FULL CAPACITY: WORKING IN AD LAND

In my mid-twenties, I worked in an advertising agency as an assistant producer. It’s an experience that I use to leverage myself in conversations. “When I worked in advertising….”, but it also gives me the occasional cold-sweat nightmare.

The office was in the centre of Soho and was shaped like a Hunger Games arena. There were four floors filled with desks that were divided into teams. Along the outside were glass offices for the creative directors or the Gods of Ad Land. They would sit and ponder on fonts and tag lines, declaring sign-offs and demolishing ideas with a single look.

As an assistant producer (AP), it was my job amongst other things, to find time in the creative director’s Google calendars so we can get approvals on everything. This could be a fun game, spotting a slither of white space in their day and putting a big fat block in it before anyone else. Other times, it was tempting to just smash through their office wall and scream ‘LORD HAVE MERCY PLEASE PICK RED OR BLUE SO WE CAN GET ON WITH OUR LIVES!”

I was an AP in the film department, which meant making TV or social media adverts. It was rather fascinating how stressful it could get. In some meetings you could be fooled to think that the team were planning on invading a country, not making a 30-second video clip to sell fruit juice.

There was a lot going on, all the time. We had a saying called ‘full capacity.”

The workload lady would ask, “Do you have time to do this extra job?”

And you would go, “No, I’m at full capacity.”

You soon learn that no matter your capacity, you were going to do that job. Time in Ad Land was a balloon that stretched and stretched and stretched.

And the to-do list was like fighting a mystical angry dragon. The one where you manage to cut off a head, only for two to grow back in its place.

But don’t get me wrong, these weren’t life or death tasks on our to-do list, (although they felt like it):

A lot of time was spent aligning images on Google Slides. I listened to actors say the same tagline 100 different ways (“say it seriously”, “now lightly”, “now like you’re ecstatic”, “now like you’re desperate for a pee..”). I stuffed an Addison Lee boot with 7 Christmas hams. Ran across Soho to post-houses to check the actor’s skin wasn’t green. I had a very serious meeting about an inflatable dinosaur once. Delivered a tower of YO! Sushi boxes to several meetings. Escorted Annabel Croft across Battersea Park in her stilettos. And almost broke a hotel door trying to wake up an actor. Did I mention YO! Sushi?

And all of this to make a 30-second advert that will come up on TV just as Brenda leaves the room to make a cup of tea.

I lived in Ad Land for 18 months before realising it wasn’t for me. Today I remain safely on the other side of the screen but with a heightened appreciation, knowing that behind every advert there is a very green 20-something AP…

…working at full capacity.