BrainPong

When I was a kid, I loved The Incredible Hulk TV series, starring the late Bill Bixby and the not quite late Lou Ferrigno. Even at 8 years old, I realized you could set your watch by the moments David Banner morphed into the Hulk from episode to episode. It was something like 21 and 51 minutes into the show. Every week. Two cliffhangers an hour. David gets mad, David’s eyes go bonkers, cut to a commercial for Tab.

At a very early age, that all clicked for me. Some kids watched the Hulk and wanted to crush cars and kick bad guy ass. I watched the Hulk and wanted to time commercial pods with a stopwatch.

I ended up going to Northwestern University for two reasons. First, their exceptional Theatre program. Second, their exceptional Journalism program. Naturally, I majored in Political Science.

But I also majored in Communication Studies, best described as the vague course of study for people who will eventually market something to someone.

After graduating from Northwestern, I put all those Communication Studies to very average use at a small PR firm that shared office space with the late, great Cole Henderson Drake advertising. I spent a year writing dreadful press releases and sneaking around CHD, admiring their work and their verve and their smarts. It was the best job next door I ever had, and I promptly sent my resume to every ad agency in town.

Fitzgerald+CO, an agency whose people and work I loved from the get-go, gave me my start as an Assistant Account Manager in 1996, working on Callaway Gardens and PROMINA Health System. That led to opportunities with clients like the Atlanta Hawks, the Atlanta Braves, the Chick-fil-A Bowl, Russell Athletic and the Television Bureau of Advertising. 

I didn’t love the ad business any less when I decided to venture off to get my MBA. But I knew that as much as I’d learned so far, there were about 273 other items on our clients’ agendas that I wanted to learn about too. I needed the big picture view. So off I went to Kellogg.

There, I learned Excel and PowerPoint. And a few other things.

First, I learned that it’s easy for us to look at advertising and marketing as a business silo, but that’s not where it belongs. It impacts everything, and everything impacts it. We need to understand our clients’ businesses far beyond focus group insight and creative strategies and material close dates. The best agencies are the ones that CMOs and CEOs can’t imagine living without.

Second, I learned that most students arrive at business school as ignorant about advertising and marketing as you and I are about neurology. And because of the nature of business school curriculum, they still have only limited understanding by the time they graduate.

It’s not their fault. (I took enough finance credits to be considered a finance “major,” but if you ever get a memo announcing that I’m your next CFO, short the stock.) Nevertheless, these folks become our clients. We can resent them for what they didn’t pick up in a few quarters at business school, or we can understand where they’ve come from, appreciate that they have darn smart business minds, and work together to get to a better place.

Third, and maybe most important, I learned that there is no more dynamic, fun and creative industry than ours.

So after graduating, I went back to it.

Fitzgerald+CO took me back. (I’m one of a large club of Fitzgerald “Boomerangers,” folks who’ve left for a variety of reasons and can’t help but return.) I came back as an Account Director, working on clients like Durex (the condom folks), Benevolink (an online give-to-your-favorite-charity-while-buying-everyday-products folks), and Vina Ventisquero (Chilean wine folks).

But I was also our internal New Biz guy. I wrote the RFPs, coordinated the internal tornado that constitutes every new business pitch, built the presentations. It was, in many ways, my second graduate level education.

There was a lot to like about the New Business gig, but the part that always gave me the biggest charge was when I was able to throw in creative ideas. Not often — I knew better than that — but often enough. And apparently, when I was part of those conversations, I seemed at home. I didn’t feel at home; I felt like I might get smacked. But increasingly, my suggestions made their way into presentations.

Then, one spring day in 2004, I was asked the question I’d secretly wanted to hear for years: would you like to try your hand at copywriting?

Yes. Please. I’ll start today.

I officially made the switch in October 2004, giving myself two years to see if it would work. Celebrated 4 years in October 2008. (A sampling of what I’ve had a hand in so far is in the “Creative Portfolio” link over there to the right.) 

But something else happened in 2008. A chance to stay in the creative department, keep developing new and innovative work, but also help lead it. I copywrote a new title for myself — Director of Digital Development — and now serve as one of a small group in the agency dedicated, 24/7, to advancing Fitzgerald+CO and our clients into the digital age.

And so that’s it for now. One agency, 7 offices, and about 12 titles later. Sort of like David Banner, only instead of hitchhiking around the country, I’m hitchhiking across the building.