#307 In which our hero recounts a mysterious and new word he learned at his new agency.
I’ve been at the new job for about eight months now. I feel
like I’m getting into the groove of this place, finally, but the first couple
weeks were a little rough. This agency is a purely digital agency, and my
experience is primarily print and collateral. I’ve done plenty of websites and
online banner ads, but I’ve never gotten into the finer points of search engine
optimization, highly-interactive user experiences, rich media banners and all
the other stuff that takes the online experience to a much higher level.
I expected there to be a learning curve, but it was steeper
than I thought. There was a lot of information presented in orientation that
had me scratching my head; stuff that I assumed I would pick up as I got
settled in.
But then, there was the lingo. This agency is thick with
jargon and agency-specific titles, programs and processes.
My first week on the job I was anxious to prove myself and
jump in and start producing good work. I was almost immediately pulled into a
project for a smaller east coast bank. During the briefing, the Creative
Director mentioned that we were going to have to turn around a concept pretty
quickly, and would be producing an adlob to sell the idea.
Adlob?
This is a term I was not familiar with. He mentioned it in
passing, like it was something that everyone would know. I wrote in my notebook
“ad-lob? WTF?” and planned on looking it up later. Maybe it was a banking term?
I’ve done lots of financial stuff in the past, but that wasn’t ringing any sort
of bell.
But I let it go. Then, a couple of minutes later, the CD
mentioned it again. I stopped him, saying, “Okay, sorry, but what’s an ad-lob?”
He explained that it was an “ad-like object.” Adlob. I
laughed and shook my head. In my previous agencies we would have probably said
it was a mock-up. Most likely something that looked similar to an ad you might
see in a magazine. Nothing that was to proper dimensions or even with finalized
copy and graphics—just something to get in front of the client so they know
where our thinking was.
This was my first taste of much more silly jargon to come.
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Labels: advertising, work
2 Comments:
Glad you're back!!!
Can't wait to hear about all of it, including the doubling of horses in the fam!
9:04 PM
I googled "adlob" because I heard it for the first time today after THREE YEARS in an ad agency. WTF?! Needless to say I ended up here on your blog after googling it. I cannot believe some of the jargon- it's so, so silly. Why couldn't "mock-up" work?! ha...
4:58 PM
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