Evesdropping and Ad

This afternoon I happened to be taking a much needed break from my oh-so-demanding job of Academic Scheduling Specialist- ASS for short, no joke.  My job title is shortened to ASS just to make it all the more glamorous.  Hence the reason why I am tirelessly working towards my degree in Advertising, I no longer want to be called an ASS in my professional life unless I really deserve it.

While taking said break I happened to be in ear shot of the construction crew working behind my office.  The group was comprised of 4 or 5 middle aged men and they were engaged in the most entertaining conversation.  It was hard to hear all of it but I did catch “sexy chicks” (I figured that one would be in there), but what was interesting was that it was immediately followed up by “Terra Nova”, “Time Travelers Wife”, “Magic Trees” and then “Brad Pitt”.  If I hadn’t had to rush back to my important ASS duties I really would have loved to listen in to see how these things all tied together.  And because Deb Morrison’s class is always in the back of my head I got to thinking about what could be learned from this eavesdropping and how it could apply to good advertising.

Advertising is all about knowing your audience, not about knowing the stereotype of your audience.  If the Ad world continued to think of groups of people based on common stereotypes great things like JWT’s Kotex campaign or Nike’s “If You Let Me Play” never would have happened.  Now, these commercials have revolutionized the way the world views periods and sports and I’m guessing that a huge part of their research was just listening to what their audience had to say.

Harnessing the Inner Badass

With spring term really getting started I got to thinking about long term shit, like interning and getting a job and graduating (in 3 months!).  It’s easy to lose track of those important things that are off in the future when your brain has been clouded with crap like Econ exams and readings about the history of paper.

This next term need to be focused around harnessing my inner badass.  I know that it’s in there.  I have no problem letting badass Megan loose after a few glasses of liquid courage but I’m confident that my future employers aren’t down with drunken employees, no matter how badass they might be.  So rather than take up daily drinking I decided to work at being a sober badass.

I spent last term struggling with this idea, I decided to embark on a new personal project to help build up my confidence.  This project is in the infant stages, more to come soon, but I hope that this project will become great fodder for this blog while simultaneously beefing up my confidence and faith in my ability to show off how badass I really can be.  Like I said, I know it’s there; I just have to work at it.  Time to get moving.