Most of my work-related posts involve me complaining about the long hours or my annoying co-workers. I thought it was time that I bragged a bit about my super cool job. I can’t tell you everything (stinkin’ confidentiality agreement) over the blog, but since this is a private site, I think I’m safe sharing a lil’.
For my portion of the business (Yellow Box, Multigrain, and New Products), we have eight new TV spots in various stages of production:
- Our “Nations Challenge” spot just came off air and was hugely successful. 500,000 people have visited the Web site and more than half of those have signed up. It was even ranked by Neilson as one of the most liked spots of the month.
- Two Yellow Box spots are in consumer testing right now. This is an uber-painful process where we let Joe America tell us if we’ve made a good commercial or not. Results are due back in two weeks. Then we jump into what we call full-up production –- think directors, craft service, SAG, Los Angeles. One of these spots includes a 2-year-old. How we expect to get a toddler to deliver lines, I’m not sure. The other is this rad mix of live action and animation. The latter will take a lot less time up-front, but post-production will be strenuous. General Mills legal has "expressed concern" with this concept, so I anticipate a lot of fun lawyer meetings in my near future.
- We just wrapped production on an election-themed spot that is going on air in November –- wahoo! And, we have three more in that campaign that will run as part of promotional deal we signed with The Biggest Loser. I had a conference call with one of the show’s producers last week and got a little insider info on the upcoming season. I was in reality TV heaven.
- We are in the middle of production for a :05 spot (we call these tags) for a November promotion. This spot is a mix of illustration and CGI – expensive, but hopefully worth it.
- The newest project on the radar is a social marketing spot that will run in February. I saw the creative for the first time last night. This project had a rocky start (all first round creative was killed), but I think the new stuff is really strong. The accelerated timeline is giving me heart palpitations, but these things always have a way of working themselves out.
- We have two new Multigrain TV concept spots that just came out of testing with very few battle scars. We are making a few tweaks and then sending them off for a round of quant research. If only they spent all this research money on production!
- Finally, we sold through two potential ideas for a new product launch in February. I’m flying to Minneapolis next week to sit in on the first round of testing. Wish us luck!
So, that’s what takes up most of my day. The other part is filled with editing Johnny Wordy (AKA the Cheerios assistant account executive), IM’ing my brother, listening to French techno music in my neighbor's cubical, and planning the 2009 Costa Rica adventure. While I’m constantly considering what my life would have been if I had pursued another profession, I know I have it pretty good.
Happy Friday!
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3 comments:
This doesn't sound like "Mad Men".
There's a lot less sexual harassment and chain smoking. Thank goodness.
Hey I just realized that I know someone from school who just took a job with General Mills in brand management... her name's Tara, if you happen to run into her (literally or not literally).
Oh and thanks very much for the Duck Butt card... I laughed. Be expecting something in return. :)
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