What the Producer Said, The VIII

Every great producer or director discovered a genre that worked best.  Martin Scorcese is Gangster. Penny Marshall is Romantic-Comedy. Woody Allen is …Someone Who Was Funny Thirty Four Years Ago, etc.

If you want to be successful in the agency business, you need to take a page from your Hollywood colleagues and find the genre for you.  Sometimes it’s called a “specialty.” I hate that term because it implies that you could choose something else.  Directors and Producers succeed because at some point in their life, they were drawn to a certain type of story.  The genre chose them.

So here’s what.  To get you started here are five steps to discovering what genre works best for you.

Start With the Basics

Movies and advertising are both broken down into very simple categories.  There is advertising that makes us laugh, cry, and everything else, including scaring the crap out of us (freaky adopt a dog spots?). First, identify your category, then identify what industries fall into that category. We are talking concentric circles here.  This will significantly narrow the brands you should work on.

Know Thy History

Once you have narrowed the list of brands, simply pick those that interest you and study their marketing history.  What agencies have they been with? How has the brand evolved over the years? What awards have they won, etc.  Become an expert.

Get a Few Good Ones Under Your Belt

It took Wes Craven 12 years and six films before he became known as the Horror King.  Ideally, you want to work on a few campaigns within your genre. But even if you haven’t actually worked on them, study them.  These will become the answers to the interview question, “What current campaigns do you really like and why?” Standard.

Be Your Own Press Agent

In the movie Sweet Smell of Success, Tony Curtis plays a press agent who uses whatever tactics he can to get press for his Clients and keep them believing he has major contacts.  We no longer need the Sidney Falco’s of the world.  With social media, you are your own press agent.  Use your social media presence to opine on anything and everything that has to do with your genre.  It is simply mind-bottling how easy it is to set your self up as an expert.

Get On Set

Do whatever you have to do to work on accounts that fit your genre.  If you can’t do that right away, at least look for an agency that has those accounts,  and get in where ever you fit in.  Once there, your previous steps should set you up to eventually work on your genre accounts.  And after that, it’s all gravy.

Our industry has never been more like Hollywood in that personalities and reputations rule the day.  To succeed, you have to become one of those personalities. Easy for me, because I am so handsome.  Easy for you, because you have me.  As always, I wish you nothing but success!

And, fade to black.