I love ads
Since when was liking something cancellable? The art of creating is getting lost for many
Ever since I was a kid, I can’t seem to shake of always looking down. Literally. My head tilts to the ground. I always wondered why that was. Was there something wrong with my neck? My brain? Low serotonin levels? I try my best to look up while walking but ever since looking down, I found a total of $1,000 on the ground. I do want to change that though. My mom would always remind me to look up. Literally. To watch where I’m going. I look like a depressed emo kid, moping around going woe is me, but I’m actually quite happy. It’s my equivalent to resting b!tch face. Ever since working in advertising and marketing with my advertisng and marketing studio, Dahsar, I have trained my head to look up. Look at all this scaffolding on half the buildings in Chelsea with retail coffee signs for rent, billboards above them and walls to place creative ads agencies produce all around town.
If you want billboards or wheatpaste posters produced all around town, follow @dahsar on Instagram, then get in touch!
While I am outside power walking like Asians usually do, I walk to the end of a couple blocks, take the subway, citi bike to where I have to go, and breathe in poor air quality to do the bulk of my work which is location scouting. For what I do, I enjoy location scouting because of seeing the new ads turn, fantasize of what the next Wear Many Hats campaign would be or where I should place my clients ads up for their next campaign.
I’m starting a new series where I take photos of ads and call it “Wish I made this.” Either producing the campaign or assisting with the end game of putting them up around town so people can see.
I’ve been taking photos of ads around the city that play a part of my personality. It could be a brand that I like, it could be a product I want to try, or it’s a brand that I get inspiration to creative direct a campaign or enhance my copywriting. It’s been paying off. For my food & beverage brand, Matsar, I’ve been posting our photos with captions that other brands and creative industries ask me if I was a copywriter (and photographer). I did go to school for advertising, took a few copywriting classes but if I were to pay homage to, it’s my creative friends and the tons of comedy classes I’ve taken.
Follow @makematsar on Instagram to follow our F&B CPG journey. If you ever want us to serve matcha at your next pop up or activation, hit us up!
I’m excited to announce that I’ll be taking another comedy class at the Comedy Cellar this fall and can’t wait to invite a ton of friends. I took a class at Second City last year and only invited one friend and guest of Wear Many Hats, Isaiah Carter, and literally crushed it. I questioned if I should have invited more people and I should have. Couldn’t believe I was back in the game.
I would use my skills in writing one-liners for captions on social media. Short and sweet, nothing off the beaten path but also open to long form captions as well. I’m not opposed to people writing diary entries for posts but you need to get to the point. I have a friend that yaps all day and isn’t self aware when to cut it off. I have a friend that chats too much where you can tell he’s on adderall. I have a friend that has a podcast, no breaks so he doesn’t when to listen to the other guest. Being self aware is hard in this day and age but you can take the time to learn and change.
While out and about photographing ads, location scouting, and making the rounds of going to all my favorite coffee shops, I came across the American Eagle ad featuring Sydney Sweeney days before it’s debut. I believe advertising company Alchemy or Seen owns the boards which pay rent to the landowners in SoHo because when they put this up, it was so pristine and untouched. When I stopped to take a look, the first thing that popped up in my head was “did Sydney Sweeney put out an ad of… herself?” I thought it was hilarious. Nothing about American Eagle.
Days later, American Eagle drops a whole campaign around the particular wall and puts out a video of a fake Sydney Sweeney in front wheatpasting and crossed out the word Genes and added Jeans. Form is alright but you gotta be fast putting these up. Hiding the Home Depot bucket but we all know it’s that Home Depot orange. The Instagram caption entitled: “Posters up. Secrets out: Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” The whole campaign dropped on social media included video of Sydney Sweeney in studio on a car, vintage TVs, holding a vintage camera, a lot of thought has put into this including the team producing it.
When the campaign released, a firestorm of “backlash” came with it as well. American Eagle even put out a statement of “we see you… we hear you…”
The backlash was that it was a “dog whistle” and that she’s conservative. Trump spoke on it saying it was a good campaign.
NPR covers it well.
I liked the ad because I like Sydney Sweeney in Euphoria and The Voyeurs but when I was in high school I wore American Eagle girl jeans while skateboarding. That says a lot so I’m going to stop right there. One day, I sat with a friend and we talked about the ad. It was a critical conversation that somehow went south. She was coming at me for liking it. I almost lost a friend over this but recovered. Am I not allowed to like something because someone else doesn’t like it? All my friends are liberals but sometimes their politics don’t match up when applying to reality.
I haven’t worn jeans in almost a decade. Black or blue denim. Denim jackets yes but when it comes to pants, I only wear workwear and dress pants in black. Did I run to American Eagle after this campaign dropped? No. Did this campaign ruin my day? No. Did I buy denim after our fight? No. Nothing happened to me but I still work in advertising and I still love ads.