Portfolio Night. How Not to Use Portfolio Night.

I found this an interesting read on what to expect and what not to do when attending Portfolio Night.

The author, Journal of A Junior Copywriter, simply uses the following in his profile:

PJL - About Me

Christian, Husband, Father, Friend, Jr. Copywriter, Fat, Happy, Caucasian (cause it sounds better than Cracker), Illini Alumni, Curious, Ninja, Zombie Expert, Football Nut, and lucky.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

How Not to Use Portfolio Night

Makin' Ads beat me to the punch on posting about Portfolio Night, but I want to share my experience with Portfolio Night. I entitle this, how not to do Portfolio Night.

I failed at Portfolio Night.
I had 5 people review my book. All immeasurably more talented and successful than me. I got some great feedback, good feedback, and some awful feedback. And I didn't focus on any of it.

Pay close attention, because I'm about to tell you the most important thing you can do during Portfolio Night.

TAKE NOTES.

I had an ECD who had worked at my dream agency, and was working at one my favorite shops in town review my book. This man was a multiple Grand Lions winner, Multiple One Show winner, multiple entrant into CA. He was a former One Show Judge, and he reviewed my book.

I remember all of his compliments vividly.

I couldn't begin to tell you how he told me to improve my book.

This man told me I was talented, had a great future ahead of me, and wanted to stay in touch with me. He replied to each and every email I sent him within a day of me sending it, with thoughtful and encouraging replies. Until I sent him my "finished" student book.

I don't know why I never heard back from him, but I'm pretty sure I can guess. There were two campaigns I had showed him at the review. He loved the concept behind both of them, but told me they needed work.

I removed those campaigns from my book.

I didn't fix them, I didn't show him that I could follow feedback.

I didn't get a job at his shop.

After that, I resolved myself to making changes based on feedback of my reviewers. The next time I showed my book to someone I made their suggested changes, and it made a difference.

I got a job.

A View From A Graduate.

Stuart Chan was a student of mine who was kind enough to email me the other day after one of my Blog items about Alex Bogusky caught his eye. After reading his email, I asked if I could post his thoughts. He simply replied:

"By all means, you may publish it... After all the next best thing to getting inspired is to be inspiring".

Stuart is currently a copywriter at Yield Communications in Toronto, a full service integrated communication company. There clients include, Cadillac Fairview, Sears, Epost, Altimira and 407ETR.

Here are of Stuart's thoughts... unedit, as sent.

From: Stuart Chan
Date: Friday, May 8, 2009 11:35 am
Subject: A Word to the Students

After reading your blog post on DOCTOR Bogusky today, it sparked that memory of the lunch with him we had. I believe... What was it, 3? Total students from our semester were invited? And I was lucky enough to be one of them.

It’s funny how memory serves you, and how things can spark from the slightest hint of other things, but I also remember one day in class now when you told us about the quote: “Always give UP.” and that’s stuck with me ever since.

So I figured since there’s so many prospective "adlanders" coming into and out of your program each semester, I’d write to you with a some words to the students. Not to the advertising students, but rather, to the students of advertising. The ones who have the passion, the ones who become believers of the religion of advertising.

Everything that you do is to add value to the program and I figure I might as well try and help.

Firstly, whether you’re Left or whether you’re Right, the old “1% Inspiration, 99% Perspiration rule applies.”

Take your inspiration, beat it to death, and when you’re done doing that, beat it back to life.

The best ideas in the real world always come last. (I know I know, that’s because you got the idea you wanted and stopped thinking about it, but seriously, with each passing idea, you’ll find a new gem.)

Here at Yield, I’ve had many meaningful conversations with colleagues, but the best ones always come with a takeaway that should be applied for the rest of your creative life.

So here are a few things that I’ve picked up, that I hope stick with YOU - The students of Advertising:

It doesn’t matter if you’re junior, senior, left, right, or completely sideways... FIGHT FOR YOUR WORK, until someone can legitimately prove you wrong. Sorry but out here, you’re not always going to get others to fight for it for you.

My creative director here is right about this: “As a CD, I can always bring you back. You can go as crazy as you want with an idea, and maybe I’ll like your 75th, 76th, and 77th concept, because I think your 78th concept will get you thrown into an asylum. But at least you got there. I can’t be the one to help you if you came up with 6 concepts and they’re all crap.”

Get used to killing your babies. This is the reason why you have to be full of ideas, ALL THE TIME. Take this example: You present 20 concepts, your Creative Director likes 10 of them, you present them to the client, the client likes 5 of them, and 2 of them are out of budget range, and another 1 of them is simply not executable. You’re down to 2 concepts from 20, so... By simple math, 18 of your babies died today.

A word on portfolios: Don’t think about building your book as a manner of “This is what I can do.” If you do that, your book will always be second rate. Think about it as building a book as a way of showing “THIS IS HOW I CAN THINK”. That became apparent to me when one CEO (who asked to see me specifically after the CD had already seen me) flipped through my book and asked me the following question: “The whole world is beginning to go engagement and interactive. Can you think like that?” Of course I replied that I could, and all he said was: “Well why is it not in your book?” Doh!

So touching on that topic, I think it’s about the right time now to include more than just print ads in your books. If you are an out of the box, crazy thinker, make sure your book says that about you. Lots of people are going to say “they just want to see ads”. I think that’s incorrect, I think they want to see “FRESH”. They want to see “CRAZY”. THEY WANT TO SEE YOUR 78TH CONCEPT. Because remember, they can always bring you back. They look at ads all day long, what in the world makes you think they “want to see ads” in your book?

Finally, for all of you set to forge your way into the real world: KNOW YOUR TARGET MARKET. No... Seriously... Know them! I’m not talking about the target market of your ads, I’m talking about the target market of your portfolio. I’m talking about the Creative Directors you want to get a sit down with. The same Creative Directors who get thousands of e-mails a day, and probably don’t have too much time for crap, so God help them if they haven’t gotten back to you after you’ve sent the generic “See my portfolio cause I’m a student” e-mail for the 5th time.

Find a way to stand out, and for fucks sake, be aggressive. SELL YOURSELF.
Remember, an ad isn’t worth anything if it doesn’t sell. And guess what... Neither are you.

-Stuart Chan, Copywriter, Idearator, Student of Advertising.

P.S. WRITERS: Never underestimate the power of “Knob Creek”. I landed my job in 8 words or less.

Thank you Stuart. You can contact him at: schan@yield-ica.com

Portfolio Nights… Mark Your Calendars!

Like the Swallows returning to Capistrano, each spring brings the annual "Get Yourself a New One Ripped or Handed to You"… better known as Portfolio Nights.

The crème of advertising creative offer the young flesh looking for a break into the biz. A night of getting this young talents portfolio's reviewed and sometimes the wake-up call they missed at school.

ADCC – The Grand Daddy of Review Nights

First up is my personal favorite. The Advertising Design Club of Canada Portfolio Night. Why my favourite? It offers both designers, art directors and copywriters their choice of review. The 2009 Student Portfolio Review will be held on the evening of April 1st, 2009 at the Arts & Letters Club on Elm Street in downtown Toronto. The location itself is a creative gem and inspires.

Once again the ADCC will assemble some of the top advertising and design professionals to review student portfolios. Each student will have the opportunity to see three reviewers and receive a thorough critique of their work. This event is open to Advertising & Graphic Design students who are in the final year of a full-time program, as well as those students who graduated in the previous year. Entry fees are $15 for ADCC student members and $30 for student non-members.

Please Note: All review times must be booked prior to April 1st, 2009. Availability is on a first-come, first-served basis. All participants will be emailed with their specific appointment time prior to the event.

ihaveanidea.org Portfolio Night 7

This started as a local event seven years ago. Toronto and Montreal… and has grown into an international event. The ihaveanidea/Portfolio Night team has been hard at work, putting everything together to make this year's global event as phenomenal as all the previous.

This has become the favourite review night of the students and industry. Higher priced ticket but, bigger named creative's are attracted. Call it the "Oscars" of review nights.

This year's website has been designed to give you all the info you'll need about Portfolio Night 7, from ticket sales, to cities and creative directors involved. There are sections for all types of news stories, and even a history of Portfolio Night, from the very first one back in 2003 to last year's globe-spanning extravaganza. Feel free to explore!

As we draw closer to June 11th, this site will be updated several times a day, so be sure to check back often in order to stay abreast of the latest news. If you really want to stay on top of things, you can subscribe to the site, and every last new story will be emailed to you as they are announced.

Have fun. Good luck. Bring Kleenex. Hmmmm… a tagline for either event.