...doesn’t mean you should.  It’s a favorite quote of mine.  Perfect for the advertising business.   Seems like everyone has a videocamera and wants to make movies or be in movies, has a digital camera and knows a little Photoshop, likes to draw or took a marketing class in college. 

With all due respect, please, for the love of Pete, don’t quit your day job.  I guess we must make this look easy, since just about anyone thinks they can:  Define the mission, write a strategic plan, create a budget, produce advertising materials that will generate a strong ROI (defined as various things depending on who you talk to)  develop a media program to reach the targeted audience and continue the branding over time.

No matter if it’s a small market client or a worldwide brand, the principles of smart planning, clean design, and high quality, creative execution should still apply.  Just because you’re in small town USA doesn’t mean your advertising has to look that way. 

Anyone can get noticed or “make you look”.  But we’re after a lot more than that.  We’re developing an image for the long run.  I constantly remind our clients:  “Not everyone is in the market to buy the same thing at the same time.”

I love it when people tell me:  “I can always tell its your work...it’s so much better than the rest of the commercials we see on TV”.   Thanks.  I work with awesome people and we all obsess over the details that make our work better.  We design and edit, then tweak and think and talk and, like a good soup, don’t serve it till it’s right.   The best compliment though, is when clients tell us:  “Our traffic has been awesome.”   

So, don’t let your Uncle Joe design your web site or your son who just graduated from film school shoot your commercial.   They can, but in all likelihood, they shouldn’t.