Instead of having you learn about your path to understanding traditional media, I want to talk about what drew me down my own path into traditional media. Keep reading, there are traditional media nuggets of knowledge hidden in my life story!
Growing up I constantly changed my mind on what career I wanted. It went from a doctor to a lawyer, to a social worker, to a businesswoman, so on and so forth. Nothing truly felt like me. Having a traditional and slightly old-fashioned upbringing, it did not leave much to the imagination for career paths. However, one constant did remain the same, I was always that kid that spun around her room, imagining herself on television shows and movies.
So, at the tender age of 20, I decided to go against the grain and “go find myself”. At the time, it was just an idea, but I didn’t know that, and idea could turn into a reality. I left home for two years and decided that independence and freedom was my true nature. Being a wonderer and living my creative truth was who I was meant to be. I came back to Florida and had a new sense of confidence and assertiveness and vision for my future. I wasn’t going to do what was expected of me, but what I was passion about. Now I had to figure out what that was.
I made the decision after hearing a radio commercial. If you’re new to advertising, radio is one of many mediums of traditional media and the commercial I heard was indeed marketing and advertising. Did you catch that teaching moment? Anyways, I got the sign I needed to get the opportunity to do what I believed was my next step. I want to learn the craft of radio and television. From television and radio production, producing, show planning and eventually being on the air. In the following days of replaying the commercial in my head and hearing it again a few more times. That’s what you call “Reach” and “Frequency”, the number of times you are estimated to hear or see a commercial during an advertisers’ campaign – another nugget for you – okay, back to my story. I muscled up all the courage I had, and I put my plan together, and presented, literally presented to my parents that I was leaving traditional college and going to a trade school to learn how to be the next Oprah Winfrey. To my dismay, they let me do it.
While venturing through my new path, I realized that this where I belonged. Through schooling I got the opportunity to work for a radio station I grew up listening to and grabbed the chance to be on air, voice commercials, I was living my best Winfrey life! What the universe didn’t prepare me for was that my education wasn’t over. Learning about marketing and advertising. I started in digital marketing and got a grasp of something that was just starting to build traction in advertising…social media! Wow reading that back is kind of making me feel old! So, something about me to know I am never satisfied with learning just one thing. I wanted to learn more, so that’s what I did! I sat in brainstorming meetings for clients. I watched account managers and learned how to put together proposals and what dayparts were and commissions and all the things that I thought would be boring to learn were actually fascinating. Watching an idea, mature into a plan, then a campaign, then see it produced into a commercial, then scheduling it for day breaks and seeing client’s ecstatic to see their ROI (return on investment) – learned that too – was exhilarating. Here it was again, an idea turning into reality.
Fast forward to now, I am being lead down a new path. I get to be at Bottom Line Marketing, the place where, daily, I get to relive that exhilarating feeling! And again, my thirst for knowledge about this industry is being quenched. I am in the hub where ideas are formed and analyzed, produced, media buys are formed and all over again, I watch clients excited to see their business grow because we did our job. Realizing that if you create as great of content, as tv shows and music, the quality of viewership is exponential. Once I realized that, being behind the scenes has become a bigger goal then I could’ve imagined. That little girl twirling around her bedroom only touched on the surface of what her imagination could reach. Now anytime anyone asks me, “What do you do?”, I proudly say, “You know the commercials you see on tv, hear on the radio, the billboards you see while driving or at the airports and malls or the ads you see in magazines and newspapers, I am the one who makes sure they get there.” All those I listed before are all forms of traditional media by the way. Boom! Another nugget. Damn, I’m good.