I got into advertising because as a kid I read a novel about advertising that was written by somebody who had worked in advertising. So I based all my factual knowledge of the business on a book of fiction. Great start.

One of the things I got from the story, was that the only thing that counted in an agency’s creative engine room was your ability to constantly think of new ideas. College degrees and experience didn’t matter so much.

Lucky for me, that part of the book was based on reality. It certainly was for advertising agencies in the mid-nineties – when I got into it.

This tells you a lot about the prevailing culture in advertising agencies. It is a high-pressure environment where enormous storms build up in very small teacups. Once, I was in the middle of a two-hour argument in a pre-production meeting for a TV commercial where there was a disagreement between the client and the director about the color of the shoes a model would wear – when we all knew that the shoes would never be in any of the shots.

It is also an incredible amount of fun. There is nothing like working through the night to finish a pitch, stumbling home amidst the smell of spray glue and pizza, to shower and come back to the office to present your work – and winning.

Working in agencies has allowed me to travel all over the world, many times over, and experiencing things most people would only dream of. I have had tea in tiny apartments of ordinary people in Beijing and Shanghai, I’ve visited temples, walked the streets of New York, London, Paris, and Berlin. I have eaten street food in Mumbai and Delhi, shot in gardens in Tokyo, and sat through research meetings in Singapore. To name a few.

I have also learned more about people than I think I ever could in any other job. As a creative person in an agency, you become trained at observing people to discover insights and truths that would make a future campaign more relevant.

Advertising agencies are a bit like the gutter of society. The smart, creative fools who don’t fit in anywhere else find their way there. And they wouldn’t have it any other way.

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