Why I Didn't End Up in the Ad Industry Like My Friends

It's no easy feat to create advertising campaigns. I don't envy the work being done by advertising agencies. What I'm jealous though of is their talent! I can be creative at times, but I can definitely not cal it up anytime to create campaigns, much less ad copy. And that's why I never worked in an advertising agency, but most of my friends (even my best friend!) are now either creative directors or fun, fab copywriters. I fumble a lot with words that's why.

I remember my boss used to lock me up in my room just to create copy (we did a lot of in-house ads before) and I basically abhorred it coz my muse isn't up to the pressure and she usually runs away whenever that happens. I'd say then that I certainly enjoyed being the client and getting cared for during shoots (even though sometimes I got dragged to be an extra!). Creating a tri-media and below-the-line advertising campaign is no mean feat and life is definitely easier when you have a really great ad agency working with you. And the icing on the cake would be winning in the Araw Awards held during the Advertising Congress.

Quite a number of companies are doing online advertising campaigns already. There are quite a number of interesting ones - like the Shrek Youtube videos that HP did to push their laptops (it's somewhere here in my blog) or even Happyslip's video on her love for Mac can be considered an online advertising campaign (I'm not sure if she was paid for it though). It's a good thing that we now have the Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) catering to this side of media. A really great and good sign that times are changing.

Have you seen an interesting online or mobile ad campaign? Submit an entry to the Boomerang Awards: the 1st Internet and Mobile Marketing Awards.

Crazy Week for Crazy Me, As Usual

Things have been so crazy the past few days! I had speaking engagements almost everyday and lots of back-end stuff I needed to work on and if you noticed through my Twitter, I'm an all day, all night person. But! BUT! I still managed to have a teenie-weenie bit of a social life. I still have a life! Yehey!

This week's rundown:


No! I didn't get engaged! That's my hand though trying out a 50K engagement ring. I accompanied a friend to the Bridal Expo: Perfect Beginnings at the PICC Forum last Sunday and he wanted to take a photo of the ring for his fiance. More about this coming in The Twisted Wedding Planner (I got blog backlog!).

Merienda-dinner at the Chocolate Kiss (it's not just a dating place!) in UP Diliman after a Digitalfilipino workshop for its website awards winners. I had yummy, yummy food and crazy conversation with John, The Macalua, Jay, Charlie (still can't imagine you reading Cosmo! tsk tsk tsk!), Reggie and Janette (not in photo). I think there's something about the iced tea at Chocolate Kiss... we had a very lively discussion on why guys should read Cosmopolitan!




In the evening I tagged along with Jay to attend a Unisilver event. Why oh why would I do this? Because Sam Milby was there! It was quite a challenge to get a proper photo of him - check out the photos above or here to see how I tried to outperform the media photographers just to get a decent photo of him. He was so cute even though he looked puyat.

When I got home that night I announced the Taste Asia Bloggers Food Fest. We have about 150 sign-ups for it already! It's just a bit on hold for more sign-ups right now and I'm trying to suade the sponsor to allow more people to come (was supposed to be originally only for 100 bloggers). Check if your coordinator included you here. Google Docs & Spreadsheets came in really handy for me for this event! Check out the food here.

And the rest of the week was a whirlwind of activities (like IMMAP and other crazier stuff)! Check out Sasha's talk on niche blogging. Too bad my camera went low batt and I wasn't able to video Jayvee's very interesting and lively talk on business blogging and online reputation management.

By Thursday I was already so tired and missed badminton with the BOB! Aaarggh! I'll miss it again next week coz I'll be heading off to Cebu and Davao! Hopefully to meet more bloggers in the area as well!!! Did you guys know they're going to have a Mindanao Bloggers Summit in October? These guys (like Blogie, Andrew, Honey and Marc J.) are just simply great! Too bad I missed the Cagayan de Oro ICT event!

And, of course, not to forget, my handful just became more of a handful by turning 13! Sniff sniff.

Crazier week ahead next week! Going back to sleep now! Zzzzzz...