Before you ignore this article and look at the 30 ads, here is what I learned about completing this challenge.

I am a fast man. I eat fast. I walk fast. I talk fast. I just go fast. I go real fast.

The only speed I have is… go. Anyway, I saw a challenge online by Jeremy Carson to try to do 30 ads in 30 days for 30 different brands. So, I was like… hell to the yeah. Here is what I discovered about myself.

Fearlessness. The idea of failing every day for 30 days is daunting. Advertising is subjectively one of the hardest fields, and one of the toughest to break into. I learned for me to do this that I cannot be afraid to fail.

Think fast, but don’t hurry. I thought I was a fast and efficient creative before, but now I am even more so. I felt like I was eating 50 eggs in one sitting every day. 24 hours is barely enough time to think of a life-changing ad, but you need to inspire yourself to eat those eggs anyway. In other words, you better put your self out there in the most dynamic way possible.

Fall. Get up. Fall. Get up again. Advertising teaches more than selling. It’s problem-solving.

Humility. In baseball, you are only as good as your next as at bat. If I hit a home run one day, I could be striking out the next. Therefore, I better have been able to swing for the fences the next day. Never be satisfied with what you did the day before.

Flirting with my brain. I started thinking about what brands I would do before I started concepting for my 25th execution on the 25th day of the challenge. I learned to brew ideation at least a week in advance before I’d even try to make an ad for it. For example, in my Carmex ad, I thought about my experience with the brand for two weeks before I executed it.

Accountability. An AD told me to never post the ads I made on Linkedin in the fear I’d show CD’s my weaknesses. Well, advertising is all about deadlines and working under pressure. I thrive under pressure and is a strong reason why I want to be in the ad world.

Last, this was the best post-grad – ad school assignment you could partake.

In “Cool Hand Luke,” Paul Neuman’s “Luke” decided to eat 50 eggs in one sitting because he was bored. I got denied from five internship opportunities, and I had to turn down one of them. It was frustrating because of how hard I worked, shook hands with people, studied, and basically trained for my first opportunity like a prizefighter. The only thing I could do is to improve my portfolio and sit around and wait for an opportunity. Well, I don’t sit around and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for big things to happen. Challenging myself to do 30 ads in 30 days for 30 different brands was me creating an internship for myself. I didn’t expect anything significant to come out of it. Seriously, I was working on learning and on bettering my copywriting skills. But, there did come results, which was never expected. I was offered a position writing for a company remotely doing newsletters, social media, and content creation. Later down the line, it was my surprise to be presented with an internship.

I did this to learn. That was the only reason.

Now, I have several ads where I can create strong campaigns for my portfolio. This was the only result that I was going for, and I got more than I wanted. I learned about three point ads, executions with no words, long copy, concepting, ideation, art direction, philosophy, and most importantly finding the truth and soul about creating connections with humanity.

To conclude, there’s old adage in hockey is that it doesn’t matter how you score goals because no one cares about how you scored on the goal sheet the next morning in the newspaper. The only thing that matters is that you put the puck in the net.

So, here is to all that sit there and twiddle their thumbs, waiting for life to happen. Don’t sit inside waiting for the sunshine when you can bring it yourself. 

I present to you my first internship in advertising:

30 ads – 30 days – 30 different brands. 

 

All of these are in no particular order. Just tell me what your thoughts are. What I should make into campaigns. Or what you think of me in general. I really just want to a great creative.

And, with my normal blog post sign off…

Remember,

“The Zos Knows”

-David Zosel 

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