Why I got into the advertising business

I was a marketing major in college at the University of Richmond and earned my MBA from Pepperdine and I have always been fascinated by advertising. After graduating college, I confess all I knew about advertising was the creative department and account management, I knew nothing about media. However, I answered an ad for a media assistant in the OC Register for an agency in Newport Beach and once I was in media I really enjoyed it. Media is fascinating because it’s always changing.

Even the idea of what is a medium is changing. Is a medium just mass media? Or can it be one to one communication, such as mail, email, or phone calls. What about screens in unusual areas such as on Taxi-cabs, or in the grocery store? The list of media is endless. At one time society was dominated by a top-down media structure where only selected professionals had access to mass communication vehicles, but now we have the democratization of media where anyone with an idea and a computer can communicate to large number of individuals. If anything, the problem now days is how do you filter the millions of websites, blogs, videos and social posts to fine information that is reliable and pertinent. This is why social recommendations are so critical now days to help consumers find not only good media content, but other products and services. Advertising must change to less of a push strategy to more of a partnership with consumers where we provide beneficial content that is compelling and also provides solid rationale for buying a product of service.

Besides, from “Bewitched”, to “Bosom Buddies”, to “Thirtysomething” to “Melrose Place” to “Mad Men”, advertising agencies have always looked cool on TV.

Where Good Ideas Come From

Reading a great book by Steven Johnson on the history of innovation, called Where Good Ideas Come From. It's a must read for anyone that wants to encourage their organization to be more innovative. I love this quote: "Innovative environments are better at helping their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts-mechanical or conceptual-and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts (location 494-98 in Kindle).