Dongkwan’s Advertising World

Yessssssssssssssss!

I got back home last night from a long day. I’ve been sick since my arrival from the Bahamas, with school work and activities threatening to kill me everywhere I go. And so I came home, checking my e-mail just before heading off to bed to cool off the rising fever.

“Congratulations.” I receive an e-mail saying I’m a finalist of the 2008 Most Promising Minority Students program sponsored and awarded by the American Advertising Federation. The American Advertising Federation is the oldest professional advertising organization in America, with over 50,000 members across the country. I am actually the Chapter President of it at my school - The Art Institute of Pittsburgh. Wow! I mean, I got a kick-ass recommendation from my instructor Ms. Fisher, kick-ass academic accomplishments, and a corny statement and self-promoting tagline and a terrible dress-up photo. But I was actually chosen, as one of the 50 students chosen in the United States of America. OK. I was no longer sick. I jumped around like a kangaroo who just got his toe stepped on by a tow truck. I was like a kid who just had his first experience with plain wasabi.

So what next you ask? I’ll be heading on to the 3 day seminar in the Mosaic Multicultural Center in New York (yeah baby NYC), and participate in a program where I get to learn many things. The main event: the recruiting session with the world’s top ad agencies. Oh yeah, all of them that are on my list.

So watch me in USA Today or Ad Age when I participate in the event from Feb 5 - Feb 8, 2008. As I am most likely the only non-citizen or green card holder, this means that now I have to be the best amongst the 50 finalists.

So if you’re a student who’s willing to put something more to your resume, or, willing to do something more to get you an ad agency job, check out the many opportunities available at the AAF website. You’ll be surprised at what you’re missing out on.

And if you’re a recruiter or a creative professional willing to hire me, please give me just a couple more months when I’m ready to show you some of my talents.

Thank you everyone who has helped, and I will always do my best to make you all proud. Thank you AAF for choosing me.

I hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving. I gotta say, I’ve never celebrated Thanksgiving before. But this Thanksgiving I did, and it a was a special one.

As I landed on the Freeport International Airport in the Grand Bahamas Island of the hundreds of Bahamiam islands, the first thing I recognized was the tall palm trees. Oh yes, I felt I was somewhere else. The last time I ever interacted with palm trees was back when I was in Tunisia. It’s been what… 15 years?

Soon I realized I saw myself becoming a child, back to my Tunisian days. The palm trees, the air breeze, and the hot tropical heat all made sense - I was alive. Yes, I had survived the years of complexity, where every day I lived to succeed tomorrow, and lived in buildings, with man made air-conditioners to kill off the nature’s warmth. But I realized that the city man I was, I’ve been living with the wrong habits. For once, I was able to return to a child, building castles in the sands, and enjoying the world of freedom where watching the sunset against the horizon was no longer an event. Ah, you should have been there.

So I get back, after a 2 year reunion with my mother and my aunt. As I left the international airport seeing my mother in tears, I realized something else. I’ve been too focused on my life not knowing how much my family missed me. And to my greater surprise was that I never had the closest thing to dropping a tear. I mean, did all that air-conditioner freeze up my 98% water-content in my body?

If you think you’re been too much a city-person, this winter, take your self to the beaches of the Bahamas. Take a week, and you’ll be rejuvenated with emotion, where you can be human again. Alive, in this world of complex matters.

P.S. One thing had me crying - all my pictures I took were lost due to a malfunction of my 8 month old digital camera. I’ll post ‘em when I fix ‘em.

In programming language, the first thing you learn is how to have your screen show “Hello World!”
How exciting!
Even more exciting is when you get to type “Goodbye World!”
Oh yeah, I’ll be leaving this world for a few days, as I’ve been called upon a mission.

Where to? In The Bahamas!

Unfortunately, it’s no romantic getaway. It’s my reunification with my mother, and my aunt who is currently being treated for cancer. Yeah, I haven’t seen them for quite a while, but that’s not why I’m going there.

I’m going there to say farewell to the world for a while.
I’ve been stuck under a fog of cigarettes day and night, with ink and pencil lead constantly pricking my nose. I’ve been seeing my grades go down the drain, hearing the imminence of my failure in landing a copywriting job. How good a vision can I get in such environments?

So I’m off, to get a better vision of creating cooler ads. Yes, await me my fellow readers (if there are any) - I’ll be back stuck under a fog of sand castles, with palm leaves and coconuts pricking my nose. I’ll be seeing dolphins go down the waves, hearing the imminence of my failure in landing a mediocre perspective.

So I said I’m going to the Bahamas. If you don’t see another post by me in the future, you know where to look for me. I’ll be the guy inscribing my name on your next romantic getaway beachfront.

I tell ya, this was totally unexpected, and I bet something unexpectedly exciting can happen to you this Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! And save some leftovers for me. Goodbye World! - for a couple of days.

The world is flat, says Thomas Friedman. That’s technology doing its trick. The important thing is, even when the world has no boundaries, that’s only for machines - not us humans.

Have you ever had a customer service call and found it hard dealing with outsourced calls from India? They call themselves John or Chris, but really, they don’t sound like one. It’s becoming more of an issue these days, because unhappy customers in the U.S. want to speak to someone who knows the product, and more importantly, someone who can understand and speak in the customer’s tongue. Unhappy as a customer is, the customer doesn’t want to have to keep saying “I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

Yes, technology has allowed for a superhighway of communications across the globe. But seriously, we as humans, find it hard to really understand one another. I mean, it’s hard to communicate even with our husband or wife. So now that we have a wider platform for communication, a flatter world where selling and buying of goods have become so free, the focus is now on having a more quality communication. “Know thy customer,” has become a wiser wisdom, because without it, the customers can simply switch to your competitor from the other side of the planet.

So what should YOU do? Think in terms of understanding - not talking. You may have been raised in Los Angeles, went to college in Urbana-Champaign, and took your first job in New York City while taking vacations in Orlando and in The Bahamas, your customer may have lived in Shanghai most of his life. And although you may have eaten many Combination Lo Meins, that doesn’t mean you know all about Chinese culture. Did you think they eat Lo Mein every day?

Now let’s think in terms of advertising. You know that your client’s customers aren’t all American. I mean, what is American? So when developing a creative campaign, you must NEVER ASSUME that all women hope to become successful businesswomen or that all Africans don’t have electricity. Even when you think of the most fundamental values, that’s really your own value, and not the value of all people who buy your client’s products.

So dont’ just eat Lo Mein, learn how to cook it. Don’t rely on sayings that the world is flat, because the world is really big. And you knew it since you were born. Get back in your diapers in your crib, and see how everything looks big.

I tell people I lived in South Africa, and people ask if I had to ride lions.

Well, I did cuddle a baby lion once in a safari.

The truth is, South Africa is not much different than anywhere else in the world. Think of Europe, think of the United States, and think of all those cultures in a land far, far away from the rest of the world. That’s South Africa. A true multi-culture in a beatiful foreign land.

I love South Africa. Anyone who’s been there will fall in love. It’s really hard to explain why… Kind of like asking why you love your mother. Same concept, but South Africa never grows old - young and beautiful as it was before. And the people? You think violence in that country makes them ugly? Oh no, they are the nicest people on earth.

South Africa has a really unique culture. They have had people coming in from Europe, Asia, and of course, the natives in Africa. But what makes it so unique is that this eclectic population has brought about its own culture. Very different to the U.S. In the U.S., you’re an Asian even if you’ve lived here your entire life. You’re somebody, even though you are not. In South Africa, everyone in South Africa is South African. Yeah, you might say, that discrimination has been the worldwide issue there, but no South African separates themselves.

There’s really no need to write any more about this beautiful country, because I’d highly recommend that you visit this place at least once in your life time. You’ll know when you arrive at the airport, and smell the richness of the earth against an African sunset.