Titi Ogunbayo Blog Entry #3

As we walked through the McCann New York office, I felt inspired. And while I know that part of their job is to market the company to clients in overt and subtle ways, I couldn’t help but feel that they hit the nail on the head with their office design and décor. It was great to see such a fun and imaginative use of space that inspired hard work and fresh thinking.
The scope of their work is exactly what I expected and the collaboration that was demonstrated between various departments was particularly insightful. It would have been nice though to have met other people within the advertising creation link in order to get a thorough sense of how things flow. But I understand that would have taken up way too much time that we didn’t have.

I was particularly impressed with Truth Central program; I cannot even imagine the hard work and innovative thinking that goes into producing each project. But I imagine it must be very rewarding for the Truth Central team to see their colleagues create spectacular campaigns based on insights gained from their work.

While a big agency like McCann obviously attracts some of the best and brightest employees, I wonder if a variety of opposing ideas are considered when working on a project? At a smaller agency, I feel more people would be able to bring their differing views to the table. And expressing these differing views may lead to using the best idea for a campaign.

Secondly, McCann seems like a pretty open agency that facilitates the building of interpersonal relationships amongst staff members but it also seems like, employees at the lower rung of the totem pole might not be able to foster relationships with people at the top.

Thirdly, a large ad agency like McCann gives its employees the opportunity to work on various campaigns but I don’t think it allows their employees to become specialized in a particular area.

Lastly, a client doesn’t have to worry about fostering relationships with various agencies. Agencies like McCann are one-stop shops and therefore, clients only have to work on their relationship with one agency. And McCann and other large agencies can create an ad campaign that works seamlessly over multiple channels.

I can see myself working at an agency like McCann but I value fostering healthy relationships with everyone on the totem pole. It gives me an opportunity to not just learn from each campaign but from people at higher levels of management and decision making. An agency like McCann may not readily provide that.
I also wondered about the newly employed McCann associate, who delivered his speech to the class like someone who had been threatened to be sent to the gallows if he didn’t do well. I am sure no such threats were made but I still wonder about the true nature of his discomfort. Perhaps he is averse to public speaking? He just started working at McCann and is not fully comfortable in his role there? He was eager to impress? He was worried about a project he had to stop in order to talk to us? Either way, it was hard to get any pertinent info from him.

It was a pity that we didn’t get to have a proper class due to time constraints; I was looking forward to tying some of the coursework to the McCann presentation.

Summer’s Eve is still being a dud and I am beginning to realize that their social media presence is just a way for them to remind their target audience to use their products, as opposed to truly engaging with us. Their TV commercials are all the same and I think it’s high time they rolled out some new ones. But then again, how many ways can you tell women to take care of their lady parts.