Creative Director

Early on in my advertising career, I made it my goal to be a Creative Director. 

From the starting position of Associate Copywriter or Associate Art Director, you have to move up 4 levels to become a Creative Director. There are two levels above Creative Director (Group Creative Director that manage several Creative Directors, and an Executive Creative Director that leads the entire department.) So I wasn't aiming at the highest possible position. I set my sights on the position that would give me the chance to lead my own team of creatives and have control over the work. If you've ever seen Mad Men, Don Draper was a Creative Director.

The other thing to know, is its not simply a stick around long enough and you'll make it there thing. Depending on the agency, there's one Creative Director for every 5-7 young creatives. So for every 5 people at the lower levels, only one gets to grow up and be a CD. There are lots of people that have the experience but stay on as a pure writer or art director, at the senior level for many years. There are lots of people that end up leaving.

I started my career in January 2006. 

I got my third promotion, up to Associate Creative Director (always called ACD) in November 2016. I was turning 33 that month. 

Just one promotion away from Creative Director. Right around then I made it my goal to get to Creative Director by 40. 

By November 2018, I was unemployed. The agency that gave me the ACD title was falling apart and letting go of lots of people. 

I was able to get another job in February of 2019...but not at the ACD level. I was back to being a senior copywriter. Pretty humbling. 

It took me over two years to get back to ACD, June 2021. I was five months away from turning 38. Creative Director by 40 seemed unlikely. 

My 40th birthday arrived in November 2023. At least part of the reason I was pretty mopey was the fact that I didn't reach my goal of becoming a Creative Director by 40. 

But I did think of a loophole. It's not that different to move the goalposts to Creative Director at 40. That would buy me another year. 

Plus, I did the whole acceptance thing of realizing that whether it happens at 40 or 41 or 42, that I'm on track to make it happen and it doesn't really matter what age I am, it will still be achieving my life-long career goal, etc. You know, the healthy way of processing feelings, blah blah blah. 

But really I had 364 more days where I would be 40.

This month, my managers made the call. 

As of today, I am now a Creative Director.

There are two ways to summarize my entire career in a few lines of text:

Way #1

Associate Copywriter - January 2006

Copywriter - December 2007

Senior Copywriter - July 2014

ACD - November 2016

Creative Director - May 2024

Way #2

Associate Copywriter - January 2006

Copywriter - December 2007

Senior Copywriter - July 2014

ACD - November 2016

Senior Copywriter - February 2019

ACD - June 2021

Creative Director - May 2024

Way #1 is every new level I've achieved. The four times I advanced up the ladder. 

But Way #2 is the truth. It includes a comeback attempt that turned into a redemption arc. 

The fact that I got here at 40 is a little icing on the cake. But really it's getting here at all that is the fulfilling part. 

I now have my own team of creatives to lead and the power to really guide the work to the highest level I can make it. Hopefully this is just the beginning of Act Two in a successful career. 

IHOB

It's not very often that an advertising campaign actually gets people talking so I thought I'd weigh in on IHOB. Without actually knowing any inside information, I'm 99% sure I know what happened.

It starts with someone on the client side not even in marketing. They're looking at their numbers and they can see that they're doing okay at breakfast time, but slow down at lunch and dinner. Makes sense, of course. But they want more revenue so they tell their Marketing department to get more people in for lunch and dinner.

Marketing looks at the menu for a minute, and decides why not burgers? They augment this decision with charts of burger sales and think that if we can increase our burger sales even by 1-2%, that's a successful campaign. So they get approval from their bosses. They start working on new burger recipes and then tell their Agency: We need an advertising campaign to sell more burgers.

The creative team goes to a meeting and is told to come up with a campaign to sell burgers. There's a lot of eye-rolling but it is what it is. They were most likely told it's a small budget but they want to get people buzzing.

Creatives go off and come up with a bunch of ideas and this one probably started as a sarcastic joke. Why don't we just change the name to International House of Burgers. And then their partner was like, wait, we could just flip the p to a b. So they present it and everyone agrees this would be a bold thing that could get people buzzing about their burgers. It's a stunt that hasn't been done. And remember, their goal was to get people buzzing about their burgers.

So it all gets approved and they start with a teaser of We're changing our name. The public sees this and starts buzzing. This is bold. People are interested.

And then yesterday, IHOB is revealed. People are roasting them. Because it's really dumb to go to IHOP for burgers.

The creative team did their job. The marketing team on the client side had good intentions. So where did it all go wrong?

They came with a great solution to the wrong problem. The problem is you want more sales. And yes, it's better if they come at lunch and dinner. The problem is not "we're not selling enough burgers." 

If they had come to the creative team with a blank canvas: "let's change our image" so more people come in, that could have worked. Maybe they'd change their meaning to some other interpretation of IHOP, maybe they change it to International House of Brunch, or maybe they come up with food solutions, lean into the international side perhaps. There's lots of solutions to that problem. 

- - -

At they very least, it would make sense if their burgers actually were international. But they're not. Same flavors you've been seeing at Chili's and Red Robin your whole life. So yeah....

- - -

I think International House of Brunch would have been really smart. It's still on-brand, but could appeal to younger audiences, and would have solved the lunch/dinner issue too. 

An email that changed my life

A brief backstory: In March 2010, I started applying for jobs in Denver. Brit and I were sick of Chicago. We were ready to raise a family and wanted to do that in Colorado.

And then on my birthday, 6 years ago to the day, I got this email. At the time I was writing dog food coupons and had a portfolio of fake ads. I had never done a TV spot or a voiceover recording session. This was a real ad agency that did real magazine ads, commercials and billboards.

I flew out for an interview on 12/2/2010. On Christmas Eve, we found out we were going to have our first child. I remember laying in bed in O'Fallon over Christmas Break, praying that I would get this Karsh Hagan job and we could move to Colorado.

On 1/3/11, I was told that I didn't get the job.

I stayed in touch and in May, Brit and I planned a trip out to Denver for a week in June. On May 31, I got another email from Matt. The guy they hired hadn't worked out. They wanted to interview me again. I was already going to be there anyways. Perfect timing. Interviewed on June 6th. Accepted an offer on July 6th. Started on July 28. Harrison came into the world a month later.

- - -

Today is my last day at Karsh Hagan. I was there for 5 years, 4 months. When I took the job it was actually a slight pay cut from Chicago. But boy has it been worth it. Six years ago, I was on a path to write brochures and liquor store displays for my whole life. That's a career of working to pay my bills, not to make anything that got me excited.

At Karsh Hagan, I won an award in every award show Denver had, 2 shows a year, for 5 years. I made national TV spots, amazing print ads, everything I had always wanted to do.

In my time at Karsh Hagan I was promoted to Senior Copywriter. And now I'm leaving to become an Associate Creative Director. The same title that Matt had when he emailed me six years ago.

2015 ADCD Show

Three years ago I attended my first real advertising award show. In Denver there are two local award shows. One--The Denver Fifty--celebrates the 50 best ideas that can take any form--the show itself is treated like an art gallery. The other, the ADCD show is broken into traditional categories. They serve dinner. They recognize 5 winners in every category and notify people before the show, so people will want to attend. But in every category, they award "top honors" to one entry. It's basically just like the Oscars system, except they refer to the 5 nominees as winners. The Top Honors are not revealed until the award show, and they call them up on stage and they have the option of giving a speech.

So yeah, three years ago, I attended the ADCD show for the first time. A few things that I worked on won awards but the more senior people on our team accepted them on stage and gave the speech.

I didn't go to the 2013 show. In 2014, I did go and actually went on stage to accept the first Top Honors of the night. It was a project that I did work on, but it must be acknowledged that the award was truly given to the art direction. I essentially wrote the captions. The art director who should have accepted it had already left our agency, so I was the only choice to accept it. I did so gladly, but I recognize it's not really my award.

Which brings us to this year's show.

I had three winners in three different categories. So I could be giving anywhere from 0-3 speeches.

First chance was for mixed-media campaign. Did not get it.

Second chance was for print design. Did not get it.

The last chance was the last award of the night: Broadcast Advertising. Which is a fancy way of saying TV commercial. And wouldn't you know, they called our name. Holy crap.

I hop out of my chair immediately--probably way too fast--and head toward the stage. I collect the award, a 3-d applause sign that lights up when you plug it in. And I give my speech.

The acoustics in the room were terrible and no one could hear my speech. Here it is: "What a week. I spent all day Saturday teaching my toddlers...the rules to Fight Club. And then on Monday I started a 48-hour juice cleanse, but instead of juice, I used buffalo wings."

And then I get to come back to my table with a stupid smile on my face.

Our agency won two awards, so that's super awesome.

Basically, of all the commercials submitted by Denver agencies this year, an esteemed panel of international judges said ours was the best. I've won a number of awards since moving to Denver, but this is the biggest and best so far.