MacLaren McCann

John Alabaszowski

VP Group Creative Director

MacLaren McCann
Offices in Toronto and Vancouver with 500 people

John has worked at all sizes of agencies, from small, medium to large. He has also freelanced— so he has tried it all and has much to share with our post grad class at Sheridan.

He currently works at MacLaren McCann and has moved from Senior Director to VP Group Creative Director. John has been with MacLaren McCann 7 years now which is a rarity in the creative industry, so must mean he has found a great place to work and thrive creatively. MacLaren McCann has a great client roster. John has worked with such as GM and their vehicle brands, RBC, Argos, Goodwrench, and of course there are many more.

John shared some
Some cool sh*t

• Social & Mobile and Tablets have turned website design upside down
• Managing relationships with clients and their consumers is key
• Surfing in front of computer at a desk gone—we are constantly interacting now at all levels ie Mobile space, tablets, iphone
• example of mobile site at GM check it out
• Build social media into campaigns —so many more different channels 

Among the different projects for GM were:

• Chevy VOLT web site
  • Built my google maps
  • Electric car and plotting route 360 views
  • More of an experiential view— to take time and interact
  
  
• Chevy SONIC
  • Choose interiors and music–custom mix and configure your vehicle
  • Works on facebook too
  • This is a different approach
  • Less about driving people to a site but hanging out where people are
  • Manage and maintain the digital ecosystem where people are “living”
  • Dialogue with your customer  
  
  
• Chevy Orlando
  • Soccer mom audience
  • Relied on other peoples opinions to market product
  • Utilizing google maps and popular online destinations
  • Self contained ie. Sonic
  • Orlando—social media (moms biggest user)
  
  
• Mastercard Canada
  • “Interns Wanted” campaign
  • Instead of a poster —
    used social media as a platform to apply for internship
  • The challenge
    MC wanted to find digital savy students to fill summer positions
  • The process
    Online adds, hashtages QR images – linked to twitter, youtube, facebook had full details, lined in – photo and resume, coverletter
  • Follow on twitter to see if they made short list
  • Lots of tweets — Watched everything unfold online
  • Invited small teams on a one day workshop
  • Innovation, creativity and experience of a lifetime!
  • The results
    Over 500 exceptional applicants — 400 % fan increase
  • a new way to connect into talent
  • will be used as a best practice now for MC
  • sometimes client does not know what they need
  • no website
  • keywords google
  • facebook and twitter and youtube
   
• Gears of War game
  • Clues on Craigs list—locust alphabet clues
  • Audio clips morse code
  • Film clips
  • Twitter online conversation and prize of locust meat at real butcher shops in Toronto ad Vancouver included an admit one ticket to exclusive game launch 

How to do some cool sh*t

• Experience small shops —
  you will be jack of all trades but exposed to a lot
• Your portfolio —have it online
• BEST work
• Put strengths up front
• Have good layout skills, clever, passion
• Have it organized

Your interview

• Be organized
• Pitch yourself and how you come across
• Try to stand out
• Don’t be drunk!
• Ask for advice—listen

Your job

• Volunteer for stuff—Internal stuff is noticed
• Be seen
• don’t be drunker than your boss !
• work hard
• don’t take it personally— nature of business
  collaborative— everyone has a voice in this business—
  help your brain and ego....go in like a ninja!!
   

contact at twitter

@johnala

maclaren.com

john.alabaszowski@maclaren.com   

Fall Interactive Tour

An inside view at design agencies in Toronto

The morning was a hustle to make it to the GO train station in Oakville (memories of my many years of commuting to Toronto) to meet my fellow students—and on we went.

We were greeted with FTI tour guides— with color coded swag bags— already a great start and onto a tight schedule of visiting some of the top agencies in the city, all on foot. As advised, I wore walking shoes and left the heels at home— however all day I did suffer from a short complex...

First up, was Taxi. One of the top agencies in the world—a great opportunity to get a glimpse of the working behind the scenes as we were escorted into their contemporary kitchen meeting room. A well polished presentation was given about their work and Taxi "culture". Among the humorous and successful campaigns showcased was Viagara, Telus, Cheese, Bombardier, MSN and the list goes on. 

I was very impressed with the professionalism, award winning projects and contemporary work environment.



We then walked onto John Street. A very different environment– many levels, many stairs - no need for a stairmaster working here! A great place with open concept and people organized according to discipline more or less. 

I really liked their presentation showing the creative and strategic process for one of their clients— Infusion Teas by Tetley.  

The ideas behind the campaign and the process including the revisions to the original ideas were presented and then the end results of a commercial and an experiential event with personal shopping butlers. It was great to see the project unfold from start to finish the working parts and thoughts behind it. And we scored some Infusion samples as we left—I scored two. Blueberry is my favourite...so far— trying to switch out my diet coke habit...

We then went to Grip Limited.

We were greeted by one of the partners who gave us a tour. 

The agency space is huge with many areas of expertise including video editing and shooting. They really DO have a big orange slide–I was really hoping to go down it!! A little disappointed here...I hope to in the future....

A lot of capabilities in this shop. Great space. Great creative teams. Impressive clients paired with impressive work.

On from Grip we went to Derooted a smaller agency with big work. Their owner, Amir spoke to us about the company and their work.

Their work consists of branding, web design with facebook and twitter integration, event guerrilla campaigns, and photo and art gallery work

and very interesting interactive, and experiential lighting design that can be applied to surfaces including large buildings. A little out of the box and puts a whole new "light" on interactive design...




We visited ODDLY creative and were presented many multimedia, gaming projects that they have worked on. Fun projects like burger flipping, tire filling, mini golfing and skiing games. It seems they "play" for a living.

This entire event was the idea of Tim from Oddly who has very generously contributed his time and created this event to further students and their future of opportunities. Thank you Oddly!

Momentum

Dwayne Grech, 28

 

Interactive Designer @ Momentum Advanced Solutions

Owner/Designer at Sultan of Beard

Dwyane had many and different experiences in the industry compared to our other speakers. He graduated from Graphic Design Grad form Seneca College—class of 2004 and then as Sheridan Grad web design—class of 2009

His very 1^st job was with Organic Online Media as a production artist, creating banner ads—for Jeep,Chrysler and First America Bank. Things were good but then the US Recession hit and the Cdn market was affected as well. Organic lost large clients and Dwayne lost his job. He freelanced and went to and from several positions.

Dwayne then worked for Young & Rubicam working on automotive creative. He was also hired as a user interface designer for Sirius Satellite Radio. From this experience came a position as a UI instructor at Sheridan College and teaching UI to developers in Brampton. 

Quirky Facts

• Backpacked in Australia
• He speaks Japanese – used to live in Japan
• Started the Facebook group: The Toronto Surf Club—Great lakes cold water (brrrr)
• He claims to have killed 5-8 out of his exact duplicates—there can only be one!!
  but still hunting them down...

Momentum

What we do

• Microsites, banners – facebook, twitter feeds if it touches the web they do it for DOAR – Chrysler, JEEP, Dodge/RAM/Fiat
• Online support for Mazda, Mercdes Benz, Forresters – insurance company
• Web APPS for C class coupe mercdees benz
• Online loyalty support for AMEX –
• Was named one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies

Chrysler microsite

• Microsite — Chrysler 300 Yahoo takeover – one day event
• Sourced a 3D artists to build it –
• 3 month process—to design and revisions to end result
• Designed as luxury car appeal and provided an emotional response (film noire look)
• Story and experience—don’t lose their attention— consider the user so it is easy for them to navigate and use
• Great response
• Client side website www.chrysler.ca

Jeep-Kokanee Crankworx microsite

• JEEP = rocks and roads!! Promotions included a manmade obstacle course in parking lot, races—COOL!
• Design Faux pas—no Kokanee beer logo near Jeep (MADD was not impressed)
• Live Twitter feed and facebook promo
• Elevator website—HTML 5—all content on one page endless scroller
• Some add scroll based animation—synteractive—jquery
• Going to apply his concept to auto show for JEEP and will be Largest ipad display
• Elevator scrolling

Industry Advice

What to expect

• it won’t be easy, competitive, pay your dues.
• lack of sleep—redbull will help
• ultra competitive market—how do you stand out—how you present yourself personality and style
• small industry—everyone knows everybody – on the radar
• crazy office politics
• Toronto has heaps of agencies - start at small agency – kinder environment to learn and grow
• HEAPS of industry parties —free booze

Options

• Small design house vs International Agency
• Contract vs Permanent Work
• Designer vs Project Manager vs Account Manager
• Canada or abroad—Brazil is HOT right now

Life lessons

• Burning bridges in this industry is suicide
• Networking events are easiest way to an interview—click and step in the door
• Never too old to stop learning—do your best to learn something new everyday
• Action script and video new direction of online
• TheFWA.com is the bible
• Sometimes you have to sacrifice weekends
• Red Bull doesn’t give you wings but sure does make you saviour of the all night request

Dwaynes words of wisdom—serious and not so serious...

Pay if forward—
attend lectures and hire junior

Booze is your friend

If you are not enjoying what you are doing, then you should not be doing it.

Dwayne.grech@momentum.com

@sultanofbeard

www.facebook.com/profile/