a creative.

2. You are the sounding board of everyone. (Euphemism: Everyone yells at you.) Your client yells at you. Your creative yells at you. Your boss yells at you. Hell, kulang na lang that even the company driver yells at you for making him drive all the way to Bicutan and then to Marikina, AND THEN back to Makati.

In actuality, they all yell at you because you are their connecting vein. You are the DNA of the system. You are the air trafficker who decides which plane goes in which direction to avoid an airborne accident. Take heart: Without you, all of them can’t function properly. (Shempre kailangan ng JO!)

3. You are supposed to exercise your (I quote) considerable powers of PR (Read: kaplastikan). No matter how much you hate your support groups, you’ll always have to be nice to them even if your insides are producing enough acid to burn your digestive system. This is because you need them (and they, in turn, need you — though they refuse to acknowledge such. After all, without you, where else would they get their salaries — through sidelines?).

4. You are a VERY high-paid maid of Clients. The common perception of other advertising people is that the AE is a Client’s yes-man. “The customer is always right,” goes the saying after all. This is because creatives see AEs as the Clients’ sidekicks when in the agency. I’ve actually heard one co-AE say despairingly:

“Prostitutes are better off. They can say no if they’re tired and want to call it a night.”

Not the AE. Even though you’re having a bad hair day, experiencing extremely painful menstrual cramps, not to mention having to deal with spoiled creatives, you have to make sure your Client gets his deliverables, which were needed “yesterday.” (Sounds familiar?)

But, in defense of the AE, they do not say yes to Client all the time. It just seems that way. The AE, in relation to her kaplastikan prowess as discussed in point #3, has to do a lot of verbal ballroom dancing in order to make the Client see his or her view. In fact, the general rule among AEs is: You cannot just say no just because.

In line with the advertising motto that all campaigns must have a strategy, so do the AE when it comes to dealing with Clients. As most Clients are sensitive about being brutally rebuffed, AEs have to massage their egos if they disagree with them. And on that note, notice how, in advertising, the word “client” is spelled as “Client?” With a capital C? Isn’t that equating “Client” with “God?”

God forbid.

5. You are…McGyver. Resourcefulness is your middle name. Advertising [Public Relations] urban legends claim that AEs have gone through hell to make sure both Clients and creatives (and to a lesser degree, your other support groups) are appeased: sitting in the broom closet until the creatives finish the compre for a print ad, hiring a kalesa’s horse to ride through traffic in order to present a storyboard to Client, even bribing a DTI representative to give you a DTI number for a promo poster.

These are not myths. They have actually happened.

In the same vein, AEs learn how to be jacks-of-all-trades and masters of disguise and deception, because they know that at the end of the day, managing to deliver (and deliver right) is what matters. The AE is a celebrated case study for borderline personality or schizophrenia because all sorts of persuasion and coercion methods have been exercised by him or her: the use of charm, tears, and cleavage exposure are patented trademarks of an AE who knows how to get what she wants.

It may sound as if the AE is a person to be pitied, but no. Because while AEs love to whine about their dismal existence, they know, in the deepest recesses of their beings, that they feel like comic superheroes at the immense agony they have gone through and will be going through.

If you listen carefully enough, you’ll hear the pride between the angst, the complaints, the sighs. They know they are strong people and while not a lot may be able to understand and appreciate that, they have each other to turn to for a metaphysical sense of empathy.

And, even if, an advertisement will merit awards for the creatives and the brand manager gets a raise for a product’s market performance, the AE knows that she (or he) was the one who did it all.

And that unspoken truth is the reason why the AE is deemed a masochist.

 

Disclaimer: Though there’s some truth in what has been written by whoever wrote the above piece, I am thankful that I have reasonable clients, accounts I love so dearly, and team mates who are also as passionate as I am. ^_^

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• What It Takes to Be a Star AE (douggonterman.wordpress.com)

TFW: Do you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments?

I stumbled upon this poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer a year and a half ago. It’s so beautiful, I’ve had it bookmarked in my personal laptop.

Anyway, I’m just sharing this piece to end this crazy week. I think people should ask themselves these questions every once in a while just to see, if they still like what they’re doing and who they are turning into…

Hope you all have a happy weekend!

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.