We all know the job market’s tough out there. We all know that creativity is a massively over-supplied resource. Yet, as someone who’s interviewed his fair share of creatives, it amazes me how many teams seem to stumble and flail through interviews with all the finesse of a drunk at a posh wedding.

It seems to me there are some elementary do’s and don’ts that could help creative teams give a better account of themselves in these situations. So here are my top ten tips for doing interviews based on my own experience (from both sides of the fence).

1. Avoid floating writer syndrome. If a team says: “we actually both write a bit” that translates to me as “neither of them can write and if I ever get a brief in for 10 letter variants, it’s going to be a pain the arse to get one of them to take it on.”

2. Don’t point out minor flaws in your own work. Once a creative came in to see me whose work I’d already seen and liked. He proceeded to point out things about each piece that could have been better. I ended up viewing a folio I’d initially warmed to as a series of failed creative experiments. By the time he’d finished speaking, the book didn’t look half as good to me. Dumb, dumb, dumb!

3. Don’t slag off your existing agency. It makes you look like a loser because, at the end of the day, you chose to go there. It also makes prospective employers think that if they took you on, you’d go round slagging off their agency too.

4. Don’t blame it all on the suits. Selling ads is a two-way street. Creatives should look on suits as bullets and themselves as guns, they need to load them up (with the right creative sell), point them in the right direction and let them go.

5. Have a game plan. When someone says “why do you want to leave the place you’re at now?” don’t just say “to get more money”. Think about it! Have a structured piece of reasoning that makes people see you as someone who thinks about their career in the long term and is in charge of their own destiny. Say “I want to leave to broaden my knowledge of digital”, “I want to be in smaller, more entrepreneurial agency” anything that sounds like you’ve got a plan basically.

6. Say why you want to work at their agency. Be blatant – do your internet research before you go and have a cogent reason for being in there talking to them. After all, you’ve given up an hour of your time and paid for the train fare, you may as well make it look as though you haven’t got there purely by chance.

7. Don’t whinge. Let’s be honest, most Creatives can whinge for Britain, if you put yourself in the 1% who don’t fall into this trap – you’re automatically ahead of the pack.

8. Watch Russell Brand. If you‘re not the most exuberant person in the world, get yourself vibed-up before you go along to the interview so that you’ll make more of an impression. Listen to your favourite music or watch someone like Russell Brand and see how his natural enthusiasm and energy draws people to him.

9. Have a proposition for yourself. You’re a brand – you need one. It could be something about your working methods or something you think you can achieve for agencies. Mine, for example, is this: “I make a difference and improve agencies creatively and financially.” You’re welcome to nick that one if you want. But whatever it is, if you have a proposition you can stand behind, you’re more than just “that team with the tall girl and the fat bloke”

10. Ask the agency what they want their next hiring to bring to their company, what they’re trying to achieve and what the opportunity is for you. If their answer is well-reasoned, it means that they’re serious about the hiring process and are more likely to help you develop from a personal and career perspective. It also helps you take control of the interview.

It’s all simple stuff but, like a lot of simple stuff, it can make a big difference. The key things are: don’t be afraid to sell yourself, sell your work and be positive.

Hope this helps!

Marmite: love the product or hate it (I hate it), you can’t help but be taken in by a brand that’ not only to acknowledges that it can’t please everyone, but turns that fact into a marketing coup. Now, as they unleash their latest gastronomic monstrosity in the form of a cereal bar with a yeasty shock in the middle, Marmite are asking us, the public, if we feel that they have gone “too far”.

I bring up the dreaded but fascinating spread, not to answer their question (the answer is “yes”), nor to analyse the efficacy of suggesting to potential customers that your product may, in fact, be disgusting. I am using Marmite as a rare exemplar of a campaign that actually lends itself to everyone’s favourite bandwagon, social media.

Marmite is the second UK brand to use Facebook’s new sampling ad format. The ads, which pop-up from users’ news-feeds, do not drive potential customers to a website or profile but instead prompt them to accept a free sample, become a fan and declare their undying love or hate. Thus, Marmite informs the potential customer of its new product, acquires their mailing address and the right to use their news-feed as an interactive billboard to advertise to all their friends. All in the guise of a one-question survey with a free cereal bar at the end.

This three-birds-with-one-stone quality is essential to Facebook’s utility. Rather than creating and maintaining a purpose-built website, and worrying about search optimisation and the arduous task of actually updating the site; make a cookie-cutter profile for your product, use one of the many pre-existing applications designed to filter your pen-portrait customer from the 25 million Brits who have volunteered every conceivable detail of themselves, and all you have to do is remember to feed it with fresh content now-and-then.

Now that product fan pages support status updates, videos, a “wall”, games and all the dynamic, interactive features that are de rigueur on people’s personal profiles, keeping the things alive is easier than ever. What’s more, every new development is broadcast via members’ news-feeds, an invaluable viral opportunity if seized upon. “John Hates Marmite: tell him why he’s wrong and while you’re at it give us your mailing address”.

The trouble with attempts by large corporations to get with the cool kids and seek out their custom is that most cool kids don’t want to be sought. They resent patronising advertisers ‘tricking’ them into participating in their campaigns, and everyone hates spam. The trick, as I see it, is making your move so quick and unobtrusive and so natural in the context of Facebook, that it seems more like an off-hand remark than an all-day seminar.

The idea is to move on-line marketing away from driving customers to a static website, which is really just an electronic brochure, towards a one-on-one, back-and-forth “conversation” between a brand and its customers. Ideally, all we’ll have to do is log into Facebook and every brand that thinks it stands a chance will come looking for us to ask a question, offer advice or draw our attention to something cool.

That’s the strength of Marmite’s campaign; it has a pre-established “in”, a controversy. Its incursion doesn’t feel forced. Browsing the news you notice a friend has said the wrong thing about what to have on your toast, you correct him and sign-up for a free cereal bar, and the good news spreads to all you other friends. No nonsense, no fuss. So while other brands are regarded as nuisances, we will all be friends (or enemies) of Marmite.

John McIntosh

Even in these very early days the Friday Breakfast Club has brought to light plenty of great ideas – either to improve the agency for ourselves, or to spark some creative ideas for our clients. In week 1, some clever kid mentioned that we carry a small notebook around with us – that got my creative juices flowing (OK, it was me) and I though I would test out Baber Smith’s promise to support the entrepreneur in all of us…

After ‘my Agent Jo’ got wind of this idea, I was commissioned to produce a little book for each and every employee to capture all the wonderful ideas that pop in on out of our heads. I cant wait to see them in action on Friday…

Check out some more of my work on allisonball.co.uk

Allison

PS. It was very difficulty to resist the urge to add a bird… Even a very little one… Sniff.

Callum – Peace and quiet.

Lindsey – A massive ensuite in primrose hill with views of parliment hill for £0.30 p a week

Jo – A can of Diet Coke, a Range Rover, a gift voucher from Marks & Spencer, an American Express Centurion Card, a jar of Nescafe from Nestle, a return flight to NY from Virgin Atlantic, a Sony Bravia TV, a N97 from Nokia, a Louis Vuitton Luggage, a pair of Nike trainers, a Ralph Lauren Sweater, a Tiffany bracelet, a Chanel Handbag, a Cartier watch, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, a lottery ticket from Camelot, a No7 repair and Protect from Boots, a KFC family bucket and peace on earth.

Anna – everything Jo said!

Charles – is a strong robust UK economy that actually grows for a change and salmon coloured cowboy shirt and shoes.

Nikki – To be sober.

Emma – A Navy Audi R8 with tan leather seats.

Sonya – New jeans as my belly seems to be expanding by the day! Some books on motherhood as I haven’t a clue. And my new years wish is for a healthy baby.

Victoria – I want a hot air balloon and a pet owl!

Christina – I would like the perfect pair of black pumps. The type that has wow factor and works equally well for client meetings and going out for impromptu drinks in Camden. They should be fashionable yet classic, have a quite high heel but should still be good for running fast around the studio in or chasing  buses/cabs. I have been looking for these for years and I know exactly what they should look like – down to the stitching on the sole. if I don’t get them this christmas I will have to take up shoe design in 2010. So maybe a shoe design course then…

Andy – Hair.

Kirk – World Peace.

Richie – Is no more Big Brother, X Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, I’m a Celebrity and any other reality TV rubbish!!

Iain – Is a world without estate agents in it. Or Solicitors. Or Craig Bellamy.

Mark – A year’s supply of fine white wine and Sergei Rachmaninov’s complete works on CD.

Sarah – A blow torch.

Oli – A jet-pack and roller blades, will never have to re-charge his oyster card ever again.

Tanya – Shoooooeeessss

Simon – A clipper set.

Sam – For all my colleagues Christmas wishes to come true…and a Range Rover…and some inspiration for what to buy Mrs J…and another trip to Vegas.

Tim – SNOW!

All other Baber Smithians are on the naughty list.

Our very own Creative Group Head and Copy Guru, Mark Blanchard, has had his good work recognised in the most public of manners. A campaign that he created at his previous agency for Lotus has just made it into a coveted list of the Top Ten DM Campaigns of the Decade compiled by Campaign Magazine. Big cheer and molto congrats from all of us at Baber Smith, Mark!
http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/news/970508/Advertising-noughties—Top-10-DM-campaigns/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH
Jo Smith
Sales and Marketing Director Baber Smith