There's This Girl...

Okay, who watched the first episode of Idol yesterday? The only Astro at this house is forever tuned in to Oasis or Bernama TV so I can only watch the show on 8TV, hence the first show, yesterday.

Anyway, who else felt like they should somehow brush their teeth after watching Victoria Huggins audition? Because the whole time I was watching her, it felt like I was eating a tonne of Cadbury's Crunchies + a jar of liquorice + a tub of honey. At the same time.

Ya Allah, lets just say, she is not someone I'd wanna meet first thing in the morning because her perkiness bugs me to no end and there would be a 97.5% chance I'd do something mean to her. Just to stop my teeth from hurting.

But she had a nice singing voice. I'll give her that.

I know kan, apehal tibe-tibe takde angin, takde ribut, nak bising-bising kan?

Haha but actually, this entry has got to do with something that I've been wanting to do for the longest of time.

I've a friend whose blog - Ada Apa Dengan Hanna - I'd really recommend people to read because she is funny. Her entries are, most of the time, sangat bersahaje dan sangat sempoi. Each of her entry will make you do one of two things: laugh hysterically or think.

Sometimes, sometimes, she'll be kind enough and make you do both.

Okay, so I won't mind being Gotcha!-ed everyday. Like, seriously.

Sooo, remember when I said today will be a good day?

It was a good day. A really really good day.

Apart from the fact that half of the office was gone, we also found out we'd finally be getting a new Creative Director! Finally! No more running around like headless chickens!

And then, the best bit of the day happened some time after lunch, when the team who went to Astro came back. Sueway mentioned that Ian brought something back for me so while I was chatting with her, Ian came back and told me, word for word okay this part, verbatim dan yang sewaktu dengannye that they told JJ & Ean about me.

"Babe, we told Ean and JJ about you. I kinda said that 'We have this copywriter, Siti, who's a big fan of you guys but she couldn't be here today'. Ean asked if you're cute. So I said, yeah, very cute, very adorable."

Haha sumpah sayang mamat ni, pandai je die butter me up in front of the 2 guys kan?!

"Anyway, they gave you something but it's not with me, it's with J."

Okay, I found that out at about 2pm and I was in agony wondering what in the world did they have for me kan. You see, J had to be in Shah Alam for the TVC shoot so she was out the whoooolllleeee day, first at Astro and then at Shah Alam. Lucky thing I had a little bit of work that I could do while waiting for her. Yes, I'm going to unashamedly admit that I waited for J to get back because I wanted to see what she had for me. And I was further motivated by the fact that she'd be out the whole day Friday again so, might as well kan, wait for her.

When she got back around 7.30pm, there was a whole bunch of people following her to her room because they wanted to see what I got. And it was in her room, I was finally presented wiiiitttthhh:

Yes, from JJ & Ean okay!
Lemme be giddy for an extra 5 minutes.
Heeeee~!

5.

The legendary Susu's Word of the Day: Pete/Pit
"I'm not your pete/pit!"

Translation: "I'm not your pet!" - said after J gave him her leftover food.

And metaphor of the week goes to Rei's, "It's like they bought the DVDs first before they even bought the DVD player.." (We were talking about how this client has done almost everything but their fundamentals are still shaky, so to speak)

Adoiiii. I'm blaming it on stress.

Anyway, tomorrow will be a goooooddddd day, hopefully. Because Eddy's acting Traffic Manager and when he's around, the Studio is like paradise on earth. Most of the office are going to the Goodmaid TVC shoot. Seriously, I dont understand why certain people have to be there when I personally think they shouldn't.

J will be at Astro tomorrow for the Vitagen radio commercial with, get this, JJ & Ean, Aznil & Raja Azura and MyFM's DJs. Yes, JJ & Ean. I listen to them everyday on my way to work. I'd park my car and chill while listening to their morning topic and their Gotcha! calls before I force myself to get into the office. Yes, I am a fan. And apart from meeting them, to be able to meet Aznil after that would have been a-may-zing.

But with all of this going-ons, guess where I'll be?!

At the TVC shoot?
Nope.

At the RC recording?
Hahahahaha. I wish.

Instead I'll be stuck at the office because they need at least one copywriter on standby..If the fact that I wont get to meet JJ, Ean & Aznil isn't bad enough, I then heard J say, "Who are these, JJ & Ean? I've never heard of them. I don't even know what they look like!"

......I should be at the recording. Damn.

4.

I have three designers in my department. They are Susu, Carmen and Rei. William is our Senior Art Director cum occasional designer. Carmen, William and I are still getting to know each other. But it is a totally different case with the other two. Rei and Susu are like my big brothers. Susu's the annoying-forever-teasing-you kinda big brother whereas Rei's the quiet-sweet-type.

Now, Susu's probably the funniest guy I've ever met. Most of the time, none of us understands what he's saying. He'd say something and we'd usually go, "WHAT? I totally didn't get you!". We actually have a list called, "Susu's Word of the Day" in Jelo's and Sherina's room.

Because of this problem of his, sometimes, when the boys are out and we want them to get us something, we'd try to avoid calling Susu because to explain to him and to get him to understand us will take the longest time possible and because of this too he tends to mispronounce names....and words. For example:

Sherina becomes Shasha (Okay this is not exactly a mispronunciation, it's just because he can't pronounce her name so he changed it)
Noelle becomes Novelle
Siti becomes Honda City (Fine, he can pronounce my name perfectly right it's just he refuses to)

And the words would range from the normal, forgivable ones such as:

Oh my godness! (At one point, said word even became, "Oh my Goddess!" I kid you not)

Lorex (Rolex)

Mosito (Mosquito)

Federal Rochey (Ferrerro Rocher)

Plet-to (Petrol)


to "OMAIGOD, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING SUSUUUU?!" such as:

Bubujela (Vuvuzela)

Peug Chew (Kill you)

Bulu (Blue)

Bu Ray (Blu Ray. At one point, we thought he was saying, "Booo, Rei!")

Blanda (Bangla)

Za ham bey (Zombie)

Monex (Molest)


to super ridiculous, tak masuk akal phrases that were usually randomly said like:

"I'm not Africa!" - I was in Jelo's room during one of our bitching session when he stopped by right in front of the room and said that sentence randomly.

A few days before our Christmas party, we were discussing on what to wear and he came over and said, "You guys no tukar baju la!" Translation: "You guys go naked la!"

And of course, "Coz my hair there got no shampoo" which was randomly said, again, in front of Jelo's room.

Most of the time, when he mispronounces words, I'd try my best not to laugh or if I did, I'd try not to LOL la kan. Until one day, he came up with the most random of all sayings which turned out to be my most favourite of all sayings of Susu's that still cracks me up to this day was when during a discussion at his table, he randomly went,

"Nipple is good for everyone!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

3.

It's 8.14am and I am already at the office. Only 6 hours of sleeeeepppppp! *slumpsontothetable*

Anyway, my friends have been asking where I am working at and everytime I say advertising agency, I'd almost always get the same reaction, "Wahhhh!" or "Best tu!" (the reaction gets even more bizarre when I say it's in Damansara...) I finally understood their reaction one day when they told me that advertising equals to creative hence people who work in advertising are creative.

I personally believe that everyone is creative in their own way and people kinda tend to forget that there are other cogs in the machine (ececeh, gune metaphor!), there are other people that drive an ad agency.

So todddaaaaayyyy kanak-kanak sekalian, cikgu nak ajar tentang the going-ons of an ad agency or in other words, how an ad agency functions.

First of all, the frontliners or the Servicing Department (sometimes also known as Account Management, ikut suke la kan agensi tu nak panggil diorang ni ape kan) In my agency's case (not MY agency okay, the agency I work in la more like) there are three business units made up of at least three Account Executives handling various accounts. Now, these people, their job's to go out, meet clients, listen to them and them come back, interpret what the clients want and /or need and then come back and explain to the Creative Department what needs to be done.

Basically, the clients will tell them "Oh hey, we wanna drive up sales/create brand or company awareness so we want you to come up with a print ad/billboard/TVC/radio commercial/brochures/anything and everything in the world to help us achieve our objective." Then these servicing people will ask all the relevant questions la like how much is their budget, are they looking at a campaign or a one-time thing etc. Potpetpotpet, conclude all already, then they'll come back and strategise on what can be done.

After that, it's time to brief the people who'll be doing the work. Usually, in my case, they'll log in the job and Traffic will handle the delegation of work. Now a Traffic Manager doesn't and I repeat, doesn't go around the office with a whistle in her mouth and a Stop sign in hand, she's not a lollipop man nor is she a traffic policewoman.

Upon receiving a job request, the Traffic Manager will assign a team of Creatives for said job. One team usually consists of an Art Director (but since we only have one Art Director, William is involved in allllllllll jobs) a designer and a copywriter. Then a briefing will be arranged and everyone involved, including the Creative Director and the Servicing-in-charge will attend and the job will be explained. Here, they will elaborate la what the client wants and how to give the clients what they want.

After that, all the brainstorming for concepts will start to happen and internals will be scheduled where ideas are thrown back and forth and the pros and cons of each idea will be discussed. Then more potpetpotpet debates and whatnots, when a concept is chosen, the Creatives will start on the execution.

Mooooovvviinnnggg on to the Creative Studio. It usually consists of a Creative Director, a few Art Directors, copywriters and designers. Usually the Art Director will be in charge of the art direction, see whether the visuals used are appropriate, maybe can extend one line or shorten a line, add dots here, turn the ad purple or rainbow-coloured etc. whereas copywriters write the copy which is basically the words you see on an ad and the designers make it happen! There WILL be changes along the way because the ad will be sent out to the client for approval, this specific time is called the material deadline. Then the client may want us to put a clown at the side of an ad or sometimes even Servicing will give their opinions to enhance said ad and after more changes have been made (the client will get a copy of the ad after each change), after copywriters have proofread everything and somehow everyone's satisfied then the Final Artwork (FA) will be printed out and all the people involved from servicing to the Creative team to the Production Manager will give their approval by signing on the work.

Lastly, the ad will go into productioooonnn. The Production Manager's work is to do math, seriously. When a job comes in, and all the collaterals (eg print ads, TVC, radio script, brochures blablabla) have been identified, Production Manager has to count the cost and estimate how much the agency is gonna charge and then the estimate will be given to the client to be signed.

There is another part of the agency, the Media department. These people do media planning. They dont buy media, our sister company's doing that. Media people plan the client's media schedule. Say they give us about RM900k of advertising budget and they wanna do TVC for the next 3 months to increase their brand awareness so Media people have to crack their heads and figure out how best to spend the money and make sure the clients get their money's worth and achieves their goal. Calculations are involved here but they said it's easy. I took Media Planning in college, I loved the calculations part but the scheduling part, not so much. Haha.

Anyway, side note, my company's Media Department is looking for interns if anyone's interested.

I'd better stop because I bet no one's going to even finish reading this entry. Haha. There's another side to an agency which is the AV production. I havent been on a shoot yet so I dont really know what goes on there, I've been told what goes on there la but being told and being there yourself are two different things. So I guess the next time they trust me enough to let me loose onto a TVC shoot or a radio commercial recording, I'd be sure to continue Ad Agency 101.