Goals are dreams with deadlines

Rudy La Faber had a dream. He also had a clear plan of how to make it materialise. He took firm action, one step at a time, and now he's living his dream. Here's what he says...

“If you said I was going to be a writer at a big agency a year ago, I would have laughed at you. I didn't know a thing about advertising. Now I'm a writer at Naga DDB. Most of my friends are pretty sick of me talking about my job. I can't help it though, I love it too much. For the first time ever I can wake up, head to work and not complain about anything at all. I honestly couldn't have done it without Janet and the crew!"

Fajar's exciting journey to a job in Ogilvy Singapore

Fajar Kurnia, the most awarded student of 2007, recently went job hunting in Singapore and got 3 job offers : Grey, TBWA/Tequila and Ogilvy. He eventually accepted Ogilvy's.

Congratulations Fajar, on making your dream come true. When you first joined 95% you said you were determined to be the best in whatever you do. Now you've proven it! AWESOME!
We wish you (and your puppy - the one featured in the ad that won Gold) all the best in Singapore.

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This is what Justin Lim, ECD of Grey wrote to me :
janet,
out of all the kids i saw at portfolio night yesterday, the boy you recommended clearly stood out.
i offered him a job. now it's up to him if he wants to accept it.
thanks once again for the recommendation - it's a great help.
J.
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FAJAR SHARES HIS JOURNEY ...

I don’t know if I am lucky, or it is that easy?

After realizing that in Malaysia, it is much easier to get a job than the work permit, I decided to try my luck in Singapore. It started with The Portfolio Night organized by DDB.

I was supposed to meet several Singaporean ECDs there including Justin Lim of Grey Singapore. I was wondering what kind of person Justin was as my friends who had seen him earlier said that he was totally demanding and ruthless. He told one of my friends “You’ll never get any job anywhere with a portfolio like this.”

But there was no way for me to back out as Janet herself had set up an interview for me that night. I thought there was nothing to lose; I had been with Janet for over half a year; how much worse this could be?

I saw him, showed my portfolio and explained some of the work. The next thing I knew, he offered me a job, explained what I would do, and gave me A WEEK to think about it!

I was happy and thrilled, but then another thing came up in my mind “SH*T! I haven’t even tried any other agency. I want to try firstttt! Who knows there may suddenly be a miracle that can get me an interview with agencies like Ogilvy.”

I went back and improved my portfolio based on the feedback I got that night. The next morning, I sent my portfolio to almost all the big agencies in Singapore. Since I did not have any contacts of any ECDs there, I tried to guess their email addresses.

I sent the same email to tham.khai.meng@ogilvy.com, khai.meng@ogilvy.com, tkmeng@ogilvy.com, khai.meng.tham@ogilvy.com, and so on.

80% of my emails bounced back but I kept doing that (reducing the size of the attachment helped) until my email got through to the ECDs I was targeting.

I got several replies immediately. Who says that ECDs don’t read emails?

The 2 that really excited me were from GRAHAM KELLY of TBWA|Tequila and TODD MCCRACKEN of Ogilvy & Mather.

My first interview was with TBWA. Their office building was very interesting. It was an old renovated ex-clinic building painted yellow. I saw John Merrifield while waiting for Graham; I did not know John was based in Singapore. The interview went well; Graham did most of the talking. He explained what they were doing, their clients, the way they worked and he told me that he thought I could crack big briefs and I would do well there.

After lunch, I rushed to Ogilvy’s office which was located not so far from TBWA’s. The office was very big and quite scary. It was like a big mafia mansion with a humourless receptionist. Anyway, I got to see Todd after waiting for 10-20 minutes.

From the conversation, I think Todd was not really looking for new people. I think he just wanted to give me an opportunity to show my work. In fact, I did not expect anything from him other than useful feedback. Ogilvy Singapore was the second runner up Agency of the Year at Cannes Lions last year, getting an interview was already an achievement for someone like me.

After seeing my book, he got the creative group head and his partner to come into the room. They saw my work and gave me some useful feedback. Then the group head said "I HAVEN'T SEEN SUCH A GOOD BOOK IN A LONG TIME".

Todd asked me to give him a week to let me know.

Just as I left the office, the group head chased after me and asked if I could give him a soft copy of my work, which I did. (Apparently, this is the guy who did the campaign for FHM that won at every award show in the world. The one that looks like a long copy ad campaign but all the words are actually sexy girls posing.)

A week later, I emailed Todd. He told me that there were a lot of people applying to Ogilvy, but I was on his finalist list. He said he liked me and I’d worked out well there. I told Janet that I did not have any more fingers to cross.

Two days later he said “You’re in”. I almost fell down from my chair when I saw his email. I really don’t know how to put the feeling into words. It was like a far-fetched dream that suddenly came true. I wonder how this could seem to be so easy!

I regret to say that I had to turn Grey and TBWA down.

I have just gotten my work pass approved. I am now preparing all the requirements to apply for a dog permit in Singapore for my little Canon (which has turned to be much more difficult and expensive than applying for human work permit).

Thanks guys for all the best wishes.

Congratulations on getting your dream jobs!

The last couple of months was filled with suspense - several 95% graduates went for job interviews with hearts full of hope, and waited and waited. Now, we are thrilled to congratulate all of them :

• FAISAL AHMAD. A former Engineer, Faisal has made a brave jump into advertising. Faisal just started work as a Malay language copywriter at Spencer Azizul.

• ELLIE WOON & CJ GAN have joined Lucideas. Boss Kelvin Long says "Got a good team going :) the best team so far."

• FALAH NAIM, joined Dentsu Utama as an AE. His first big agency break.

• HEX, a graduate of The One Academy who later discovered a love for writing will be joining Lowe & Partners as copywriter at the end of May. ECD Seong was amazed at how much work she had produced in the last 6 months!

• JON CHEW, a talented former journalist will be joining TBWA-ISC\Malaysia as a copywriter in mid May.

• RUDY LA FABER. Although he has no advertising background, he managed to impress the incredibly demanding ECD Ted Lim. Rudy started work at Naga DDB as copywriter last week.

• LEI YOON, the crazily hard working perfectionist has joined Ogilvy as an Account Executive.

Well Done guys, we're proud of you. Now work hard and break new ground!

To the other 95% graduates who are looking for jobs, please let us know. We are still getting requests every week!

Another chunk of happy news : FAJAR KURNIA has won another yet award! This time, it's a Merit at Art Directors Club, New York. Congratulations Fajar and all the best for 2008 Crowbar Awards.

Wilson's work

Wilson Santoso, a passionate young man who is fanatic about advertising has set up a blog featuring his best work. Click on the title of this post to check it out. You'll be inspired!

Click here to view their romantic courtship

Insights Into Judging

What do award judges really look for?

At the recent Kancil Awards 2007, Janet Lee grabbed the chance to interview the foreign and local creative gurus. These video interviews provide a revealing insight into what they look for, how they think, why they chose what they chose, and where they see the Malaysian ad industry heading next year.


As the final part of the Kancil Awards Festival 2007, the 4As and 95% hosted this video presentation for all ad agency people on 19th December 2007.
Special guest star of the night was Edmund Choe, the Kancil Awards Jury Chairman and Creative Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi. Here's Edmund and Janet.

For more info on this video, pls email janetlee@95percent.com.my.

For more info on Kancil Awards, visit www.kancilawards.com

Idea Generators In Progress

On 15th January 2008, after 6 weeks of training, the current intake of Idea Generators In Progress put up their work to be judged by a group of Creative Directors.


Here are the judges...
From left :
• Deputy Creative Director of TBWA-ISC\Malaysia Paul Lingan
• Executive Creative Director of Y&R Rahul Mathew
• Regional ECD of Grey Worldwide Jeff Orr
• Creative Director of XM Malaysia Stuart Godwin.

The Best of Show was awarded to a campaign for Amnesty International created by Rudy La Faber.
Also nominated were:
• An ambient idea for Cintan Noodles and an interactive campaign for Kotex by Alex Yeoh,
who was part of the Ad Unplugged 'Signature Slippers' winning team.
Pix shows Alex with trainer Janet Lee.
• An ambient idea for Milo and 'Slurrrp' TVC by Natasha, Bronze winner at Kancil Awards 2007.
• And an interactive 'virtual mall' idea by Cheryl Low, a law graduate who is now aiming for a career as a brand planner.

JUDGES' COMMENTS :
Stuart : "I have to say that I was impressed with the standard of the thinking in general. What was of particular interest to me was the number of students from other institutions who were doing the 95% courses in addition to their other courses. I think this speaks volumes about the calibre and reputation of Janet and her outfit.”

Rahul : "I love the fact that you're not just doing interactive but RELEVANT interactive."

Jeff : "You've introduced the Brand Values into the target's life."

Here are the triumphant (and exhausted) participants : Natasha, Fiona, Alex, Cheryl, Silvia, Becky and Rudy.

95% Graduates win at Kancil Awards

Congratulations to our graduates Natasha who won a Bronze, Wilson Santoso who won a Silver, and Fajar Kurnia who won a Bronze, Silver AND Gold!


For the full list of winners, and to see their work, click on the title of this post.



Fajar says " 95% is where I learned about what advertising really is and who I really am. I learned something here that I did not get in my three and a half years in college (or even in another 100 years) such as building a solid strategy, generating, evaluating and polishing ideas, and crafting copy. But this is still less important than knowing about myself. There I realise how powerful a human can be; it is beyond measure. I am able to see things from a different perspective. I know what I want, why I want that and how to get it. And I think that is the reason I am who I am today."

Fajar also won a Bronze earlier this year at Crowbar Awards, a regional award competition in Singapore. He is the most awarded advertising student of 2007. Look out for more from this amazing young talent!

Ad Unplugged 2nd November 2007

To read the write up in The Star, click on the title of this post.
AN INCREDIBLE LEARNING EXPERIENCE
It was a full house! 180 enthusiastic students came to work with six top Executive Creative Directors :
• Rahul Mathew
Executive Creative Director of Young & Rubicam
• Bas Moreu
Executive Creative Director of TBWA-ISC\Malaysia
• Jeff Orr
Regional Executive Creative Director of Grey Worldwide
• Ted Lim
Executive Creative Director of Naga DDB
• Ronald Ng
Executive Creative Director of BBDO
• Daniel Comar
Executive Creative Director of Ogilvy & Mather

The brief was to turn Tat Seng rubber slippers into a global cult. As you can imagine, the students were not exactly thrilled with the brief!



The ECDs however, set them straight to work, directing their thinking and bringing out their ideas. Here's Ted working with his group, taking many by surprise when he insisted they think of the strategy first!


Here's Daniel Comar giving his group a taste of how Ogilvy works







It was amazing what some of the students managed to come up with in just three hours.








Among the shortlisted ideas were :

• The designer Tat Seng : famous artists are given the chance to create their own designs on a Tat Seng slipper which would be autioned off to the highest bidder.

• A viral contest featuring stunts with Tat Seng slippers.

• The Electric Shock Proof slipper. Very nice ambient ideas.

The judges had a hard time deciding on the winners! After the six ECDs presented the best ideas from their respective groups, they were asked to vote for their top two favourites. Four ideas made it into the Finals. The ECDs debated each idea and weighed it against the brief : to make Tat Seng a global cult. They were looking for a big brand idea.

Then, they voted again to decide on the 1st and 2nd Prizes.


THE FINALISTS
These two ideas almost made it : they would have been third and fourth, if we had that many prizes.

• The 'un-slippable' slipper. The group drew a great storyboard of a hilarious TVC where an old lady wearing Tat Seng foiled the efforts of a car thief. Very funny, and it's a great TV idea. Get a Thai Film Director to shoot it and it'll probably win awards all over.

• Mr. Tat Seng : A cranky character who is an incredibly individualistic individual. He says something like "F..k Off if you don't like my logo. I like it." (hey, guys who did this - pls give me the actual line if you can remember it)

THE TWO WINNERS ARE :

2nd Prize went to the group who positioned it as the 'No Choice' slipper, an anti-fashion statement.In the three hours, this group managed to express the brand idea very well in a series of POS and ambient ideas.




1st Prize was awarded to the group who branded it as the 'Signature Slipper', packing it with a set of three markers for customers to design their own personalised slippers. This won over the artist's designed slipper as it was down to earth, accessible to everyone and allows young people the opportunity to self-express.

According to the CDs, a few groups were also thinking along the same line, but this was better thought through and a more articulate expression of the brand idea.
What both winning groups had in common :
1. The brand idea came from a truth about the product. They accepted it as it was, and looked at how they could twist it into an appealing proposition. Many groups that didn't make it were too focussed on all the things that were unappealing about the product, and they got stuck there.

2. They did not rely on a tangible product USP. They created a personality, an attitude, that says a lot about the user.

3. They managed to crack the strategy and also come up with great ideas for the creative expression of that strat.
Some had strong strategy, but not enough time to think of ideas. Others had ideas but strategy was not strong.

Everyone had the same brief, same amount of time. For all those who also achieved these three criteria, good for you.

Here's Ronald sweating it out with one of his groups





















PART 2 WITH JEFF ORR
If you want to develop your ideas fully and create something fit for your portfolio, contact Jeanette at 03-2287 7095 or jeanette@95percent.com.my and book your seat now.
Date : 27th November (Tuesday)
This session is open to all who attended Ad Unplugged.

95% The Advertising Academy

We provide trainings designed specifically for the Advertising Industry









How much of your talent are you aware of?

Talent, not skills. Skills are what you learn, but talent is something you are born with. It is already there, inside you. Now, what are you doing to bring that to the surface?


At 95%, we’ll lead you to explore and uncover more of yourself. Led by Janet Lee, a Creative Director who has won over 80 local and international advertising awards in her 20 year career, 95% develops the thinking processes and idea generation abilities that prepare young talent for success in advertising.

The only thing blocking you from achieving your greatest dreams are the beliefs that you are holding on to. Beliefs that you may not even be aware of. Once you realise what those beliefs are, you have the ability to exchange them for more empowering ones.

No amount of book learning alone can do this for you. That’s why 95% has designed advertising skills trainings that are built on a foundation of personal growth. We lead participants to explore and experience more of themselves than they ever have, and this opens up the way for their talent to emerge.

To find out more about 95% and our trainings, keep reading this blog! Or just email us at cheryllow@95percent.com.my.

Crowbar Student Awards in Singapore

Here are our Crowbar heroes : Fajar, Wilson Santoso, Wilson and Ernest at Crowbar Awards night on 16th August.
Wilson won a Bronze last year, the other three got their work shortlisted for this year's award show. You make us proud, guys :)

Crowbar is a student award organised by the 4As of Singapore. It is a regional competition, with entries coming from Malaysia and Australia. This year, they received 1135 entries. Click on title of this post to read more.

From the four pieces of work that was shortlisted, Fajar's Vitagen 'Where's Waldo?' won a Bronze. Congratulations!






Here's Wilson and Fajar with their entries.


And here they are with Programme Director Shahnaz, all oozing testosterones!


What's next guys? Kancil Awards? Young Guns in Australia?

Copywriters In Progress graduates!

On 7th of September, the first batch of copywriters graduated after doing the 5-month Copywriters In Progress training.

The graduates are :
Victoria Robertson, ex-flight attendant, soon to join TBWA-ISC
Farid Izanee Che Mat, engineer, available.
Ng He Xiang, graduate from The One Academy, employed by Bates Asia
Faisal Ahmad, ex-engineer, interning at Euro RSCG
Ellie Woon, philosophy major, interning at Euro RSCG
Aaron Mokhtar, ex-event manager, available
Anuradha Kaliappan, ex-journalist, available
Izham Fazely Pakhorarazi, freshly employed copywriter.

Congratulations!


They're our first batch of Blue Elephants. Why Blue Elephants? Here's the story...

In 2004, we set up 95% to train aspiring copywriters. A noble mission, we thought, given the great shortage.

However, in our first two years, only 30% of our participants were copy based! The rest were designers and art directors.

We couldn’t find aspiring copywriters in the advertising schools. And the non-advertising school students were either allergic to writing or thought that copywriting involved pirated DVDs.

It seemed that nobody wanted to be a copywriter. Nobody even liked writing! Were we hunting something that did not exist? Something that was only a figment of our happy hour hallucination? That's when Peter coined the term Blue Elephant in a moment of frustration.

Trainer and Director of 95% Janet Lee said "I was tired of telling ad agencies that I didn’t have any available writers for them. The agencies were like a hungry pack of wolves waiting at my door, and everytime a copywriter graduated and walked out, you could hear the teeth snapping as they fought over him or her.”

We must find these Blue Elephants!

So we launched a new strategy targetting people who enjoy writing but have ended up in the more respectable careers: law, engineering, IT, journalism.


(insightful campaign created by Lucideas)


We set up www.passiontowrite.com and started running the weekend workshops "Me? A Copywriter?"

Eventually, we found a group of closet writers who have been secretly longing for a career change. Now, after 22 weeks of training, our first batch of Blue Elephants graduated on Friday night.



As proud of them as we are, we are even more elated knowing that we have tapped into a steady stream of fresh writing talent for the ad industry. The Blue Elephant exists!

The way the ad industry responded to our announcement tells us that they are just as excited about these creatures as we are. Several key people took the time to celebrate this graduation with us.

Datuk Vincent Lee, President of 4As and Group CEO of the Feotus Group addressed the audience and shared his big picture view of how building brands is critical to the country's economy.






Jeff Orr, Regional Executive Creative Director of Grey Worldwide povided inspiring insights and tips on what makes a great copywriter. Jeff was one of the judges who came to evaluate the graduates' work during their final module, and here he is pointing out the highlights of each of the graduate's work.








The audience is rapt as Jeff shares his copywriting tips. He is one of those writers who makes it seem easy.





Executive Creative Director of Lowe, Ng Heok Seong, says the industry must do their part to nurture interns. Behind him is our faithful supporter and friend Bas Moreu, Executive Creative Director of TBWA-ISC\Malaysia.









Ray Goh, Associate CD of Dentsu and the legendary Kins Lee, a sharp strategist disguised as an art director and Janet's former partner at Spider Network.








Here's Programme Director Shahnaz (also known as the 'guru besar') showing Neal Estavillo, MD of JWT where the party is.






Grenville Francis giving his POV on copywriting.
Jeff won the Best Caption contest : What would you do with a Blue Elephant? I would turn it into grey.

Raz enjoying choc coated marshmallows. Aaron being modest. Faisal trying to impress Woei Hern Snr Copywriter of Dentsu.

The Blue Elephants doing their final striptease.

Guests of Honour : Datuk Vincent Lee and Jeff Orr.

The 95% team : Shahnaz, Janet, Chris (a great MC for the night), Razlina and Peter.


If YOU think you may be a Blue Elephant, contact cheryllow@95percent.com.my
NEXT INTAKE : March 2008





Shahnaz, happy for a change! Peter Gan and Janet Lee, proud of the Blue Elephants :)