Mission: accomplished

April 21, 2009


It’s 11 o’clock. I’ve just worked late to meet two deadlines. Two projects – one a comprehensive plan, the other a recap of a series of focus groups.

I drank coffee. I isolated myself. I kept my distractions to a minimum.

I finished both projects. And now, here, at 11 o’clock at night on a Tuesday, I feel completely and utterly satisfied.

To me, there’s little that’s as exhilarating as finish a project I feel confident about. Not some small random job, but a late-nighter – something important, with an inflexible deadline. There’s a rush, my adrenaline confused as to why I’m not running scared, the night’s coffee still surging through my bloodstream and wreaking havoc on my sleep cycle.

In college, when I’d stay up late finishing some monstrous narrative on child psychology, I’d often find myself with a mild case of insomnia. Coffee was no excuse in those days – just the pure rush of completion. Of conquering 4,000 words. Of feeling pretty damned awesome about whatever it was I just did.

For me, it happened again a few months ago. I wrote a proposal for a non-fiction book based on Ween’s Chocolate and Cheese (through Continuum’s 33 1/3 series). When I was finished, I sat astounded. I couldn’t believe I had just done it. My first proposal. I knew at the time that I probably wouldn’t get it – after all, with no experience writing non-fiction or music, I was a long shot – and, let’s be honest, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to take the project on. I mean, writing on this blog is difficult at times – I can’t imagine tackling a book while still working full-time as a writer with two children under three. Seems like an impossible feat.

But that proposal was good. Damned good. And I knew that even if I didn’t get the chance to write the book, I still knocked that proposal out of the park.

Tomorrow, after five or so hours of sleep, I’ll hit the office and put the finishing touches on these two projects. I’ll present my plan to the rest of the staff. I’ll wait for feedback on the focus group summary. I’ll get a handful of jobs dumped on me and I’ll make revisions and I’ll fight to stay out of the copywriting rut. I’ll come home exhausted from doing what seems like simple work.

Right now, though, I think I’ll enjoy this feeling just a little longer.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Career, Writing |

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It’s berry good news!

March 9, 2009


I’ve got a few posts in the pipeline, but life is pretty busy with the house and the kid and the work and what not.

So instead, you’ll have to make do with this: The Greatest Cereal Commercial Ever.

It’s for Nintendo Cereal, complete with a theme song that I still surprisingly remember word for word despite not seeing it since the mid 1980s. I can’t remember my own name, half of the time, but I can remember this.

The commercial skips the first 3 seconds (”Nintendo - it’s for breakfast now!”) which explains the sudden switch in music and lack of rhyme.

Also, if I remember correctly, this cereal was awful.

Found at A Tribute to Discontinued Cereal, via brandflakesforbreakfast.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Random YouTube, Television |

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10 Years Ago

February 13, 2009


There’s no significance to this day ten years ago.

I sat at St. Cloud State University, in the lobby of Hill-Case Hall, after transferring just a few months earlier from the barren, small town culture at Southwest State University in Marshall, MN. I might have been reading Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, a surprisingly interesting book prescribed in my History of the World: Antiquity to 1700’s class. I had probably just eaten at Atwood, the student commons; a Rice Krispy bar, maybe a bagel with cream cheese.

I was studying to be a teacher. A science teacher. That was the only thing I had mapped out for my future - I would teach science to middle school kids.

I had absolutely no idea that, in ten years, I’d be sitting at a desk with no kids around me. No classroom. No school. Just a desk at an advertising agency.

That I’d be a writer.

That, on this day, ten years from now, I’d be sitting down to write an ad.

About varicose veins.

Think about that. The future really is pretty hazy, isn’t it?

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Writing |

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Proceeding without caution

December 8, 2008


It snowed today.

It wasn’t the first snow of the year, but it came after a few weeks of snow-free roads. The snow started in the evening and was slowly blanketing the roads with a slightly slushy yet still maneuverable layer of mush. It was dark, and the snow came down quickly - nothing dangerous, just different.

Still, given the conditions, it seemed as though everyone had suddenly become too afraid to drive.

These are South Dakotans I’m talking about. Their license plates gave them away. These are people who are used to snow – used to maneuvering through slush much more dangerous than this, through ice and snow and whipping wind of a velocity that brings to mind the onslaught of a hurricane, crashing into the windshield and obliterating all available sight lines.

In other words, the snow – and the driving conditions that accompanied the snow – were familiar to nearly every driver on the road. Yet, everyone was driving as if they had never seen snow in their lives.

In other news, I sat down to write a radio script today. It might not seem related, but hear me out.

I stared at the piece of paper, struggled to come to terms with the job. I found myself easily distracted, forcing myself to turn away from the Internet, wondering how I could possibly make it through the project, utterly and completely unsure of my abilities to write what should be the simplest thing I had done that day.

I’ve always found radio scripts to be my Achilles heel. It’s not that they’re difficult. They can be really easy. It’s just that they are written in a style that my mind isn’t wired to understand. They’re more work for me than for other people.

Though I know how to do it - could write them in my sleep and, it seems, often do – I became shy. Unsure of myself. My confidence was shaken, and my words came out dripping with insecurity.

All of those people on the roads? Those South Dakotans who forgot how to drive?

They’re in the same boat.

When it comes to a new situation – even a new situation we’ve been through hundreds of times before – most of us shy away from the challenge. We know what we should do, but our mind looks for something easier – something less creative, slower, more cautious. In driving, this leads to slower traffic that is often more dangerous than it should be. In writing, this leads to an uninspired script.

It’s difficult to let go of.

But that’s the only solution. You act like nothing is wrong. You take the snow as it comes, being smart enough to realize when there is an actual danger and wily enough to steer your way around the frightened traffic.

And you stop staring at the paper. You act like nothing is wrong. You take the script as it comes, doing what you’ve done before, writing things that you think work together and finding the flaws. Getting started is the hardest part – just like driving in snow, once you’re used to the way your car moves you can proceed without the caution you’re so dearly clinging to.

Living with caution isn’t easy.

That’s the point.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Sioux Falls, Writing |

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1984

November 24, 2008


From the 30th Anniversary Issue of Adweek, by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners co-chairman Jeff Goodby, regarding the best commercial of the 1980s:

No one writing about the ’80s could skip the Apple “1984″ commercial. It changed the way we’ve approached not just the Super Bowl but all big-event advertising. It also showed that you could use a fairly obscure story from a book only English majors had read to make spectacular advertising. But although it was influential, it only ran once.

(Emphasis mine)

Really? George Orwell’s 1984 is a “fairly obscure story” that “only English majors” have read?

I mean, I know advertisers don’t read anything but books by other advertisers, but come on.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Books, Literature |

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The Corey Vilhauer Brand

November 19, 2008


“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”

This past week, I was given an offer on one of our photos – a picture taken almost as a throwaway, rescued from the pile and produced into one of my favorites. A national publication wants to use it. And they’re willing to pay us. Us. Little amateur Corey and Kerrie, skilled in ways we never realized.

A friend of mine asked how this possibly could have happened. How do you take a photo and, a few weeks later, without any promotion or marketing, get it sold?

And the answer is easy: The Internet. An amazing tool. (As long as you use it correctly.)

Three years ago, my entire creative portfolio consisted of six articles for a local men’s magazine and one blog. Yet, I desperately longed for a career in the creative industry. I wanted to be a writer, but didn’t know how to position myself.

So it was complete blind luck that I began to realize my name was starting to gain a little equity, thanks to both a published column and, even more surprisingly, this little blog. I associated my name with Black Marks on Wood Pulp, one of the few consistent South Dakota blogs at the time. I made friends with other bloggers – primarily the political ones – left comments and became sort of well known in the S.D. blogging community.

The person I interviewed with for my first ever writing job was familiar with my blog. She enjoyed it. She hired me.

From here, I realized I had something. I submitted Black Marks on Wood Pulp to 9rules, gaining a larger audience and more connections. These – and most of the local marketing or web design personalities – turned out to be the first twitterers I ever followed – and, in return, my first follwers. I took up flickr to post our photos and, through a mixture of the three, my name was suddenly known for writing, photography and basic Wordpress blog design.

There are a lot of people out there who are much more talented than I am. So it has a lot to do with luck as well. But I’ve managed to make give my name value – both through recognition and results – in a way that I never could have without the ‘net.

And in giving my name that value, I turn up on more people’s searches. Because I have a background already, my creative endeavors are automatically given more credence. All things being equal, you choose the more well known person over the unproven kid, simply because you know what you’ll get.

To answer the question my friend asked, I simply put my stuff out for all to see. I unabashedly brace for failure, discover a lack of it, and forge ahead. I embrace feedback, write and contribute to the teeming humanity located within, and come out with something I can be proud of.

This networking, though for the most part passive, has given me – and countless others – a feeling of success. The type of success that drives us to continue creating, even if only to a small audience.

Because we know that, for every person who leaves a comment, there are hundreds who stop by and silently admire. For every person who complains or writes off, there are just as many who are coming across your work for the first time.

Because it’s always out there, my name continues to gain value. And with it, my creative endeavors gain traction faster than they did when I was starting up.

It takes a long time to build brand equity into a name. But given enough time, and the willpower to continue linking back to your identity, someone will take notice.

And when they do, you can finally begin to reap the rewards.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing, Blogging, Career, Photography, Vilhauer |

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Pepsi’s new logo

November 11, 2008


Two takes on the new Pepsi logo.

First, my thoughts on Coke vs. Pepsi in regards to logo and brand stability are collected in a nice little package at Post Haste.

Then, my responses (and the responses of many more random bloggers) to Make the Logo Bigger’s blogger challenge on how Pepsi could have better promote the new logo to the new media.

Check them out. Then, take the rest of the day off.

Tags: Advertising and Marketing |

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