Siimon Reynolds - Advertising Entrepreneur

Siimon Reynolds - Advertising Entrepreneur Siimon Reynolds Advertising EntrepreneurPosted October 13, 2011, by Josie Chun To get my first job in advertising I placed two ads. The first used all of David Ogilvys techniques, and no one replied, and then in desperation I did a wilder ad, and I think the headline was, Siimon Reynolds may have exploded a myth, but hes about to become a legend. Siimon Reynolds has long been an icon in the Australian advertising firmament and came to major prominence when, at the unprecedented age of 21, he was appointed creative director of advertising firm, Grey. The following year he created the famous and controversial Grim Reaper ads for AIDS awareness the ads for which he is still best known. He went on to found his own communications agency, Love, as well as absatzwirtschaft services company Photon (both of which he has now left). In mora recent years Siimon has been acting as chairman of OMG (Online absatzwirtschaft Group), consulting, writing another book and enjoying life in LA. He has recently published his sixth book, Why People Fail The 16 obstacles to success and how you can overcome them. He talks to Career FAQs about his meteoric rise to the top of the advertising tree and how he got there. Can you tell me about your journey through the world of advertising? I first got interested in the world of advertising at the age of 15, when my mum suggested that I would be good at it, and I did work experience at an agency that was very prominent at the time. When I got in and saw all these people playing darts and walking around in jeans and T-shirts, I thought Wow, this is the industry for me After a couple of years, I also reached the conclusion that I didnt want to go to university. So I thought, whats a career where you can make money, but not have to go to uni? For me there was stockbroking, real estate or advertising. I spent a lot of time looking at each of those three fields, and I decided that the one I would lov e the most was advertising. Why did your mum think youd be good at advertising? I think she saw me mora on the account service side because she thought Id be good with people, and that was initially the area I thought Id be interested in too. But once you get in an agency you see that the creative people have a lot more fun, and so I quickly shifted to the more creative side. When I was around 17 I placed an ad in BT Magazine to try and get a job. I got a couple of job offers, and even while I was doing my HSC I was working four days a week writing brochures in a absatzwirtschaft company. Then two weeks after the HSC, I started work in a little agency in Kings Cross, and went from there. What kind of job ad was it that you placed in BT? I placed two ads. The first used all of David Ogilvys techniques, and no one replied, and then in desperation I did a wilder ad, and I think the headline was, Simon Reynolds may have exploded a myth, but hes about to become a legend. So luckily a f ew people responded to that, which was pretty good. FYI David Ogilvy was a notable advertising executive, often called The Father of Advertising. When youre looking to recruit people, do you look for people who do things outside the box? Absolutely. There are two fundamental mistakes people make when theyre looking for a job in advertising or any job for that matter. The first is they apply in a very boring way, and no one takes any notice of their application. And the second is that they dont persist, and the lack of staying in prise with employers is the primary reason that people dont make it into advertising. Someone may not have a job for you now, but they may have one in a week but no one ever stays around or keeps persisting to find out if thats true. Its all about establishing relationships. Merely meeting someone is establishing a relationship. Every time people come in to me saying theyd like a job as a writer, I say, I dont have a job for you now, but stay in touch its always the best thing to do. Only one in every 30 people would come back to you again, even though I explain why thats the only way theyre likely to ever get a job with me or any other ad agency they just dont do it. And what happens? They dont get jobs and have to move into another industry. Now that youve left Love and Photon (the communications and marketing services agencies that Reynolds co-founded), what are you working on these days? Im chairman of a company called OMG (Online Marketing Group), which has 32 000 active websites in Australia. So its a big company, with Fairfax as a 49 per cent partner. Working on the book, which is on the science of success and how some people make it and some people dont, kept me busy for a while. And while Im in Los Angeles I work on a little company Ive got an interest in, helping out with the marketing there. So I do a bit of this and that, I do a bit of marketing consulting for people, entrepreneurs and companies. Whats your day-to-d ay work like? I basically get up in the morning, try and do my meditation, do 10 minutes mental rehearsal, then I do 10 or 20 minutes reading, have breakfast, do 30 minutes of emails, then work on my projects during the day, and try to go to the gym. Evenings I spend with friends. I dont work mega-long hours, but I certainly work a full day. Can you contrast that with a typical day when you were working at the agency? Id get in about 730am and leave about 630pm, and its much more intense because its a lot more deadline-oriented, and you feel like an air traffic controller. One planes on the way but you can see the other three coming in. Also, your time is not entirely your own because you have clients, and youve got to respond to those clients. From that point of view its quite frenetic, and there are a lot of short time spans youve got to work within. Maybe three-quarters of the day would be meetings, and the rest would be working by yourself on creative and just thinking and doing new business. When you were working at the agency, what aspects of the job did you like? What I liked was time to do creative work, which was only about an hour a day, which is pretty crazy. But also when you or your agency have come up with a big idea and it actually comes off. There are so many ways, times, situations, when people say no to you in advertising the agency says no to your work, the client says no to your work, the public says no to your work by not buying the product, sometimes the manufacturing company says no to your work because they cant afford to make it so when something gets up and gets in the press because its good, thats really satisfying. And the downsides of the job? The main downside is the enormous amount of stuff not going through sometimes the people approving your work dont know nearly as much as you might about advertising, and sometimes politics get in the way of approving your work. But your happiness is often centred around your work and getti ng good work through. I think advertising is a terrific career if youre doing high-quality work that you and the agency can be proud of, and its a pretty average, soul-destroying career if youre doing poor work. What are the most important qualities required to make it in advertising, especially in such a competitive market? The first one is persistence, because its hard to get in and hard to master, and its hard to rise to the top. So at every level beginning, middle and senior youve got to be up against yourself, practising, getting better. Most people who have 20 years of experience in advertising really only have two years experience, then they repeat themselves for the next 18 years. They dont necessarily grow at the same satz they did when they got in. So its really important to be alert. Be persistent, but be alert throughout your career, not just at the start. Also model yourself on the best agencies around the world how they think, what they do, even how they dress. Do nt just judge yourself on Australian standards. And finally, dont just learn advertising, but learn marketing. Learn the client side, learn business. Become a business advisor, not just an ad creator. How does a rolle go about doing that? Its easy. Hardly anyone in advertising, lets say in the creative department, reads the Financial Review, for example. Therefore, when it comes to talking about business, they dont know what theyre talking about. They dont know the industry, they dont know the people, they dont read any management books, they dont know all the companies in the world. Lets say Im doing an ad for a food company well I should know what other food companies in the world are doing in their marketing. Most people in advertising dont know any of these things, so theyre not business advisors, theyre just ad creators. People need to lift their knowledge base so they can be listened to by the chairman, not just by the marketing director. What makes a persons resume stand out or makes a person stand out in an interview? Number one is it has to be different. It cant just look like every other resume. It has to have energy and life and humanity to it, it cant just be a cold document. So whether you send in your resume with a pizza, or whether theres some kind of gift with it, or whether its done as a DVD it just needs to be a bit different to separate it from the rest. Qualifications arent enough, the worlds full of unemployed people with university degrees thats not what gets you a job. What gets you a job is standing out and looking good. What effect did the recession have on the industry? It had a lot of positive effects, in that agencies sacked a lot of senior people and employed juniors because theyre cheaper, so there were good opportunities for getting into the industry from that point of view. And second of all, companies who are in trouble look for alternatives. So if someone comes in and makes a good case, then they can possibly get an opportu nity that they might not have had when life is comfortable inside that agency. Of course, on the negative side, we all know that they cut a lot of staff and didnt want to employ many people. But I will say this those kind of statistics are macrostatistics, they dont affect the individual. When youre going for a job, you have to assume that youre bigger than the statistics. Dont worry about the economy, just worry about the interview going well, and you can still make it. People defeat themselves by assuming they cant get a job, but thats absolutely untrue. I got my last job in advertising in the second-last recession so I know what it takes to get a job in hard times. Theres always a place for good people, but youve got to excite people with a possibility, youve got to instil inside the person interviewing you that Ah, this is what I was like when I was young keen, driven the future of the industry. How do you see the industry changing in the future, especially with the rise of social networking, viral video and multimedia? Well all industries fragment over time, and the media and advertising industry is no different. All of a sudden we have many more options from a media point of view, so this complexity at first spooks people. They say, I dont know about online things. But the truth is that as long as you read, say, 15 books on it a year, which is pretty easy to do, youll know more than 99 per cent of people do on the subject. So its easy, even though theres all this new media Twitter, facebook inc, etc you can become an expert on it in comparison to everyone else. So thats the first thing. Yes, theres the complexity, but its easy to understand. The second thing is that communication is always the same. Its still all about selling. Its like youre sitting down with someone and youre convincing them to buy your product, but in this case its in an online ad or a Twitter page. Youve just got to remember that no matter what medium you use, youve just got to be persuasive, youve got to be liked, and youve got to make sense. What words of advice can you give to those aspiring to get into advertising or marketing? One is, dont give up. The second is, become an expert. And the third is, learn time management. There are so many people in the industry who are intelligent but dont get much done during the day because their time management technique is so poor.Bachelor of Applied EntrepreneurshipStudy modeOnlinePayment optionsHECS-HELPUpfront paymentCourse guide+ FREE eBrochureEnquire Online Nadim ElRahi - Marketing MangerJames Ellender - General Manager, Marketing and StrategyInterested in becoming a?Managing DirectorProject ManagerChief Executive Officer (CEO)Executive DirectorCorporate General ManagerPopular Career Searchesdiploma in advertising melbourneadvertising courses australiagovernment funded visual merchandising course brisbanehow to become a journalist in australiastudy entrepreneurship onlineEntrepreneurship CoursesGrowth Marketing CourseEnquire Online Enquire OnlineService Design CourseEnquire Online Enquire OnlineGrowth Marketing Transform Course (Full-Time)Enquire Online Enquire OnlineService Design Accelerated Course (1 Week)Enquire Online Enquire OnlineJosie ChunRelated ArticlesBrowse moreCAREER INSPIRATIONCareer progressionThe Most Common Personality Traits In Successful PeopleSuccess and its people come in many different shapes and sizes, but what are the common traits that they all share. 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