McGarrah Jesse

My mentor Jennifer gave me and my fellow e4 youth friends a tour of McGarrah Jesse. We were able to visit different parts of the agency, each one completely dedicated to their particular client, such as Frost Bank and Whataburger.

I then had the opportunity to meet Brian, who taught us about “deep and wide” which is the motto they love and work by.  They dig deep to make sure they know who there client is and what they want to achieve and to “widen” the product by finding new ways to get out to consumer.  The process is to EXPLORE, FOCUS, MAP and CREATE.

Explore-Research and immersion

Focus-Personality and positioning. Give someone an assignment

Map-How to deliver the message out there

Create-filling the back page with the ideas.

It was also emphasized to me how the creatives are supported by other departments.

Integration (account service) who makes sure the process keeps going. Strategy is the planning department. Creative, branches out to many other parts, such as the Writers, Art, Digital (how to capture an image to the audience), Designers and so much more. Activation (producers) and Operation (the people who keep the functions in the building running) are also important parts of this agency.

I was able to view some of the previous work which had been done for their other clients like Shiner, Costa, and Yeti.

I then met up with Chris Barnard, the Digital Creative Director. We talked about my interests and he explained how nowadays a lot of agencies are in need of creative people that like to work with their hands  as well as cinematographers! When he started, digital media was virtually non-existent, and people who started working when he did have had to learn to keep up with what consumers are interested in and keep them engaged. He explains to me that he always tries to make sure the that product  looks real and authentic.  What he emphasized to me was to “stay focused all the way through” and that “original ideas change a lot”.  Thanks to social media, consumers actually help them reach out to more people, by sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

I think what has encouraged me the most, is that although, writing is not my strong suit and something I continue to work on, I can still use my talents in graphic design and visual ideas to contribute, and I will have people to support me when I cannot find the right words to express my ideas.

I believe what I learned most about this particular shadow experience is how the non-creatives support the writers and artists who trying to make something that the client will like and will reach out to the consumers.