Categories
Ad Club Uncategorized

Industry veteran Brad Todd shares his insights

SMU Ad Club recently welcomed Mr. Brad Todd, Principal at the Richards Group, to campus to share his insights about the advertising industry, and his experience as a Marketing Director at Frito Lay. To a packed room in the newly renovated Advertising co-working space, Mr. Todd has discussed his more than 40 years of experience, working on both the agency and client side around the country and world (Chicago, Japan, and Dallas to name a few places). He has worked for many big brands, including Hallmark, Kimberly-Clark, Cheetos and Doritos.

IMG_4947From the beginning of his career, Brad learned early to work on anything and everything to gain experience and to try and understand things from the consumer perspective. He claims that being proactive is critical to success. However, being able to step back and look at the situation from an outside perspective will give your work a competitive edge and provide value to your client.

Mr. Todd reminded students that advertising is just aspect of the branding process. He recognizes, “It’s an important piece, but small,” and it is important to understand how a company works overall to ensure the marketing contributes to the larger goals of each organization.

Brand transformations are an especially rewarding experience. By reinventing a brand and making it relevant to consumers, advertising helps move a product from a so so in the minds of consumers, to a household name.

Fortunately, Mr. Todd has had multiple experience with brand transformations, including creating the widely known Sun Chips from a relatively underperforming chip named Pronto.

Students had many questions, so Brad gave advice about moving forward in their careers. His top tip was to make sure that you have internships get the experience needed to set you apart. Internships also let you explore different agencies and departments in agencies to find your passion. He also had great advice in how to choose a job. Some points mentioned were:

  1. to look at the distance between your position and the decision maker to ensure you can impact the brand, and
  2. make sure there is room for you to grow in the long run, either within the agency or as a stepping stone for your career.

Importantly new employees must be flexible. Given the speed at which the industry is changing, students must maintain a willingness to learn and an

active curiosity in order to stay relevant.

Moving forward may be scary, but to win in advertising Mr. Todd implores everyone…“Be curious. Be uncomfortable. Jump In.”Brad_Todd_7_7_15

Brad Todd may be contacted via LinkedIn.

Categories
Scholarship Scholarships TAI Students Undergraduate Students

Olga Romanova of TAI receives an AEFH Scholarship

OlgaRomanova5[1]The Advertising Education Foundation of Houston (AEFH) awards scholarships to college sophomores, juniors and seniors pursuing undergraduate or post graduate degrees in advertising, communications, interactive marketing, journalism, radio/TV, commercial art, public relations or related fields. The AEFH Board of Directors received a record number of applications. The board carefully considered participant’s applications, educational aspirations and overall qualifications.​ As a result, Olga Romanova, majoring in Studio Arts and Creative Advertising at SMU, was awarded a Baxter + Korge Education Scholarship​ 2015.

Congratulations!!

Categories
Graduate Students Internships Masters in Advertising Program

See What our Second Year MA in Advertising Students are Doing in their Executive Internships with Dallas Agencies

In the final semester of the Temerlin Advertising Institute’s MA in Advertising program, students work in an executive internship with a Dallas agency. Read their stories below and see what they are up to!!

 Erin%20Hedrick%20-%20The%20Richards%20Group

Erin Hedrick – The Richards Group

 

I am currently interning at The Richards Group in the Brand Management department on The Home Depot account. As a Brand Management intern, I collaborate with other Brand Managers, Planners, Creatives and Project Managers to complete television, radio, digital, and branding projects from start to finish. I am also responsible for creating and presenting a weekly competitive summary presentation to alert top management of any changes in competitors’ advertising strategies, as well as conducting competitive store audits with analysis for The Home Depot. TRG is a fast-paced, but truly fun, working environment, and I am learning more and more each day about how to work and communicate effectively as a team. I am very grateful for the opportunity to work on such an exciting account here at TRG, and I am looking forward to seeing these projects I’ve been working on come to life!

 

Check back soon for  updates from other students and their
MA in Advertising Executive Internships!

Categories
Uncategorized

Chief Marketing Officer of Splash Media Guest Lectures

Jim McKinnis, Chief Marketing Officer at Splash Media, guest lectured for the students of Professor Bunting’s Advertising Technology class. In speaking with Professor Bunting’s class, Jim felt that the lead competitive edge students need to train for is content development. He further elaborated that the current generation has a very intimate knowledge of social media platforms, which will give them an advantage over people who have been in the field longer. Being able to think quickly and provide relevant content is what will allow a student to stand apart from others in the job marketplace.

20150212Jim Mckinnis Splash Media Logo
Jim McKinnis, Chief Marketing Officer at Splash Media

 

Jim brings more than 25 years of creative thinking and marketing experience to his role as CMO. Steeped in the foundation of brand advertising, Jim previously served as Chief Creative Officer for TracyLocke/DDB Dallas before embracing big data as CCO North America at the CRM powerhouse, RAPP. Then grew to run the RAPP LA office for 8 years of explosive growth. Now the latest stage of his career finds Jim helping to lead the first true global agency driving business solutions through social platforms, Splash Media.

20150212 Jim Mckinnist & Mark Bunting
Professor Mark Bunting (left) has a Q&A session with Jim McKinnis (right)