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Advertising Week, the ad industry’s trade show, is coming up next month, and the event’s organizers have come up with a novel way to promote it: “The Big Ad Gig,” in which art directors and copywriters compete to win a month-long stint at an agency. Like many advertising concepts, this one borrows from popular culture and the public’s endless appetite for watching their fellow citizens do just about anything in pursuit of a prize. At least “The Big Ad Gig” doesn’t ask entrants to humiliate themselves—too much. To enter, you have to submit your resume, your portfolio, and a YouTube video in which, according to the contest’s official website, “you declare these words in a public space: ‘I deserve a Big Ad Gig.’”
A panel of ad-industry judges will decide the winner. “Contestants better get ready to fight back the tears, cause Simon Cowell’s a sissy compared to this tough panel, which includes Crispin Co-Executive Creative Director Rob Reilly; Ogilvy’s Worldwide Creative Director Tham Khai Meng; and Andreas Combuechen, chairman-CEO and chief creative at Atmosphere Proximity,” writes Rupal Parekh at Adages, Advertising Age’s blog.
I don’t doubt there will be some hilarious videos among entries, but I do wonder about the premise—announcing to strangers that you want a “big” job in advertising. It’s goofy, it’s geeky, and therefore is very much where comedy is these days. Antiheroes from Seth Rogen to Amy Poehler make us laugh by being awkward and inappropriate. Sly wit, not so much. Sophistication? What’s that? Acting like a confident adult? Forget about it. It’s a valid niche, but it’s also very targeted and, dare I say, very young. Will “The Big Ad Gig” only attract variations on a slim, familiar theme, submitted mostly by 20-something acolytes of Judd Apatow? We’ll find out next month. Advertising Week takes over the Nokia Theater in New York September 21–25.
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So you think you can advertise?
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Advertising Week, the ad industry’s trade show, is coming up next month, and the event’s organizers have come up with a novel way to promote it: “The Big Ad Gig,” in which art directors and copywriters compete to win a month-long stint at an agency. Like many advertising concepts, this one borrows from popular culture and the public’s endless appetite for watching their fellow citizens do just about anything in pursuit of a prize. At least “The Big Ad Gig” doesn’t ask entrants to humiliate themselves—too much. To enter, you have to submit your resume, your portfolio, and a YouTube video in which, according to the contest’s official website, “you declare these words in a public space: ‘I deserve a Big Ad Gig.’”
A panel of ad-industry judges will decide the winner. “Contestants better get ready to fight back the tears, cause Simon Cowell’s a sissy compared to this tough panel, which includes Crispin Co-Executive Creative Director Rob Reilly; Ogilvy’s Worldwide Creative Director Tham Khai Meng; and Andreas Combuechen, chairman-CEO and chief creative at Atmosphere Proximity,” writes Rupal Parekh at Adages, Advertising Age’s blog.
I don’t doubt there will be some hilarious videos among entries, but I do wonder about the premise—announcing to strangers that you want a “big” job in advertising. It’s goofy, it’s geeky, and therefore is very much where comedy is these days. Antiheroes from Seth Rogen to Amy Poehler make us laugh by being awkward and inappropriate. Sly wit, not so much. Sophistication? What’s that? Acting like a confident adult? Forget about it. It’s a valid niche, but it’s also very targeted and, dare I say, very young. Will “The Big Ad Gig” only attract variations on a slim, familiar theme, submitted mostly by 20-something acolytes of Judd Apatow? We’ll find out next month. Advertising Week takes over the Nokia Theater in New York September 21–25.
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