Episode #50: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising with Thomas Kemeny
Thomas Kemeny shares his journey as a copywriter and author of the book Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising. Thomas provides tips on writing, presenting, and pitching, and explains why juniors are the lifeblood of an advertising agency.
Episode Recap: Thomas Kemeny, the author of Junior: Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertisingshares valuable insights on writing tips and tricks, the biggest challenges in advertising for creatives, and the impact of AI on the creative process. Kemeny shares his personal experience of breaking into the creative industry emphasizing the importance of persistence, authenticity, and adaptability.
The theme of the book is in the title “Junior” which highlights the importance of the energy that new creatives provide to the industry. Kemeny wrote the book to help people starting their careers in advertising, not just to inspire, but to provide practical advice including unconventional methods to get attention.
Kemeny’s advice for new creatives include:
- Invest in a 401k!
- Enjoy the process
- Find humor in rejection
- Find ways to help others to gain experience and build connections
- Don’t wait for others to decide when to start your career, take initiative and drive your own success.
- Developing multiple skills and find a balance between intelligence and humor to stand out in a competitive field
- Write like a human being, rather than in stilted and academic language.
- Make the solution more interesting than the problem, focusing on attention-grabbing language and highlighting the product’s unique features.
- Start with the truth and avoid generic language, using specific examples to illustrate points.
- Experiment with load bearing ideas in advertising, where a single word change doesn’t affect the entire message.
The biggest challenges in advertising for creatives:
- Rejection
- Client feedback – the “Great and Powerful Oz” inaccessible clients giving feedback, making it difficult to get ideas through
- Remote work
- Interest rates going up will have a big impact on performance marketing, requiring higher ROI before investing.
In terms of AI and the impact on creativity in advertising, Kemeny expresses excitement and optimism about its potential to solve problems and experiment with new ideas. Kemeny believes that AI will not replace the value of advertising, which is about creating an outsized impact with a little bit of something, rather than optimizing incremental improvement.
Episode Transcript:
Kelly Callahan-Poe
Welcome to the to Two Marketing Moms Podcast. I’m Kelly Callahan-Poe. Today’s episode is called Writing Your Way Ahead in Advertising with special guest Thomas Kemeny. Thomas is a freelance creative director currently splitting his time between Austin and Zoom. He is the author of the cult ad book Junior Writing Your Way Ahead In Advertising. He worked at Goodby Silverstein & Partners and Mother New York before setting off on his own. He’s contributed to several marketing books, has been quoted in the New York Times, and is a two-time finalist in The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest. I’m sure there’s a story there. He’s won awards at Cannes Lions OneShow, D&AD, ADC and the Effies. Welcome, Thomas.
Thomas Kemeny
Thank you so much for having me.
Kelly
I’ve obviously been a big fan, I’ve read your book, when it first came out. And I recently read it again. And it still reads as it has, in the beginning. You can probably read this book in an hour, it’s so fast. And it’s you’re gonna want to absorb every single word. But my favorite part is the preface of the book. And there’s a paragraph in there that just lights me up. I was wondering if you’d be willing to read that for us?
Thomas
Yeah, sure.
Junior. It’s where the energy of an agency comes from. The title of the people willing to do anything it takes, any time it takes. Junior is the pulse. The youth and vibrancy. The bright-eyed, puppy dog hope that refuses to be jaded by anything. The fight that makes the subhead on a banner as stellar as the TV spot. The heart.
In a perfect agency. We’re all juniors.
Kelly
I love this. Because it’s so true when we have new hires at an agency, or we bring in interns, I get so excited because there’s this new fresh energy that really lightens and brightens the agency, because they’re not as jaded as we have been after having so many years in the business. And that energy that you have in the beginning of your career, especially maintaining that through a long career is the toughest part, right?
Thomas
Absolutely. Yeah. And for me, that’s kind of why I wrote the book, as well as sort of, there were so many people and books and things like that, that sort of talked to what is the industry, what isn’t advertising, and then kind of jumps all the way to looking back on 50 years of my career. And it’s all if I were to still distill down everything that’s happened to me in that time. And this is really, this is a book written for people who are doing the work, not commenting on the work. This is for people who are who are really in the thick of it day to day, who are starting off in the career because they have energy, they have inspiration. I think there’s a lot of talks and things directed at students that are about inspiring them. And it’s that seems so backwards to me, because they have the inspiration. That’s not what they’re lacking. They’re not lacking inspiration. They’re not lacking a drive or energy. It’s sort of those other things that they still need to develop. So yeah, I think that was one reason I wanted to write it and have it be actually very useful, very workable from day one. As soon as you read it, you can start applying it to your work versus creativity is the answer and you know, sort of broad, broad strokes statements like that.
Kelly
Well, in your first chapter of the book, you actually publish your emails to Crispin & Porter in terms of you trying to get a job as a copywriter there. Are those emails real?
Thomas
They’re 100% real. Yeah, this isn’t a fictional LinkedIn anecdote. This is exactly how I wrote to the recruiter. There were dozens of emails that you’re publishing and trying in many different ways to get their attention and threading humor throughout and your patience finally weighs out. I mean, that took some guts to do, for sure. And I think that all the reason that I published them, I was originally going to just write to the idea of oh, it’s important to be creative and breakthrough but I thought actually just showing what I did and how I sort of approached it would probably be the better way to do it. The letters were and if you read the book, even if you go on Amazon, you look at the free sample. You can read some of the letters but they were written to get attention. And I wanted them to be fun. And it all started when I reached out to the recruiter, it was at Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami. They were at the time considered the number one agency in the world, like broadly accepted as they were the best agency in the world. I had no shot of getting in there. So, I reached out to them. I’d sent them my portfolio, and they’re like, yeah, it’s here somewhere. It was like absolute, you know, brush up, they were very polite about it. They’re like, I have not looked at your portfolio, I will not be looking at your portfolio.
But they asked me to just write a letter about why you want to work here. And so that’s what I did. It started off as a letter of why I wanted to work there — all of the reasons why I thought I’d be a good fit the way I approach problems, but written in a funny way. And then, kind of halfway through the letter, I had this twist where I say, but you’re really busy, obviously. So why should you have to think of reasons not to hire me, I’ve given you all these good reasons. For me, let me give you the reasons not to hire me. And sort of through that, giving them reasons not to hire me, I kind of gave them more reasons to hire me, essentially. But also written was kind of fun way.
And they reached out to me immediately, after that first letter and said, this is great. Have we looked at your portfolio? And I said, nope. And so, I wrote this letter. And they said, great, we’ll get back to you in two weeks. And that was, you know, I didn’t hear anything for three months.
So I followed up with another letter, and they wrote back again, and they said, Yeah, we’ll get back to you didn’t hear for another couple, you know, a couple of months. And then they wrote back again, and again, it’s basically over the course of a year. I said, I think in the end, I end up writing six letters to them these long, well crafted, each letter took me weeks to write, they look like they just were thrown on the page. But they were they were very crafted very kind of walking a fine line of maybe pushing it a little bit too far, or just kind of walking that line.
And then and then the end, they did say, Yeah, we appreciate the persistence, these letters are hysterical, you obviously have the thing that we’re looking for, we’d love to bring you in as an intern. So that’s, that’s how I started my career. And like I said, they were sort of such a hot agency at the time that basically opened up every door after that I could reach out to anybody, and at least have a conversation. And then, in my three months of interning there, I threw away my entire portfolio at a whole new portfolio of mostly actual published work.
So that was, that was a game changer for me. And it was probably why I started my career and I’m successfully working now.
Kelly
So, it wasn’t just about creativity and demonstrating your ability as a writer, it was more about tenacity and persistence and plain old guts, because a lot of people wouldn’t have the guts to do what you did.
Thomas
Yeah, and I think part of that is also, you know, I was in somewhat privileged position of not having any chance of getting in there anyway, so I had nothing to lose. It’s not this is my shot, and I’m gonna blow it, I didn’t have a shot.
You know, just doodling makes me laugh. And I think that’s sort of an important thing to call out that I when I talk to people, and they say, how do you know what do you put in a portfolio to get a job and, and I always say, just put in the work that you really love or do something that really makes you smile that you really appreciate because it’s a two-way thing. It’s not just you going to them and then you know, or ordaining you as acceptable or not acceptable? It’s, it’s a conversation of this is the stuff that I like to do, is that a good fit for your place? I think that was that was another piece of it. Just put in things that you love that make you smile that you want to be doing. And if they find that and they like that, then you’re going to find a place where you’re happy. If you sort of try and cheat a wedge into what they’re about and that what you think they would like then you’re gonna end up in a place where you’re probably not that happy, where you’re not doing the kind of work that you actually want to be doing. And it probably won’t be as good as something that that comes a little bit more purely from you. That’s your unique sauce on the world. That makes a lot of sense to be yourself.
Kelly
How did you get Jeff Goodby to write your intro?
Thomas
So I actually I worked at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for a few years. I had a working relationship with him. So I think he respected me. Because we talked about this project, it was for Got Milk where we made these cookie-scented bus shelters. Yeah, and so there was just the cookie scent and the logo and that was the whole idea. And we presented it to him. We were not on the project. It was on the side, we came up with this idea we were gutsy enough to bring it to him, to talk to his assistant and set up a time and try and get in there. And then after that he really loved that idea. He helped us make it happen and it did well. And he sort of looked after me a little bit after that, and for my part, I made sure to never disappoint him anytime he put me on a project.
So when you work, you get busy, something’s gonna have to give, you give up your nights or weekends or you work less on another project, or this is all time management, this is something that you definitely learn as you get older. But I just promised myself I would never disappoint on a project that he put me on. And, I seemingly kept that because when I asked him, he said, absolutely, I’ll do that. So that’s how I got him to do it.
Kelly
We can go back to the cookie-scented billboards in a minute. But, one of the things that he said in the intro, he talked a lot about rejection, and how this is a business of rejection. And I hadn’t thought it that about that way. But I felt it in my heart, that you have to be a certain type of person to be an advertising. And you have to be resilient. Because there’s so much criticism on all sides when you think about it, and that part really resonated with me. Your thoughts?
Thomas
Yeah, I think it is a business of rejection. If you’re very, very, very, very good at your job, 99.9% of your work will die. That’s, that’s if you’re very good.
You know, so you sort of have to enjoy the process. If you don’t enjoy the process and find humor along the way you’ll probably be burned out. And you know, a little bit of gallows humor helps, kind of keeps the cynicism from exploding out in a fit, if you can just kind of have a little moment for yourself of chuckling about the situation.
One thing I like to talk about too, is having a bit of amnesia seems to work well. You know, whenever I get it, this kind of goes back to being a junior in that junior mindset. Every time I got a new project, I’m like, great, nothing bad can happen. You have to approach it, jump into it and say, everything’s gonna be wonderful. And you know, even those clients that have been difficult with everyone else, we’re gonna have a great time, and it’s gonna go well. And there’s an opportunity. And I mean, what’s weird is, a lot of times it sort of works out where even the best, some of the best projects I’ve worked on best lines I’ve worked on were ones where people had said, this is a terrible client, and they don’t do good work. And then you approach it fresh and excited. And they, they find a little something and they and they like it and then you’re the one who’s turning bad branding into something great. And that’s such a great feeling.
Kelly
So your advice for newbies, we’ve talked about persistence, we’ve talked about creativity, and being yourself. We’ve talked about having the guts to be able to try something and continually getting rejected and being okay with that. What other advice do you have for newbies starting out?
Thomas
I’ll give you a few things. The first one is to invest as much as you can into your 401k That’s such a boring answer, but it is the correct answer. It’s something that when I go back, and I tell people that the older people like yeah, that’s great advice. So max out your 401k – the first piece of advice.
And then as far as the actual career part of it, ask people who look exhausted, if you can take anything on is one great way to do it. Find people who look really tired and say, hey, is there anything I can help you out with? Because I’ll tell you, when I was on my internship, and it was 10 o’clock at night, and I didn’t have anything else to do, I was kind of hanging around there. And I saw a creative director pulling their hair out and I popped in and said, hey, what are you doing anything I can help on? And they’re like, yeah, here’s this project that I’m working on that I was hurting for myself, but I’ve run out of time. And, you know, I’ve gotten I got great work produced from doing that.
Which goes this other thing that I like to give his advice, which is don’t wait for someone else to decide it’s time for your career to start. If you’re waiting for this proper trajectory, and they’re just going to throw you on this track that’s going to drive you to success, it’s not going to happen. You have to drive it yourself, you need to find your own way to break through or climb up if you want to. I mean, the other thing is, maybe you’re okay with just following the track and that’s okay too. Not everyone has to be driven to succeed but if you want to rise quickly, you have to do it yourself and nobody’s gonna put you on that path. Unless you’re you know, related to the boss maybe they will. And then just do more than the assignments that you’re assigned or, or just find new ways to approach it that maybe they haven’t thought of or
getting really good at something. My other like thing I like just get really good at one type of thing. And this is the twist, get really good at the opposite of that thing as well. So, I think there’s a lot of people like early in my career, I was known for sort of smart work. Now I got to Thomas is smart, he can figure out the smart stuff. And then I kind of flipped and a guy kind of got known for my silly stupid writing style, which is the book, if you read it is written in a very light, very approachable, almost flippant style at time, and I think you were saying it’s sort of a fast read. And that’s why it’s written in a way that kind of falls off the page. And, now I’ve sort of found a way to merge those two, I have a little bit of humor with intelligence underneath it, which has been very useful having that flexibility now as a freelancer. But I think if I had stuck in just doing the smart work, or just the silly work, I think that would have sort of pigeonholed me. And, that’s great, when times are great, because they just need somebody to do the one thing, but when times are a little tight, they need somebody who can do two things. So, I would say that, that’d be one other piece of advice is, find the thing you’re great at, get great at it, and then try and be great at the opposite of that thing. So that you have a little bit more, more flexibility.
Kelly
Can you share some of your best writing tips? You have a section on writing tips, you have a section on presenting tricks and tips, and you have a section on pitching tips? Can you share some of those?
Thomas
Sure, yeah, I’ll give a sort of loose highlights. You know, it’s also available on Amazon for anyone wants it.
Let’s start off with kind of why you need these tips. And this is a little bit about creativity. In general, I think your brain takes a lot of energy, burns a lot of calories, your brain does not want to work, it doesn’t want to think it wants to give you the first answer and say great, we’re done.
Thinking beyond that takes energy. So creativity, and any sort of anything beyond that, for the first pass at something is really about tricking your brain into thinking that it has not completed the task, and sort of finding ways to tell your brain. Oh, yeah, that’s great. But, you know, that isn’t really the answer. Because of this, it could be ways to trick your brain like, what’s the worst answer that you can come up with? What’s the best answer you can come up with? How do we approach it if it’s a song? What would we do if we only had 10 characters? Or you can’t use the letter L or whatever, like just throwing garbage at your brain.
I always say like, I’ll get into this in a minute, but just sort of start with the truth. So what are different sort of truths that you can have your brain start exploring. So that’s sort of why you need these tips and tricks is to get your brain out of thinking. Your brain wants to be done. It’s not done, it’s just getting started. And once it kind of accepts that, then you’ll just have a flow of ideas come out.
You know, this sort of get more specific, there’s sort of like a classic rule in advertising writing, which is, write like you talk, which I think was really great advice for a long time, because people were writing very stilted and found a very academic and technical and it just didn’t sound like a human being would talk.
I think there’s been a sort of evolution of that now, where the way that people write now is so much more fun than it used to be. So, I would say now it’s actually right, like the new piece of advice that I would give, if you don’t have to go on TikTok or Reddit or anything the way that people are, right? It’s pretty sophisticated and complicated and fun and interesting, but also feels light and effortless. I think, like you, right? It’s sort of the modern way version of right, like you talk because people talk so weird.
You know, if you go online, and you see all these sorts of influencers, people that are giving these abroad sounds like they’re on a podcast, even if they’re not on a podcast — that sort of style is sort of how people talk now. So I think right, like, it’s sort of the modern version of that.
I think there’s also just words to avoid. I think there’s always knowing, you sort of know, as a person who speaks a language of what the right word is in a sentence. And I think as much as possible, you want to avoid that word. So, when someone reads it, it’s surprising, it has a little bit of a little bit of bite to it as well, you kind of it kind of catches your eye sort of, it’s sort of like snags your brain a little bit and, and pulls you in.
Another thing I like to say is to make the solution more interesting than the problem and this is a really challenging thing to do. Because the problem is inherently interesting. The problem is a problem inherently has attention to it, and in writing you need attention you need a thing that snags your brain something that catches you. Making the solution interesting requires a little bit of an extra level of something but, you know, if you’re working on a
Termite and insecticide product then talking about termites and how bad they could eat your entire house or whatever, it’s interesting, but then you’ve not told me anything about the product, you know, I already have the problem. That’s why I’m looking for the product. And you haven’t told me anything about the product. So. I think it’s like, oh, the product does the opposite of that. It’s not really enough to solve it, you need to prove why you’re better than the competition or why this is the moment you should do it, or you’re faster, better, whatever. So those are the kinds of things to focus on.
And not all the time, sometimes the problem is so inherently interesting that you haven’t even thought about it. And then the solution is very, very important.
And then, and then I was sort of started talking about this earlier, it’s starting with the truth. So, my art director, partner and I, we talked about, we call them load-bearing ideas, you want to create load-bearing ideas, where if you change a single word, the whole thing doesn’t fall apart.
Some creative hinges on wordplay. And if for some reason that word has to change, let’s say our competitor is using that word, or we’re going to be translating this into other languages, or any one of a million reasons why that that word has to change. I don’t know the CMO’s husband doesn’t like that word, and there’s a million reasons why your ad can die, then then the whole thing falls apart. But if it’s a load-bearing idea, if it starts with a truth, like there’s a core truth to the sentence, the headline, it doesn’t matter if a word or two changes, because the truth is true. And so it’s less precious on one word, and then yes, of course, you want to craft it within an inch of its life to absolute perfection with a perfect word. And that’s, that’s great, too, but just making sure it still has something underneath it.
And then and then I think the last piece last touches kind of going beyond kind of classic writing, what do you do for something like experiential marketing, and I think experiential marketing, people say, Oh, I don’t need to really write because that’s just gonna be my, my idea.
And, and you will, you will need to write because people are gonna have dwell time there, which is something you don’t have in any other advertising medium, they’re not going to watch your commercial for an hour, but if they’re at an event or an experience, they’re going to be standing there for an hour, they’re going to be looking at something for an hour. So, you need to provide something for them to look at, to read, to consider, and the details are really going to matter because they really got time to dwell on it. So yes, you will be writing there as well. So hopefully, that kind of touched on the various topics from how to even approach writing some sort of specific tips for writing, just kind of the importance of having a truth to it. And then how do you apply that beyond just the written word on a on a website or page or something into experiential and other types of marketing?
Kelly
So back to experiential and cookies. You’re known for the Got Milk campaign that smelled like cookies on a billboard, which was from the outward, a successful campaign, but it was one that was immediately decimated. Can you tell that story?
Kelly
Sure, yeah. So this was a campaign. It was in San Francisco that we did it and we had, I think, in the end, six bus shelters that we made smell like chocolate chip cookies that had the Got Milk logo with it. And then the city ended up taking it down because there were complaints from and putting it in quotes “Homeless advocates” were the people who were supposedly complained about it. That was not actually the case. But that was the official official word of who had complained about it saying that there will be people who would be offended by the smell of chocolate chip cookies. So, the whole thing got taken down. And that got even more press attention from, you know, people saying, the Got Milk cookie ad got taken down all the way to people saying how ridiculous that was, and that created a little bit of controversy, which is just picked up a lot of attention. So yeah, that was that was the full story that happened there. So it was it went up and people talked about it, but it was fun. And then it got taken down and people talked about it. Then there was that sort of conversation of is this where they right or not right to take it down? A little bit of a pretty benign controversy. It was fun that people were talking about it.
Kelly
But it’s a great story. So let’s talk a little bit about the biggest challenges in advertising. We’ve talked about rejection. And if we had this conversation 5-10 years ago, it would be a different discussion. So, maybe we can talk about the ones that are always the biggest challenges in advertising for creatives. And then what are the new challenges that technology is bringing about?
Thomas
Yeah, rejection is always a constant, maybe even more. So now, it’s so hard to get a good idea through. I think one of the things that’s feel it feels new, but maybe it’s always been around there’s, really those clients are like the Great and Powerful Oz who give feedback, like you’ll have your day-to-day clients, you’ll meet with them, they’ll love something. And then somebody somewhere who you don’t know who you’re never allowed to speak with who’s been presented to has feedback that you now have to, or they’ve killed an idea. And you say, oh, well, that’s incorrect, because of XYZ reason, and let’s set up a meeting and talk with them. They say, oh, no, you can’t meet with them. So, like the Great and Powerful Oz giving feedback, which feels like a new problem,
you’d have a little bit of it before, but now, it’s like this new thing, where that’s kind of the standard. And I think that’s one of the reasons why a lot of advertising is just not gotten very good, because it falls, flies into this abyss and comes back and you don’t even you cant present your own work, there’s no, it’s just gone. I think that’s sort of a new problem.
Very new problem. And this is gets a little nerdy, but I actually think interest rates going up is going to have a pretty having a pretty big impact, because the ROI on performance marketing now has to outpace interest rates before you could just pump money into it. And if it got a .1% response rate better than the money that you were taking on in debt, then it was successful, and you could, you could cash in that money now that interest rates are higher, that level of performance has to be higher for you to just funnel money through, which brand marketing doesn’t have that problem, because brand marketing is a long play. It’s, it’s getting people to love your product, regardless of what’s happening, you know, minute to minute on interest rates, or click throughs or anything like that. So there’s a probably, this will actually probably cause a pretty big shift more probably more than anything else, I think in the next few years, it really would probably push more toward brand marketing away from performance marketing, just because of interest rates.
And then, I think another thing is just people being spread out in so many different places, at least some level of remote work happening at most companies. I think it’s harder to find mentorship, which I think is going to impact things.
And, it kind of works in both directions, both from the sort of older and I don’t mean older in age, but you know, people who are more established in their careers, versus the people who are newer in their careers. It’s that thing we talked about at the very beginning, were just that energy and that vibrancy and that inspiration coming from the bottom up. And then the sort of wisdom and sort of institutional knowledge coming down from the people who’ve been there for a while I think those aren’t emerging as much. Or it’s sort of you have to be very deliberate how in a way that it was sort of incidental before now you sort of have to force that to happen and find ways for people to kind of merge together. So, that’s sort of impacting quite a bit of things as well. And I think that’s sort of a new, a new challenge of how do you as a person coming in, get that institutional knowledge from the company?
Kelly
What about your opinion of AI and its impact on your career?
Thomas
I’m sort of on the fringe here. I’m pretty excited about it. I think it’s been very useful and has been very interesting in how we can solve problems, how we can look at solving bigger problems, maybe than we even had before.
You can experiment on a scale that you couldn’t experiment at before, you can look at solving problems, bigger problems by using AI to create essentially, simulations of what does what would this business look like if we did this or that? It opened up the sandbox quite a bit. I think there’s a lot of fear of oh, it’s gonna replace what we currently do. And it’s sort of like this optimization conversation. But advertising has never really been an optimization medium. It’s not it’s not about optimization. It’s about taking a little bit of something and having it have an outsized impact.
Akt versus let’s make this incrementally better. So I think there’s a lot of fear about oh, AI is going to make incremental innovation better, which probably will. But that’s just that’s not what we that’s not what we do. That’s a very small value. And like I said earlier, like interest rates like that, that value is very precarious as well. You know, that will be increased at point zero 1%. That’s a precarious way to think about your business.
Kelly
Well, I love hearing about your perspective. Thomas, other than ordering your book on Amazon, how can people find out more about you? Or follow you?
Thomas
Yeah, so I’m an open book. And that book is available on Amazon with prime delivery. But beyond that, I’m pretty easy to reach out to you can find me on any social media as tkemeny.
https://www.instagram.com/tkemeny
https://www.threads.net/@tkemeny
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tkemeny
I don’t really use TikTok very much, but I’ll probably get on there. But otherwise, you can just find me on LinkedIn if you want to talk business. If you find me on LinkedIn, I’m pretty easy. I’ll write back to people. If I’m not super busy. I love to write back in most cases I will if I don’t follow up with me because if you’ve learned nothing from my book, you learned nothing from my book. It should be the one thing you should learn that you can find out for free without even buying it just looking at the preview online. It’s good to be persistent. And yeah, if you make those things fun for me to read, I appreciate that as well. Because I do have a lot of things coming at me. So, I love getting a chuckle.
Kelly
Thanks for your time, Thomas. I appreciate it.
Thomas
Thank you so much for inviting me. This is great. Take care.
