Uncle, what do you do?

 

“What do you do?” is a common question I still don’t answer. It’s a bit complicated to tell when you are an Advertising graduate. Easier said maybe if you say you are a Mass Communications graduate. Even my grown-up sons still ask me what my course was to my business. 

Proudly, I belonged to a bunch (about 40) of UP Fine Arts Visual Communication - Advertising Major graduates in 1990. That year, when our arduous individual theses were finally hurdled. Then where to? Most marched on to major ad agencies like JWT, McCann, O&M, DDBO, Grey, and so on. I chose to go to Binondo, then a financial center far from Makati.  I wanted to learn from the small agencies and probably move up. So I thought.

We were trained in college on the Ad Agency Creative Process and honed it upon working. We were expected to be adept in graphic design, illustration, copywriting, PR, photography, videography, animation, art history, and marketing. Unlike now with the new generation, Integrated Marketing, Digital Media, and Social Media Marketing that form the core of all current agencies.

When I first entered the ad agency world, I was interviewed if I was copy-based or art-based. Art-based means you lean more on graphic design, illustration, and visual design. Copy-based means you lean on copywriting more. Luckily, I was both. But unlucky because there were no ChatGPT or AI apps then. However, I chose to become a Junior Copywriter for my first job. It was a small ad agency with Fil-Chinese and Filipino clients. Maybe I did well and from there on, I became a Senior Copywriter with another mid-size 4As agency. Back then, ad agencies would “pirate” talents as so I was, twice. To crawl up the ad agency ladder, I applied as a Sr. Visualizer and took the task of doing storyboards, concept boards, and visual boards. Then after more strides in Makati ad agencies, I would take the role of Senior Art Director. Later on, I became Creative Director for two Manila agencies and two agencies in the Middle East. Becoming a Creative Director(CD) is the penultimate role in the ad agency life for creatives. Most CD’s retire in their mid-40’s and a few would continue on into their 50’s.

Ad agency life then (1990-2007) was fun, challenging, engaging, and resuscitating. It was a life of inventing, re-inventing, creating, developing, pitching, and protecting ideas for clients. Overtime work was common, trash talks were wild, sarcasm was a daily habit, friends were enemies, alcohol and smoking were a norm, and most of the time we thought we were all packed in a mental ward for the ultra ‘unmental’. Sometimes, we were sent off somewhere, just to drink, wander and think. Once it was a paid 3-day work vacation just to think and come up with a rush product campaign idea for a Singaporean client. We came back without one and our boss was mad. On the eleventh hour at the lobby, we did come up and beat the deadline and our asses saved. It was a successful anti-termite TVC. Breaks come and go. I was supposed to head the first Filipino full-agency in Guam in 1998 but the Asian Crisis pinched us. The most colorful was when my colleague and I were about to leave for Dubai and head a new ad agency business in 2024, the Iraqi business partners stopped to pursue it because it was the day the US invade Iraq (March 20, 2023). Exactly 22 years ago from today. But fate and the universe would always intervene.

So how did we work? Ad clients will talk with our boss or Ad Executives (AEs) who were tasked to get clients, convince clients, and relay to us their desired ad requirements which can be print, radio, or TV. Once the Creative Department was informed of a job order, we moved our asses to think of ideas. To think and come up with the roughest ideas, it must be positioned, planned, crafted, and researched. As a CD, my role was to mold these into fine, saleable, and viable campaigns for the client. But before that, it must have passed the internal mock pitches where egos and anger will fly. Our brains would do a Vesuvius when deadlines are pressed. Imagine, in a day, you’ll need to think of how to make a print ad campaign for a bank, before lunch you’ll need to think of a cola TV campaign and in the afternoon, finish a concept board for an airline. When internally approved, we make that dreaded client pitch where we need to dress up and impress for client presentations. If approved, it was my job to present to the AdBoard who will scrutinize your concept board or campaign idea representing the whole agrncy. When again approved, I have to coordinate with post-production houses for shoots. In the Middle East, it was the same, except you had to tickle their target markets with a lot of research and shawarma nights.

There were so many experiences gained, friendships made and lost, awards hidden, credits grabbed, having met dragons and witches, and the list goes on. But now I’m in a different lot. As age catches up, you have to delegate and so outsourcing is still the business of Brixium Advertising, my perky 14-year-old start-up. So when they ask me again “What do you actually do?” I just laugh.

I'm just an ordinary human now, waiting for the right time to go fishing for some bass until the sun will set.