In this episode of The Flame, Bob Raynor chats with Brian Jung, a freelance creative leader with extensive experience in advertising, comic books, and creative direction. Brian opens up about the ups and downs of navigating a volatile job market, the importance of collaboration over competition, and how he keeps his creative passion alive. Tune in for an honest conversation about resilience, creativity, and finding your way as a creative professional.
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Show Notes:
If you can help somebody else out, help somebody else out, you know. And in the end, as creatives, we need to somehow figure out how we can, you know, watch each other’s backs in a way, because I feel like that we are taught in this industry to be competitive with other creatives when in the sense I found the best creative work actually comes and what’s more personally fulfilling for me.
You know, like the reason why I do this is for the little pockets of time where you have two creatives sitting out on a coffee shop, just bouncing ideas off of each other and feeding off of each other. And that energy. That creative energy of, oh, you could do this. Or oh, I saw this, do this. And I’m building and building. And then coming out of that feeling energized and like, oh, we have something really cool here.
~ Brian Jung
Key Takeaways:
- Betting on Yourself: Brian discusses the importance of taking risks in your career and how those risks can lead to personal growth and unexpected opportunities.
- Staying Creative in Uncertain Times: Practical advice on how to keep the creative spark alive during career lulls, including personal projects and passion work.
- Embracing Discomfort for Growth: Why stepping outside your comfort zone can be the key to finding new opportunities and staying motivated in your career.
- The Value of Passion Projects: How personal projects, even those unrelated to your job, can open doors and help build a network that supports your creative journey.
Episode Links:
- Connect with Brian Jung on LinkedIn
Episode Highlights:
- “For me, it’s all storytelling. Whether you’re writing a script for a comic, coming up with a big idea for a brand, or even creating an art piece—it’s all about connecting with people on an emotional level.”
- “I think whenever I feel too comfortable, I’m not growing. And growth, for me, has always come from being uncomfortable.”
- “Don’t wait for someone to give you permission to create. Make something, even if it’s small. The act of creating itself is what keeps you moving forward.”
Episode 3 Transcript:
Bob Raynor
Hey, everyone. I’m your host, Bob Raynor. And on today’s episode of The Flame, I welcome Brian Jiang, a freelance creative leader with experience as an executive creative director and chief creative officer with a passion for storytelling. From leading creative teams around the globe to working on short film scripts and comic books. Brian’s career has been all about embracing discomfort and finding new ways to tell meaningful stories.
We’ll hear how he navigates uncertainty, keeps his creative spark alive, and why he believes that creating, even in tough times, can lead to incredible opportunities. Let’s dive in. Hey, Brian, thank you so much for joining me on the show. I do appreciate your time.
Brian Jung
And great to be here. Thanks for inviting me.
Bob Raynor
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, the LinkedIn algorithm has been serving up your post to me ever since I got laid off. And I love that you’re open and honest about, you know, all your experiences and dealing with looking for full time work. And I do want to get into all that, in our conversation, but I want to I really would love to kind of take the first few minutes to, just have you introduce yourself to the listeners, talk about your experience in the industry, and then, you know, maybe we can jump into where you’re at now and what it is you’re looking for in your next role.
Brian Jung
Yeah, sure. I mean, I think it’s kind of interesting how the LinkedIn algorithm works in mysterious ways, I think. I, you know, it’s a fine line, right? It’s a fine line between, you know, what they call it? What do they call it? Dooms doomsday scrolling line content. Like it’s a fine line between, you know, you want to be honest and upfront, but you don’t want to also give out too much information, and you don’t want to turn off potential employers either.
You want to somewhat politically correct. But then on the other hand, you know, there’s stuff that I think people should know in here. You know, from my experience and, I think it’s been interesting how certain things have blown up on there. Like, I did a post, I did a graphic about salary ranges and, for creative positions in like big tier cities, LA, SF, New York and what I thought people should get paid fairly given the economy and all that.
And I was really surprised that that just absolutely blew up. Had like, I think it’s up to 800,000 views or something like this. Just massive, massive. I think it struck a chord. People just want people. Creatives are notoriously bad at understanding what their worth in the marketplace. And then on the other side, you have employers, some which are taking advantage of it and undercutting salaries and so I think, it was quite interesting how people just don’t know the market right now.
And there’s this all everything’s up in the air. And so, I was quite surprised, in how some of my posts have been super viral and then some haven’t. So it’s very interesting. But, you know, I’m always glad to have people reach out and contact me and stuff. So, it’s been it’s been an interesting experience for sure.
Bob Raynor
Yeah. Do you think that’s helped you with, like, recruiters having a post like that kind of blow up? Have you experienced some more hits from recruiters or people reaching out to you for for job offerings?
Brian Jung
The funny thing is, is, and this is just my experience, right? Is no, it has not actually. But I’ve gotten a lot of fellow jobseekers, unemployed, laid off people contacting me saying that, oh, your post resonated with me. Or, you know, I did have a few recruiters reach out and and tell me, you know, hey, can you tell me more about your thoughts on salary just for this and that?
And you know, when recruiters was like, well, what do you what do you really think skills are being paid nowadays? So there were some recruiters I reached out. But it wasn’t in the context of, hey, we have a job for you is more like, you know, I want you, you know, your perspective on this and this and this things, because even they weren’t quite sure about where the market was currently for creative roles.
And so, yeah, I mean, I guess intrinsically there is probably some people that reached out because of it and who knows, right. The state of the market. I could get a call tomorrow. Right. And some guy could’ve been like, oh yeah, I saw your post, blah blah, blah. And so that’s what’s interesting about all this is, is that it changes so, so rapidly.
And I probably did get a couple people that reached out because of that didn’t end up turning into anything. But I probably got a few interviews for that. So, I would say, you know, not massive success from that. But then again, my intention was really never to farm, you know, recruiters or opportunities from that post. That post is merely just me saying, hey, look, I’m seeing on LinkedIn jobs, a ton of job postings for creative directors, for ECD’s, for GDS that are paying 130 K, 150 K for LA and New York and San Francisco.
And just being like, this is ridiculous. And big brands who have multibillion dollar companies. And I was just saying this is crazy, you know? And so that’s why I kind of put that out and probably a lot of other post somewhat half information, half frustration is about to, I guess, as you probably see in some of my posts.
But yeah. Just to go back to your original thing, I think we got we got waylaid a little bit, but yeah, my guy, my boss, Brian Jang, I am a, executive creative director slash, co, working in advertising. Marketing. I started out in the industry. Well, actually, I never really started out in the industry.
I started out doing comic books, and wanted to be a comic book artist. Was terrible at drawing. So then I went into, like, writing and coloring. So that’s kind of where my love of Photoshop came in, where I started learning how to color my friends, artwork through Photoshop in like, creating custom brushes and doing all that.
And so that was kind of at the height of like Marvel, DC Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, like these were coming out, spine like all that Spider-Man, all that was coming out. And so I got kind of into all that. And then, that taught me writing, character development, things like that, which helped me later on. But then originally it was just I’m a very curious person, and I love technology and computers.
And so it was really just me dabbling with computers and art and sort of figuring out how can we mix this? And then boom chicka boom boom happened. Internet, you know, all that Photoshop, you know, go live like all these programs. Dreamweaver started coming out. And so I was really just creating websites for fun when a friend was like, hey, man, you know, you should you should check out these ad agencies through, like, hiring people that anybody that knows anything about websites.
And so that’s how I kind of got in from there. I started building websites. For at HCC, they had really no idea what they’re doing. And so they’re just hiring up and paying you whatever you want it. So it was just it was like go time. It was you know, you’re talking height of the.com boom. So yeah, it was basically slash you know flash microsites were everything, Flash banners.
Bob Raynor
Oh thank God we do that anymore.
Brian Jung
Oh yeah. Yeah. Well after that was HTML5 right. Like you do this but in HTML5. But you know, so it was like I saw one post on LinkedIn, somebody was talking about the good old days of digital cyber lions. And I comment and I said, actually, back in those days, if you remember, Cyber Lions wasn’t even around at that time, actually the biggest award for any digital microsite or web designer was actually FWA.
So halfway Awards and Webby’s were like the biggest back then. But anyways, I had I started my own digital agency around that time as well. Basically, we met a bunch of the same guys, you know, you’d go from like Deutsch y na, TBWA, Shy Day, and you’d bounced around all these big agencies and then you meet the same guys because there wasn’t a huge group and a couple of them, we decided to make an agency and so made a digital agency.
This went around to all the big agencies. They paid us whatever we wanted. Which of course I spent, on stupid stuff, as usual as a young, you know, I was young, right?
Bob Raynor
Like, you know, when you’re young, right?
Brian Jung
Oh, yeah. Oh, I was pretty young. I was very young. And then the housing market crash happened to 2010, 2009, and that kind of forced me to relook at everything. And I decided to go to Korea, where I’m from. I was born in Korea, raised in the US. But I do have some family back there. So I went back to Korea and then, partied for a long time.
Ran out of money, was like, oh, what do I do now? And I hooked up with the guy. Probably, the most epic connection. I’ll link to that I’ve ever made. A guy named Neil Drewitt, who used to be the CEO of Ogilvy Korea, and he was like, hey, you know, while you’re there, should hook up with these guys and talk to these people.
And I started talking to DDP and Ogilvy and McCann and all these agencies there, and found out that there was actually a need, a need to have sort of a Western educated, conceptual, creative, but had the cultural background of Korean, Korea, Korean culture to work in these global agencies and sort of sit there and sort of help sort of, you know, connect at that time, you know, a lot of the big agencies were looking to expand in Asia.
They’re looking for footholds. You couldn’t at that time have an agency, even if you were a global agency, you could have an agency in Korea unless you had a local partner on the basically, sign in. So it was a lot of these half local partner, half global agency. So they’re going through this whole thing where they were trying to basically become a fully global agency.
The law had changed in Korea now. And so there was all this transitional stuff happening. And so I was kind of thrown in that mix and no idea, you know, what I was in store for? Yeah, I was coming in as, you know, American creative thinking. Yeah, conceptual, creative ideas, all this and just got a very rude awakening that there’s all these multiple layers of cultural hierarchy, corporate hierarchy that you have to go through, you know, a Korean title versus a functional title, all these nuances, I had no idea.
And no one would no one would unless you actually work in corporate Korea as well. I mean, when I was over there, I met really, you know, young Koreans just out of university who had no idea about this stuff either. And so it’s really something you just kind of have to experience. But it was a very eye opening experience for me.
And, you know, in some ways tempered my aspirations in a way. Because a lot of times, you know, it isn’t about the best creative idea necessarily. Sometimes there’s other things you got to take care of and keep in mind, and there’s other ways that you push creative ideas through and sell them through the client that isn’t just on the merits of the creative idea itself.
Brian Jung
Politics and, you know, all this stuff, relationships and things. And so I learned a lot while I was there. I can’t say I necessarily did any crazy award winning work there. Korea’s not really known for it anyways. It’s very hard for them to break out of that mold of a very local, hyper local creative. So I didn’t really get anything crazy out of that other than these sort of other learning experiences, that, you know, I’m very grateful to have had.
And then, from there, I kind of made Korea my base, and I decided to explore other parts of Asia. I hadn’t been to Southeast Asia in particular. So when I got, an offer to help sort of change over DDP, Indonesia through the DDP. So I ended up going with DDP Korea, and I started working there and helped them launch tribal, DDP Korea, which is their their digital agency arm. And so I was kind of playing this role of sort of connecting traditional and digital at the time because my I’d come from the US with this expertise of digital. And so I was doing all that. And then I got an offer to, you know, help transition, DDP Indonesia into an integrated see called Iris worldwide, which is a independent which used to be an independent agency out of the UK, doing integrated work.
And so I went down there and this was in Jakarta, Indonesia, which had never been. And that was another culture shock as well. Didn’t know the language. Other a lot of them speak very good English. Didn’t know the language enough culture, you know, very Moslem, country. So the call to prayer is just every, you know, three times a day.
So there’s that and there’s just the food is very different and all this, all these things, but it’s, you know, it’s an experience. So made some really good friends there. Indonesian people are some of the warmest chillest people that I know. And so I’m made some of my very best friends there. And to this day, we’re still good friends.
And then from there, I bounced around, went back to Korea for a while, worked for a lot of the other agencies there, Wunderman Winer, some of these other agencies. And that got an offer to, helped start low peripheral Korea. And so I was one of the founding members for that agency. And then we worked on a bunch of clients there and basically just bounced around the region.
You know, I ended up in Vietnam for a long time, working in publicist there. And then, yeah, just, you know, took advantage of it, traveled around, you know, did freelancing a lot, visit other countries. I was in Singapore for a while as well, working up there. And it was just a really interesting experience about how, you know, all these countries are very closely packed, you know, Singapore, Malaysia, you know, you know, these, you know, they’re all within, you know, an hour or so, you know, plane trip and then so you can just kind of jet around everywhere.
We did a lot of post-production in Thailand. Thailand was kind of like the hub of all post production for all the countries nearby, for all the Southeast Asian countries, because it’s a relatively affordable. And they just had like really good setup, sir. So everybody was coming into Thailand. So you got to hang out in Thailand for all your post-production and then see all that stuff.
And so yeah, I just did the whole round trip. And then alongside that I was doing I’m a, I’m a big gamer. So alongside of that I’ve been doing gaming, I’ve been doing e-sports, I’ve been competing in e-sports as well. I’ll start in parallel and then, you know, in LA, suddenly there’s a huge boom of, you know, e-sports, Overwatch League was being created like League Legends and all the stuff was happening.
And I got an offer from an e-sport organization called Immortals to come down there and sort of run their creative department and their content department down there. And, that was just too big of an offer to resist. And so I, I went down there and basically, help them sort of established Overwatch League, create the team, the branding, all that merchandise.
Really cool. But ultimately e-sports was in a weird stage at the time where there was a lot of growth, but then there was also a lot of, sort of churn and burn people. I was working so much like basically sleeping at the office. It was just it was a lot. And then on top of it, there’s a lot of sort of uncertainty around e-sports.
What is the business model? How do we make money? What’s investment, you know, do we invest in content or not. And so there was a lot of this uncertainty. And eventually it led to me just kind of saying, well, I’m going to pull out for now because I think the whole market is very, very unstable and no one really knows where they want to invest.
And I felt that a lot of e-sports orgs, were pulling investment away from marketing and content and putting it and doubling down into competitive teams and thinking that, okay, we’re going to make all our revenue through the competitive teams, their winnings, their tournaments, you know, the brand, sponsorships from them and not putting into areas like content and things like that.
And I thought that was a mistake because, you don’t really have horrible assets at that point. You own the team, but you don’t really own the players. And so a lot of these were worries, were putting a lot of money behind investing between 1 or 2 star players on the team. But the problem is, is that those players could leave for another team.
And they did very, very often. Even though they had a two year contract, they would somehow leave within like one one quarter or something. And so, I was telling them, like, you can’t invest all your money behind these players because once they go to a different team, all the content you created, all that is, is it’s worthless.
You can use it. But, you know, I think there’s a lot of egos in this industry and just a lot of people that don’t really know what they’re doing that it’s only got that got hired in positions, because they’re either a ex-pro player or they’re a YouTuber or something. And so I saw it was just not a very long term viable goal as far as where the market was.
And so I went back to traditional advertising and marketing. But funny enough, at that point, you know, Ninja and Fortnite and all that stuff was blowing up. So all these traditional brands were like, oh, what do we do? This e-sports stuff? How do we get involved? As I found it interesting, the issue where I can now see both sides e-sports and traditional brand and sort of be that moderator between and work with agencies and brands and advise them on how they should jump into this market.
So that was a whole other thing. And I’ve been doing that for a long time, alongside traditional pitches and consulting work. There it is, all sorts.
Bob Raynor
The whole shebang. It’s a pretty extensive history. You know, with all of that, you know, the one thing I got from it was that it just sounded like you were so passionate about what you were doing. And that. And correct me if I’m wrong. Like, it almost sounded like you just kind of fell into one opportunity after the other because you were following what it is that you love doing, like you went from, you know, the comics to, to pulling that into web design.
And then you just kept going and meeting people and making those connections and it seems like there was a lot of that that was happening is that you feel like that. Following kind of your, your creative passions and teaching yourself web design and all the things that came along with that, you know, wasn’t really from formal training, right?
I mean, it was really just you knew what you loved. You knew what you want to do. You just followed it and it led you literally around the world.
Brian Jung
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, part of it is, is that there’s two, two parts of that one. I think life is too short to be doing something you’re miserable at. So many people are miserable at their jobs. So. So I had seen other people, being very miserable in their jobs and saying, I don’t want to do that.
And then two, which I guess is a very gen even town nowadays. And then too, it was just my, my belief somehow that if you’re really passionate about something and you’re really into it, and you really work hard at it, that you’re going to be pretty good at it as well. And that lends itself to getting hired and people wanting you to work for them because you’re, you know, at the top of your game.
And also, you know, you naturally, I think, become good at a certain level anyways because you’re always working at it, you’re always doing it. And so it’s sort of a symbiotic between sort of function form in the sense that, on one hand, you enjoy doing it and it’s not so-called work necessarily, but then on the other hand, as you enjoy it, you’re putting more time into it, and therefore you’re getting better at what you’re doing.
And you know, I think that’s that’s part of that as well. I think the other part of it too, is just that I’ve got a very curious nature. I like to just know things and ask questions. And if something I kind of figure out why this is the way it is. And so for me, it was a lot of that curiosity that led me to explore, you know, how do you make websites?
What is the blank tag? You know, how does flash tween animation work and just, you know, you it takes work as well. You know, I put in, you know, many, many hundreds, thousands of hours learning all this stuff on my own. And so it takes a level of self-discipline and motivation to get through all this stuff, to get to the good stuff, too.
So I think, you know, that’s part of that as well. But definitely, a sense of curiosity lends you to explore other things. I think obviously the economy, things like this sort of forced my hand in a little ways. But, you know, I studied abroad as a kid, in, in the, in high school. So I had kind of already broken that, you know, a scared phase of going to someplace new.
I studied abroad in Germany for almost two years, and for my high school years. And I speak German now, which is completely useless. But if we are Swiss, maybe I should go and try to be much more useful. Speak Mandarin or Spanish, I think. But you know that that right there, being two years away from home, not going home once sort of broke that hole, you know?
Whoa. You know, this this was unfamiliar things. And so for me to go from, you know, LA back to Korea, or Asia in general was not really that big of thing. But, you know, I talk to people here who’ve never left L.A. or New York or whatever Chicago they do, it’s always there. And I think that’s just they’re missing out.
You know, I think everybody should get out of their comfort zone. Not just if you’re a creative, but as a person in general. I think there’d be a lot less conflict if people could go and explore other cultures and other places and be uncomfortable and really learn to adapt and to be sitting in that, that you know, that area where you’re like, I don’t know where I am or you know what I’m doing or you know, and be in that situation and have to deal with it.
I think there’d be a lot more empathy in the world.
Bob Raynor
Yeah, it’s it’s amazing when you think about how, you know, we’re kind of stuck in our own little worlds now that, you know, so much has gone remote. It’s almost impossible to to do that anymore. And I think you have to have a little bit of a sense of fearlessness or maybe just like, you know, not knowing what you don’t know, but not being afraid of it.
Right. And it sounds like you’re of that mindset where, you know, you’re just able to kind of go into a situation and say, hey, you know, I, I trust my skills. I trust the things that I’ve learned. I trust my habits. So are there are there specific, you know, habits or practices or things that you rely on to help you get through, being in, you know, difficult situations or, you know, not being afraid to, to take chances.
Brian Jung
Well, I mean, obviously, relationships is very important. You know, everybody talks about, network, network, network. I think that’s that’s true for sure. I think, you know, there is there is a point where you go, you know, I need to, you know, I need I need to reach out to people, right? I can’t I can’t be in a vacuum.
And the nature of the work kind of lends itself to that. Anyways. You know, if you’re if you’re on a two day shoot slogging through mud and stuff with a crew, you know, somehow you bond through that naturally. You know, if you’re stuck in a, in a sprint patch or something. So there all these things, you develop relationships pretty naturally as long as you’re not consciously being isolationist or whenever, you know.
Right. And, you know, I think you’re. Yeah, to your point, the remote stuff has been one thing, but, I think even then, you know, you’re you’re still talking to people face to face. So I think even then you can develop relationships and and network and stuff. Right. I don’t think that there’s necessarily a playbook for that.
I think a lot of it comes down to personality. A lot of it comes down to, you know, motivation. I think, you know, my self-confidence of my skills and experience was never something that came naturally to me. It just came through basically a mini series of failures. Essentially what I did is I committed to saying to myself, no matter what I do, no matter where I go, once I leave that place, I’ll have taken something from it to add to my arsenal, to add to my toolkit.
So whatever job, whatever client, whether whatever brand, whatever country or culture, I as long as I absorb something from there and be like I learned X, Y, and Z from working at this agency, I’m going to take that to my next agency and do it right, or use this and that. And so over many years, I’ve just built up a toolset of learnings that have come from wherever I’ve been.
And so, you know, they say, be like a sponge. That’s that’s essentially what you should be is you should absorb everything. You can ask questions, don’t be afraid to screw up as long as you understand, you know what you can do to fix it and not not, you know, do it again. And so I think there is this level of self-reflection that you have to have as well and be able to sort of stand away from yourself and look at yourself and be like, okay, what happened here?
How did we get here? What can I do next? And then, okay, don’t do that. Next time I go to this next job or wherever I go next, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to do this instead and just consciously have all these learnings that you can sort of fall back on. And I think just through, through, you know, years of doing that, I’ve just been able to, you know, create a really good understanding of, you know, what I think should be done.
You know, we talk about like, leadership and stuff. You know, someone asked me like, well, how do you how do you how do you become a good creative leader? Like, how do you become a good OECD or CEO or, you know, what makes a good CEO? And, you know, for me, it’s quite simple. I’ve I’ve worked with so many bad bosses, have worked with so many terrible creative bosses, not not terrible creative people, or creatives in the sense that they’re very good at ideas, concepts they could understand.
What made a good idea versus a bad idea? Very good crafters, designers, writers. But when it came to people management, when it came to mentoring, when it came to, you know, having the patience to teach younger creatives, they’re all terrible at it. So it was that sort of, I don’t want to be I don’t want to be like my parents.
I, you know, in some ways it’s like, I don’t want to be that boss. I don’t want to be that guy pounding on the table saying the clients are idiots and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, the suits are sabotaging us and all this stuff. I want it to be much more collaborative, much more open, but also understand how the creative person works.
You know, how they can be different sometimes eclectic personalities. You know, there shouldn’t be a one size fits all and just, you know, really think about the type of creative person or boss that I wanted to have when I was, you know, a junior creative and, and basically structured my, you know, the way that I, lead around that essentially.
So why do you think that that there is that, kind of lack of leadership skills in the industry, you know, is. And what do you think? I mean, do you think like this? I mean, it’s probably been like that a lot of time for a long time. But now with so many people kind of out of work, especially people that are in leadership positions like you and I like, what is that doing to like the ability to train and mentor, you know, younger and, younger designers and juniors.
Yeah. So I think a lot of it stems back to how we promote and incentivize creatives in our industry. The agencies are, have not, they’ve not basically evolved. So essentially the way that it works is, is that your promotion and the money that you make are tied to basically titles and functions. Right. And they’re sort of broken down in a lot of ways, in the same way that we charge clients rent cards and titles and so levels essentially.
And so in order to get, more money, you have to then be bumped up to the next level, the next title, etc.. And so what I’ve tried to do in previous agencies is trying to break that by saying, if I have a really good copywriter, senior copywriter in this person is just amazing. They’re the best in the agency.
But they don’t want and they may not even be good at people management. You know, they should still get promoted, but keep them doing what they’re doing. So if you have a really good art director, you shouldn’t be like, oh, you have to become an actor now in order to get more money. And therefore, you know, you automatically cut his work in half because now he’s managing people half the time.
Now he’s and then designing their half. I think that’s that’s a terrible way to do it. I think there has got to be a system by which a person can still be doing what they’re really good at, and what they were hired to do and what they want to do, and still make enough money, you know, and still have a path to promotion in some ways.
Right. I think we force a lot of these people out of these positions. They get into positions where they’re CDs and CD’s. Maybe they’re lured by more money or just by being pushed out, pushed up by the organization, the agency. And they get to these positions, positions where they’re not comfortable, they hate it. And that’s where you get bad bosses, because the the last thing you want is someone who hates what they’re doing, trying to then, you know, lead other people.
So I think that’s that’s part of it. I think the other part of it is that. There’s the second part of your question there.
Bob Raynor
I mean, I think as it relates to kind of the, the job market and how. Right, you know, there’s. Right, because there’s so many people out of work. And I see it especially with, you know, people at the ACD and creative director level that are out of work for whatever reason. And then they’re just kind of promoting because and you’ve said that before, just promoting people before they’re ready. And what that effect has on, on the.
Brian Jung
Yeah, I think, I mean, people talk about ageism, right? So that’s a big thing. I was just really crazy. I never really thought I was going to be a thing even for me. You know, in my 30s as an actor. And then now I’m, I’m in my 40s, and now it’s like I’m there’s something weird going on here because I’m also seeing guys that are, like, close at, like, huge age, disease and stuff.
They’re unemployed and like you say, and then I’m seeing people that are getting CCL roles have had two years as a, as a GCD or a year as an see now that the CCL of, you know, a big network agency and I’m just I don’t understand how that happens if it’s not ageism, you know. So I guess the conclusion could be that ageism is real and is happening right now, especially in network agencies.
And that’s not to say that, you know, you shouldn’t give chances to people. You shouldn’t give chances to younger creatives. It’s not to say that just because you’ve only had two years as an IC doesn’t mean you’re not ready for a CCL role or another ECD role at a bigger agency. It’s just that, you know, they say looking at the numbers really a probability, the overall trends.
Right. So there are definitely outliers. There’s definitely exceptions to that rule. But I think generally speaking, if I’m seeing on a mass scale a bunch of really young creatives being hired for top leadership roles at top agencies over people that have had five, ten years of experience in that situation, that questions should be asked about that, right? Like, what is it about those that guy that at ten years, you know, at this famous agency and now suddenly he’s unemployed and nobody wants to hire like what happened there, right.
I think we should understand that. We should understand why that happens. What is it? You know, and address it. Because I think right now the the problem is, is that it’s going to cause a huge talent sink because those younger creatives aren’t going to be equipped to properly lead and properly mentor the younger generation either. And so now you’ve just got the circle of basically a circle suck where you’re not getting great creative work out there because all this other stuff is happening. And I think, we’re starting to see that as well. We’re starting to see the creative quality. I mean, the previous last two cans are just not great at all in my opinion. Right. So I think, you’re going to start.
Bob Raynor
This comes down to money. I mean, we talked about, you know, going back to that post you made of like unreal salary expectations, is it, you know, in your experience, the salary ranges that you post about posted about what they should be versus what we’re seeing. And I see it too. You’ll have posts for creative directors. I’ve seen anything from like less than $100,000 to, you know, something that’s still not reasonable.
So do you think, it could just be money? That’s the driving factor here right now?
Brian Jung
I mean, it could be. But then if you look at economic forecasts, if you look at their quarterly or annual financial reports, for a lot of these companies and brands and agencies, they’re all making money. I mean, you know, CEO compensation is, you know, it’s doubling every year. It’s like, yeah, it’s it’s you you’ve got the stats and the data that says otherwise.
It’s not as if these agencies are going bankrupt and they need to, you know, tighten. Sure. There some, you know, overlap with the pandemic and over hiring and self-correction and some of that is happening. But I think not to the scale of what we’re seeing here. I think there are just and to be fair, there are agencies, out there that I’ve seen posting for these rules that are passing reasonable salaries, you know, see roles for 200 to 225 K in LA is reasonable salary for a CD, you know.
And so I am seeing agencies do that. But then you have other companies that seem to be taking advantage of the labor market. So I mean, I would just say that that is those are the those are the companies that they’re going to get what they pay for. You know, if you want to hire an ECD for 150 K in LA, you’re going to get someone that’s, you know, views it as an upgrade.
You know, they’re making 80 K somewhere and they want the title and the pay bump and but they’re not that level. And you see it because you see some of these people get hired and then they’re gone within 1 or 2 years anyways. And so the agency has invested in all this, and it should do some to everybody in the network. And, you know, introducing the client, I think that’s the other thing that people don’t realize is that when you have this churn in agencies, well, actually the agency itself is the client relationship gets, damaged because the clients generally don’t want to meet a bunch of people over and over, like they just don’t like, especially B2B clients and corporate clients and financial clients. And they don’t they don’t want to be dealing with all these new faces all the time. And so that affects your client relationship, too. If you are continually cycling senior creatives, clients will ask, well, what’s going on in the agency? You know, things like that. Basically client relationship nightmare. At that point you’re doing damage control, PR control, all this stuff.
So I think the biggest issue I have with the agency’s is they should know better at this stage, and they shouldn’t be so short sighted. They should be looking long term, you know. And then to be fair, there are some agencies that do that. Some agencies are investing in proper talent and looking ahead two years and three years ahead.
Bob Raynor
Right. So I want to talk a little bit about your personal experience in the job market, because, you know, I know when I reached out to you about coming on the podcast, you kind of gave me that caveat that like, hey, I’m going to be honest and authentic about what I’ve been experiencing, and I love that. And I can see that in the things that you post. So, you know, talk to me a little bit about what your experience has been, especially for somebody with your resume and your body of work, like what are your unique challenges? And then what’s the solution to the. Because it’s just it’s craziness. It’s like literally the reason I started the podcast, because I’ve seen so many people, from juniors to somebody who’s experiences yourself all dealing with the same things. So talk to me about that.
Brian Jung
Yes. What you know, and I can only speak to my experience in particular. And I think there are some, some nuanced differences there. But, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve experienced a lot of the same things that a lot of everyone else has. Ghosting has been just insane, you know, hundreds and thousands of job, job applications have gone unanswered or seemingly auto rejected.
You know, the ATS and all this stuff. People keep talking about that. And, you know, the LinkedIn. Easy apply like all these things. I think for me, in the beginning, it was just as many people could see my, my CV and who I am the better. So I would just apply to through all the avenues, whether it was contact the HR town person directly to try to send them a CV to the email, or to do an easy apply or to apply through the postings, you know, through LinkedIn jobs or through indeed, you know, I would try to do everything essentially.
But I found out that it didn’t matter. Got I got rejected for pretty much everything. And the thing is, is like, I would apply to stuff that was like almost 100% meeting my qualifications. So. Right. If I didn’t feel like I was uniquely qualified for this position or the role or what they were expecting, I would apply to it.
But even then I applied to hundreds and hundreds and got no replies. And I think I got maybe a dozen, you know, interviews and then maybe from that maybe 4 or 5 final interviews. There were a lot of cases where for me, I got really close to, like, I got a final, you know, I got to the final and that it was just no offer.
So either some something happened at the very end. You know, I think, what disappointed me throughout all of this was just how, how, just how sort of apathetic the process was and, and the HR and talent people were in it. So you know, in another world, HR talent, people could be very empathetic and communicative. And, you know, yes, you didn’t get the role, but, you know, be in contact, not have to send you an auto reply.
And I know there are logistical things with dealing with hundreds and, you know, thousands of applicants. But I think, you know, to the point of why it’s exists is supposedly supposed to filter out or, you know, H.R. People are supposedly being that their job is to filter people out, you know? So I just felt the whole process very dehumanizing that there was no real human aspect to it.
There’s no empathy. There is no, just sort of personal touch to a lot of things. You know, it’s kind of sad when, like the handful of recruiters that actually reach back to you or reach out to you or, you know, actually send you a message saying, you know, I’m sorry. So work out maybe next time. Or like the very odd ones out in the whole process.
It’s pretty sad. It’s pretty sad, though, that, you know, you as a job seeker are like latching on to this one recruiter who showed you a little bit of kindness and a little bit of empathy, and you’re just like, oh yeah, thank you so much for doing what any normal human being should do if they’re coming across this situation, if I’m in that situation.
And that was interesting to see all the HR people get laid off. And, you know, if I’m fully truthful, it’s like, oh, I kind of saw that it was okay. So seeing HR people getting ghosted as well was interesting because it’s like, oh, you’re getting a little taste of medicine because, you know, you’re getting ghosted now. You know, it’s like, you know, I told somebody yesterday, it was like, you know, empathy is really, true empathy only really comes from it seems like people who have experienced it themselves. Right. Like you’re only really I see, like, empathetic, until when it happens to you and then you’re like, oh, I get it. I understand, you know, the walk on my own man’s shoe type of thing, right? So I feel like prior to this whole sort of implosion of the market, a lot of, recruiters and HR people were just, you know, doing their job but not really understanding, you know, what we were going through until it happened to them.
Right. And now that has happened to them. You know, I’m hoping that a lot more people are going to be empathetic. The situation. But from my results relief. So it’s I don’t really know. You know, I think it’s it’s really odd. You know, I had, I had a, I had several situations, two where I had people, colleagues and HR people who would ghost me.
I’d follow up. They they’d apologize for ghosting. I’d, I never ghost, I, I, I never I’m, I’m known for getting back to people I never ghost. Are you available next Tuesday? Yes, I’m available next Tuesday, 10 p.m. or 10 a.m.. Okay, great. And then they ghost me and and then? And then I follow up. Hey, I missed you, I missed you.
Then we have something scheduled. Oh, so sorry something happened. Blah, blah. Well, are you available next week? Yeah. Well, let me know what day works for you. Ghosted. So it’s like double triple ghosting. It’s it’s it. And it’s not one person. It’s like that’s happened to me dozens and dozens of times. And I just. I shake my head and I go like, what is it?
What is this world I’m living in in which people are double, triple ghosting, you know, it’s it’s wild. It’s wild, man. It’s wild. I mean, I’ve had colleagues who I’ve worked with in the past. I’ve had people I’ve met in person at networking up, you know, mixers and stuff, you know, hey, let’s meet up or blah, blah, blah, or, you know, hey, I want you to talk to, you know, Jane Doe, who’s doing this?
And they’re looking for somebody, and I’ll just, you know, send me an email or send me an email. No response. You know, it’s like it’s it’s wild. It is actually wild. All the stuff that’s happening right now.
Bob Raynor
And and this isn’t this is relatively do you think it’s relatively new? I mean, because it sounds like in earlier in your career, it was like you were very easily able to jump from one gig to the next one roll to the next. And it seemed like it was just like, all right, hey, I know this person. They’re going to bring me on.
And it was just seemed like a simpler way. I don’t want to say simpler time because then that makes us sound really old, but like, it just seemed easier. Right? And now there’s, you know, there’s I is in the way that everything is, you know, digital and you’re kind of at the mercy of the internet. Like what? What has changed?
Brian Jung
I mean, for me was largely from the pandemic, like the start of the pandemic. I mean, everything stopped in the pandemic. No one was getting any work anyways, really. But I think coming out of the pandemic, I think that’s where everything changed once all the layoffs started happening. Like what I think the game industry and then the tech company and then all the some of the FMcG started to lay off from that, I think, is when all this happened, I think there’s just massive flood of layoffs and everything.
Everybody just became a number, I think, and and it just started happening from then and I don’t know if it’s the systems or if it’s the people, or if it’s just overwhelming numbers. But ever since then, it’s just been a huge struggle to get any. Well, I should I should caveat all this because in large scheme of things, having talked to other people who have not had the experience that I have had, it’s that they’re having like an even worse time, you know, like I at least I have gotten final interviews, have gotten some people, you know, if it’s 20 people out of 100, that’s not terrible compared to other people that I talked
to who are like one out of 100 or 2 out of 100. Right? So I have to caveat and say that there have been a lot of instances where I have gotten to final stages and things and just haven’t gotten, for whatever reason, haven’t gotten final offer or whatever. So, yeah, I think it’s encouraging to get to that stage because I know at least I’m getting through somehow.
And it’s just, I don’t know, it’s just bad luck now or whatever. It is bad timing. I’ve had several situations where, you know, it wasn’t even that I didn’t get it to someone else. It was that something changed internally. Oh, you know, we decided, you know, to hire internally or oh, you know, free time during the hiring freeze.
You know, all those sort of typical responses do happen. I had one situation I posted about where was an agency where the recruiter reached out to me and was like, you know, this is not being posted. This is not a public job posting. We’re looking for an ECD and we think you’re uniquely qualified for it. And this is it felt really good to hear that, you know, and and to have somebody be like, hey, we checked you out and thought you would be perfect fit for this.
And therefore we’re reaching out to you specifically. And then you go through and you, you know, arrange all this stuff and then they’re like, oh, we decide to hire internally. And you’re like, okay, but then why reach out to me anyways and give me this false hope if you’re going to hire internally. And then and then I find out that guy, the HR guy, gets laid off from the agency.
And then two days ago, I saw that same ECD post up here on LinkedIn. So so there’s a huge disconnect, I think also between HR telling people within their own companies because they don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know who’s got the final say. The people who have the final say aren’t talking to the HR and telling people and telling them what’s going on.
You know, I’ve got a couple I’ve had a couple situations where HR telling people internally are like, I’m fighting, like I’m fighting, you know, to just get heard. You know, I’m trying to get you to meet this person and I want to get you in front of this person. And so there are cases where you have advocates who do want to get you in front of people, but their internal agencies are so messed up with the HR and hiring that, they can’t get through.
And I think this is always kind of existed. It’s just that because of where we are now, it’s really brought to light to talk dysfunctional. A lot of agencies and companies, internal hiring and talent systems and processes right now.
Bob Raynor
Yeah, I see that for sure. In my own job search and, you know, going back to your presence on LinkedIn and, you know, how you talk about your experiences with HR, you know, I love that you post daily, if not multiple times a day with the hashtag gig alert. Because honestly, I see more opportunities for creatives through your posts than I do manually trying to search for jobs myself.
So what? Talk to me about like your motivation behind that, because I think, you know, you’ve shared your experiences and your stories, and it seems like you’re almost kind of trying to put some positivity out there by helping others. So talk to us about that.
Brian Jung
Yeah. I think you have to be the change that you want, right? I think one thing that frustrates me about a lot of these LinkedIn influencers is they put out content that is basically awareness content. And this is also, you know, this a whole nother conversation about AAPI and Dei and all that stuff. But I think there’s a lot of signal boosting on LinkedIn where people are like, hey, this is a problem, we should do something, and hey, this is a problem, we should do something or hey, did you know that this and this is happening, blah, blah, blah.
And I got sick of it and I was like, you know what? I’ve made a few of those posts as well. And so instead I’m going to balance it by, you know, trying to put out because I have a lot of, I’ve been pretty selective in the people that I network with in terms of connections on LinkedIn and accept the connections.
And they primarily all been people within my industry. And so the and that’s been, you know, been on there for years and years and years. And so, you know, after, you know, 25,000 connections that are all within marketing and creative and advertising, you do see a lot of content around jobs and stuff. And so when I’ve somebody I can’t remember who it was said that one trick that you can do on LinkedIn is in the search field at the top.
You can do use a hashtag hiring, and that’ll pull up everybody that’s hired, that’s using that hashtag. And you can filter it based on location, the filter based on like, how how often it was so 30 days out, 15 days last week. And so, I got the idea from seeing someone use a hashtag alert, hashtag hiring.
I said, oh, okay, I’m going to use hashtag Giggler. Because that seems to be something people are using. And I’m going to start, you know, basically sending out all these jobs that come across my feed. But I’m going to be very selective about it. So when I do a hashtag alert, I actually do sort of look through and make sure that it’s like legit thing.
Also, if it’s agencies and client brands, I know I’m going to show it. So if there’s some random guy to saying I need to hire this and that and less, I’ll go and look at his profile and be like, okay, has he been at this agency or whatever? And so I actually try to sort of filter out so that every time I am blasting out something, it’s legit, but it’s also a good opportunity for a creative, like it’s a good agency or it’s a good brand or, you know, section of the farm and social ones, which are just everywhere.
Those ones are just I’m okay. It’s just it’s a lot of opportunities in social and farming nowadays. But, you know, if it’s a good agency or somebody that’s, got good credibility, I will do that. I stopped doing a lot of gig alerts for these, what I call cattle calls, you know, you’ve seen them where it’s like, right.
I want to add some more freelance art directors to my roster, please. You know, comment below. And it’s got 800 comments. I don’t I don’t do those. I do try to do real ones. And if it’s jobs that I’ve seen on LinkedIn that have been reposted over and over and over, and then someone else has posted it.
Typically I want post to get that because I know that those are probably ghost jobs, which is a new a relatively new term that I’m hearing now. Articles talk about the ghost jobs, I think, and I saw YouTube video, MSNBC did the song On the Rise of ghost Jobs, and there’s ghost job postings where companies are posting for compliance and HR reasons, but they’re not real jobs.
And right, there are a lot because, I’ve experienced like I’ve been seeing jobs posted over and over and over and over and over, getting hundreds of applications every time. Never get a response or get an auto rejection. There is one job that I applied to four months ago, and I just got spammed the auto rejection yesterday.
So it’s it’s, Yeah, it’s a wild time, so I’ll time. But I try to, you know, I go even though I’m in a situation where I’m looking for a job doesn’t mean that I can’t help other people. Right. It’s it’s no effort. Right? Which is why I’m so mind boggled that the this like ghosting by even former colleagues and from like OECD and colleagues at agencies and even telling people like HR, people like I just don’t I don’t understand it because it takes no effort to send you a quick DM.
It takes no effort 30s to type something. 30s to just say, hey, what’s up? You know, sorry you’re in a slow situation, but I’ll keep an eye out, right? You can even use a boilerplate response like that. And it’s something, right? You know, I don’t understand why. You know, town people who lives off of relationships with hiring managers such as myself.
You know, I’ve been in situations where I’ve worked with a talent agent, and then I’ve got hired an agency and turn around and use that same company to hire the people that I need to hire because they they did well by me. Right. And so I think it’s really weird, this, this like self self mutilating prophecy of I’m not gonna, I’m going to ghost ect.
And cos who could potentially be my business in the future. Like I don’t really understand that and I don’t get it from a person perspective. I don’t get it from a business perspective. Right. Because if we’re going to make the argument that, oh, it’s just business, you know, that’s not even good business practice. So I don’t understand it, you know?
So I’m I’m kind of just mind boggling by a lot of these things that are happening right now. This industry. Yeah. But if I can be part of something and help somebody, it doesn’t, you know, is 30s to repost something, you know, like. Yeah. So I’m happy people are getting something out of it. You know, I’m happy that it’s helping.
If it helps anybody, I’m. It’s great. You know.
Bob Raynor
It sounds like you’re you may have a new, a new business model in the works.
Brian Jung
Well, it’s funny you should say that. There is a guy who is the CEO of this, this talent agency. Contact me like he’s in UK or something, and he dmed me a couple times saying, dude, you should just be a recruiter for creatives. You should just be a creative recruiter. And and it’s so funny. And he’s dear me.
And every time I’ve said, nah, it’s okay. I love being creative. But after the third time you asked me, I’m like, okay, all this talk since you since you’re a CEO of a talent needs, if you want to launch a talent agency in the US, let’s talk. And he’s like, cool, let’s erase something ghosted. And that was six months ago.
I never heard from you.
Bob Raynor
Unbelievable. Well, that’s that’s kind of the perfect segue to, where I wanted to end, the conversation today, which is, you know, what’s next for you? You know, I know you enjoy, like, writing screenplays in your spare time. Like, what are some of the projects you’re working on? And, you know, how can people connect with you if they want to work with you?
Brian Jung
So I so I think, you know, to your to what you’re saying earlier in, in DMs, I think really good healthy thing for creatives to do is to, is to just take this time. And I like to devote some time during the work day to do job applications, to be on LinkedIn, etc. you’ll see and you’ll see I repost the gig alerts and stuff, but then also to carve out time to explore other things.
Right. I think it’s really it only makes you better creative as well. Right? So most creatives I know anyways are interested in many different things music, you know, theater, movies, film, all this stuff. Art. And so I think now it’s time to explore that, for me, you know, it makes you a better creative overall, but it also keeps you busy, you know, keeps you mentally healthy, I think, which is a really important part, you know, in the stage, especially if you’ve been looking for a long time.
So I’ve got several projects I finished, short film, screenplay, that I’ve submitted to a few festivals. I’m working on another one. I’m working on a potential feature, which could be really cool, sort of, based on true story. Saying, I’m. I’m working, I’m working with an artist to make a children’s illustrated children’s book based on my kitty called the The Itty Bitty Kitty.
Which is, it’s a it’s a Where’s Waldo style book where you had to find the itty bitty kitty. I have a black kitten, named Gunjan, which is Korean for soy sauce. And so she keeps all black and the inside.
Bob Raynor
My wife would be double allergic to that cat because she’s allergic to. She’s a sociology and a cat allergy.
Brian Jung
Oh, no. All right, well, she’s still got the book, though.
Bob Raynor
Oh, yeah. We’ll we’ll get the book.
Brian Jung
It won’t be scratcher stuff since we’ll do that. We thought about we thought about that and use some soy sauce scratching sticker on the back. No, but the inside is really cool because, not only are black cats, the lowest adopted cats in the US because of the superstition of bad luck. But I noticed after the third time that I was talking to a black blanket for 15 minutes that you can lose them.
You can, you can. You cannot find your black kitty sometimes. And I was talking to this crumpled black blanket 15 minutes. How’s your day gone? Well, what should we get for dinner and realized. And then she comes up and taps me on the leg from some other place. I’m like, oh, my God, you’re over there. They’ll never come there, girl.
I lose her in shadows. I lose her on black leather furniture. It’s crazy. So I had this idea that why don’t we create a Where’s Waldo children’s book, where you had to find the black kitty amongst all these things. But then the underlying message is that, you know, black kids are cool. They’re there many black panthers. And so don’t discriminate.
Right. So it has that message as well. But I thought that was really cool. So I’m working on that with an artist, a really, really talented guy. And then doing consulting work, you know, so doing pictures and doing, doing esports and gaming consultant work as well, and doing, you know, interviews when they come along.
But I think all that is really important to focus on art and stuff and all that. So really use a time to explore other things, while you can, because before you know, it, you know, this industry changes really quickly tomorrow. Okay, you could get a call and you could be, you know, in, you know. So I think we are starting to see some things change.
I think there are some positive signs that people are getting hired. Right now if you’re in pharma and social, my God. And you have the choice, there’s every single day I see dozens of pharma socials, which is a bit weird to me because it’s like it’s kind of interesting how like because there’s so much labor the way that like a lot of talent, people are starting to filter things out is by being very specific on their requirements.
Like you must have high fashion, not just regular fashion, you must have high fashion experience on global recognizable brands. Within the last two years, you must have, you know, social first. Which is weird because like exterior, integrated, creative, or if you’re a creative director, you social is part of everything. It’s not like we suddenly are doing an idea like, oh, we don’t do social with this idea.
It’s like it’s like usually social is part of every single idea. You’re pitching in an integrated level, right? Unless you’re like a, you know, direct mail agency or something, or you’re at a packaging design agency or a brand. So it’s kind of an interesting observation I’ve made recently that, you know, pharma’s different, I think pharma, because you compliancy things around it.
You kind of do have to know it, but it’s like you can learn it, you know. But I think, you know, people who are in pharma, which is ironic, right? Because if you look at the health care lion’s categories and Cleo’s the work that wins in health care categories and work shows are all ideas that are not typical health care.
It’s ideas that come from other areas. So creatives. So if you’re in pharma, you should want creatives that come from outside of pharma. If you’re looking for great creative ideas because that’s how that’s what’s getting the words and that’s what’s, you know, you want to stand out, right? So yes, hardworking creative work where you have the 80,000 lines of disclaimers at the bottom and you have to know what that is and you have to do that design around that.
Fine. But I think when you’re talking about big conceptual campaign ideas, pharma should look beyond just pharma creatives too, I think. And so but, but you know, I get it. They’re trying to filter out so many people in the market. Let’s be super specific. But I think I think.
Bob Raynor
You it comes back to having proper leadership. I literally just said this on the my last episode was that the best designers I ever hired were not from pharma. You know, I’ve been in pharma 15 years. Like, okay, people came from outside of me. I can teach somebody pharma. I mean, it’s just really like you got a lot of rules and regulations to follow.
It’s almost easier to come in to pharma than to leave pharma, you know? So, and, and pharma is always the last to pick up, the trends like social and things like that, but like, they can’t do it the way, product, the consumer product would because there’s so many rules and regulations around it. So I think it’s an interesting observation by you that like, you know, social is getting big, influencer marketing is getting big and social and, you know, a lot of people like myself are out and there’s really nobody to kind of come in and train and work with these, these people coming in.
Brian Jung
I’m surprised that your not being snapped up right now, because all I see is pharma and social. All my gig alerts are farmer and social right now, so. And they’re all saying you have to have pharma, so you’re going to get hired soon. There’s just just there’s not enough pharma creatives out there. And there’s so much pharma work right now for sure.
I mean, yeah, my gig alerts are all pharma and social. I think also too, it’s like. Somebody was talking, I was a comment on some of these threads saying, and basically I was saying the very definition of creativity is being able to go into, a market or a category or brand that is inherently noncreative and come up with something cool.
And that’s essentially pharma, like, that’s health care.
Bob Raynor
And how can you be creative within this box that you get put into? Right. Yeah. I used to say that all the time.
Brian Jung
Be the challenge that any creative wants, you know, like that should be a juicy brief. Anyone can do Nike, anyone can do Adidas and McDonald’s. And you know, all these their their briefs and creative basically makes itself it’s not hard to come up with the good idea. They’re it’s can be hard to sell it. It’s not hard to come up with it or to answer a creative brief from those brands.
But man, you know, I did a brief for, for, like a cereal vault, cerebral palsy, sort of a medication or something. And, yeah, that’s that’s different. Like, because the first thing the client and the first thing like the, the, the suits say is can’t do that.
Bob Raynor
You can’t say that you can’t or I’ve been through many a regulatory meeting where they say, you can’t you can’t do that. So, so many of the best ideas and concepts get cut immediately, you know, and you have to have a really good client partner that’s going to make sure that you can get over those hurdles before it gets to the committees that are going to tell you this is no good, you know?
Brian Jung
But I think that’s there’s something really interesting about that that I like because at least I know upfront, right, right away that it’s not going to work. There have been so many situations and big agencies I’ve worked at where we have spent weeks and months going down three creative concepts, fleshing it out, doing storyboards, doing bloopers, stirring concepts, doing animatics only to have the client be like, legal, said this one work or, oh, we can’t do this anymore.
Or, you know, strategy doesn’t seem to fit right. So I think we in some ways, it’s refreshing to just be told, hey, this is not going to work right up front and then be like, okay, cool. Let’s pivot to another idea, you know, because usually when you’re coming up with ideas anyways, you’ve got 20 or 30. What if we did this?
What if we did that? But if we did this, if we did that right. And so it’s good to be able to go through and cross it out and be like, this is not going to work because legal way is blah, blah. Compliance. Water or whatever, you know, so on the other other brand this whatever and then be left with 3 or 4 kernels of what if we did this and then like, okay, now we dive in.
Now we spend a bunch of brainpower to dive into this, you know? So in some ways, I think the health care is almost a last frontier for creatives in a way. Like, you know, we joke and say, oh yeah, farmers, we’re good creatives, go to retire, you know, or it’s a retirement home for good creatives. But I think, you know, on the other side of that is it’s, it’s it could be a very fertile ground for creatives.
We want to make the mark, you know in that. Yeah. You know where whereby the awards for health care is not super competitive. You know, the you could really kind of just clean up if you went in there, if you had the right, like you say, mix of clients and things like that. It all comes down to that.
Right? Well.
Bob Raynor
You’re you’re getting me fired up about my own industry where I’m like, you know, I’ve gotten to the end of my rope on some of these things. So I’m going to have to have you back to to talk about, just the health care industry in its own, because I think it’s kind of a beast, you know?
Brian Jung
Oh, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, what would be really interesting to dive into some of the, the health care category can award winning projects and sort of and I do this on my own is I’ll dive into them and I’ll dissect what’s interesting about it. You know, I’ll kind of look and analyze some of this work and be like, okay, so they came out this way, you know, and, and oh, you know, in some cases I think it’s a it’s like, oh wow.
This they are they, they, they, you know, X-Box created a new kind of controller for, you know, a handicapped people and that, that took, you know, years of research and stuff like that or whatever. But I think there are some cases where it’s like, oh, it’s a really clever insight where they basically came at it from a general market perspective, but then they outputted it in a way that was healthcare specific or pharma specific, and that’s interesting.
And I can see why. One, you know, things like that work you they reframe that the perception around, you know, this and that ailment or whatever, you know, to move to a different way. You know, I, I there’s that I don’t know if you ever saw that TV commercial about, depression where these two guys had football match, a soccer match, I think it’s a British ad and one guys, you know, super happy Cheering and happy.
And the other guy’s obviously depressed you know. And then at the end they they find out the guy who was acting normal is actually the one who committed suicide and kill himself. And so it was like, yeah. So it was like this, this thing about like, you know, you can’t always see depression, right? You don’t always know what people are going through just on the outside.
And so it was a really cool, cool, little TV spot. And I think that’s an interesting, you know, things like that really come out of the health care industry where you go, oh, that’s right. You know, there is that insight or that is an interesting sort of kernel. And I think, you know, in one instance, the words are good for that.
You know, I think for health care. So yeah, I’d love to I’d love to talk more about that. And you got guys, you know, legendary kids large like Lars Storm that have moved from general market into, into health care and done really, really well on stuff. So I think, I think that if you are in the industry of pharma right now, don’t give up, don’t do it. There’s hope.
Bob Raynor
That’s awesome, I appreciate that. Listen, Brian, this has been an amazing conversation. And, I appreciate you taking the time and going through all the ins and outs. And I look forward to seeing more of your your gig alerts for sure. Now that I know I’ll be looking for your pharma ones and, yeah, definitely hope to have you back on and and chat shop sometime in the future.
Brian Jung
Yeah, I think I mean, good, good. Thanks for having me. But also, you know, I really appreciate you also doing this and setting this up and, you know, putting out your podcast and stuff. I’m sure it’s helped other people as well. So I think if we all do a little something, maybe in the end, you know, the the other thing is too is like people talk about the competitive myths in our industry and how like, creators are very protective about this and that.
And, but, you know, rising tide lifts all boats, you know, and I think that’s changed as well. So when I was young I was very I’m very competitive person in general. But when I was young it was just like super competitive, like very protective, like, you know, my, my idea and all this stuff. And then as you get older, wiser, maybe more tired, we kind of just like, that’s all waste of energy, you know, if you can help somebody else out, help somebody else out, you know, and in the end, as creatives, we need to somehow figure out how we can, you know, watch each other’s backs in a way, because I feel like
that we are taught in this industry to be competitive with other creatives when in the sense I found the best creative work actually comes. And what’s more personally fulfilling for me, you know, like the reason why I do this is for the little pockets of time where you have two creatives sitting out on a coffee shop, just bouncing ideas off of each other and feeding off of each other, and that energy, that creative energy of, oh, you could do this, or oh, I saw this, do this, and I’m building and building.
And then coming out of that feeling energized, like, oh, we have something really cool here. And then of course, being told you can’t do it by legal or whatever later. But that moment where you with creative people, we live for that. And so I think any goal when you talk about creative leadership, any goal of a creative leader should be how can we take those kernels, pockets of time, the 30 minutes or 15 minutes every other week that we get this experience of being together, creatives and bouncing ideas off each other?
How can we make that more? How can we make that happen more often? How can we tear down internal barriers so that imagine, imagine what the creative would be like if the majority of our time as creatives were spent. You know, if we could say 80% of our time was spent hanging out with creatives, bouncing ideas off of each other, you know, feeding off of things, how well, what would our industry look like at that point?
Right. What what would the work be like if we could legitimately say, hey, I’m a senior art director at, you know, BBDO or whatever? And man, most of my time is spent just talking to creatives, bouncing ideas, looking at creative grace, talking to strategy like that’s what it should be, right? But we all know that’s not what the reality is.
So I think, you know, as a creative leader, you could judge that. So if you’re an art director, if you’re a junior art director, you’re a designer looking to get in this industry and you’re looking at creative leaders, or you’re working in an agency as an internship and you’re looking at agency leaders and you’re wondering yourself, do I want to stay here?
I want to follow this person. You know, is this a good creative leader? One one metric could be that how how how are they helping me to just be creative and to look at ideas? How are they carving out that time for me as much as possible, as often as possible? How are they addressing pointless meetings that I shouldn’t be in?
How are they addressing, you know, the naysayers? How are they tearing down the barriers and taking away things from me that I don’t need to do that are conflicting with my ability to just sit there and germinate and come up with ideas, right? I think that’s one good metric, right? So anyways, appreciate you. I could go on forever, as you know, on this stuff.
So I appreciate so, so much. And we’ll talk soon.
Bob Raynor
Absolutely. Thank you Brian. Appreciate your time. Thank you.
Thanks to Brian Jung for being my guest on today’s show. And thank you for joining me on the flame podcast. There’s definitely more to come. Please take a minute to follow, subscribe or hit the like button if you haven’t done so already. And if you have any feedback, or I’d like to be a guest on my show, send me a message. I’d love to hear from you.