I'm currently working towards a career in advertising. Some of the things I hope to demonstrate through this blog include: my social media abilities, my ability to write, the ability to think strategically, the ability to think creativity and my knowledge of the advertising industry.
A rare occurance
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If you know me it’s no suprise that Nas is my favourite Hip-Hop artist.
I’ve mentioned in the past to Matt and Afran about how Nas is one of those
kind of ...
Attractive Struggling Artist + Internets = Magic
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Coca-Cola's recent partnership with YouTube and Facebook brings us a kick
ass advertising/entertainment/social media collaboration for Sprite called,
"Gre...
Last week at the Toronto Euro RSCG Christmas party, I was surprised to receive my first-ever advertising award. I guess if anything, my parents deserve it more than I do, but I've accepted it nonetheless. I won the award for "Best Name Ever". Not a bad start to my career, now is it?
Hit the READ MORE link to see pics! Thank you Bekki for these pictures. Above is a picture of me receiving my award from Bill Sharpe, Chairman of Sharpe Blackmore. Watching in the back of this image is Tom Blackmore, the President of the company.
And here's a pic of me with my certificate. I will be framing it and displaying it on my desk at work. Here's to hoping I can win more awards in the future!
The Internet never fails to impress me. This time, former Disney special effects engineer Ric Turner created this interactive Christmas lights masterpiece that lets you play Guitar Hero...ON YOUR HOUSE. The entire house acts as the gameplay interface as well as providing the user a lights show of awesome while you rock out to "Cliffs of Dover by Eric Johnson. I admit, I don't even have a Christmas tree up in my house yet, and they can play Guitar Hero on their house. If there was ever a time I felt like the Grinch, that time is now.
This Christmas, there are a number of excellent charities to donate to, should you feel inclined to do so. I donate to a few assorted charities here and there throughout the year, but Child's Play is a bit different for me. In my experiences of donating, I knew that I was donating to a good cause, but never felt any personal or vested interest in the causes I was donating to. With Child's Play, for me specifically, I really feel like it's a cause I can personally get behind. Since 2003, Child's Play has raised over $5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books, movies and more for sick kids hospitals around the world. As a gamer, and as someone with a lot of younger family members that I've taken care of throughout the years, its a cause I can really empathize with. Hospitalized children don't spend all day being treated, and the downtime can get boring and at worst, detrimental to the recovery of a child. Providing hospitalized children with any form of entertainment can go a long way to boosting a child's spirits and ultimately, their recovery. There aren't that many charities out there like it and this one is powered by like-minded people, which makes the act of donating to the cause more powerful to me.
Last year, I bought Rock Band downloadable songs where all the proceeds raised by the songs went to Child's Play. This year, I went through their Amazon Gift List system and donated Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii to The Hospital For Sick Children in Toronto. While my contributions aren't nearly as large as the $132,000 raised by the Desert Bus For Hope marathon, I'm sure my contributions will go towards a few smiles for children that really need it. From here on out, I'll make a conscious effort to donate to the cause when I can.
With all that said, it would be awesome if you donated to the cause too. However, I'm not forcing you to do anything. I would be happy if you donated to any charity this holiday season, especially one you feel strongly about. Anything we can do to make the holidays brighter for others is a win for everyone.
I'm just as confused as you. Yesterday, the Muppets went viral and take part in at least the coolest video of the day. Click on the READ MORE link to catch the Muppets rock out in 1080p goodness.
I have no idea what the objective of this video is or why it even exists, but who cares? Watching Muppets rock out is always fun. Do you think this was a..."reaction"...to any other homemade Muppet videos out there on YouTube? If you don't know what I'm alluding to, it's probably for the best.
Anyway, this official Muppet Studios video is pretty awesome and SFW. While I'm still talking about Muppets, if you haven't already seen this one, I recommend you check out the drum battle between Animal and Buddy Rich too.
Starting this week, Adweek Media is conducting a poll for the best of the 2000s. There are a number of categories to choose from, including agency of the decade, commercial of the decade, and even blog of the decade. At some point in the nomination process my blog was lost in the shuffle, but I'll let it slide this decade (yeah right). All jokes aside, I recommend you take a few minutes to vote for who you feels deserves the distinction. As of writing, I just checked agency of the decade and to my surprise, Euro RSCG is #1. As a current employee of a Euro RSCG agency, I can't hate on that. However, don't let me me influence your voting...Euro RSCG, Euro RSCG, Euro RSCG...Euro RSCG
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street (the greatest children's television show of all time in my humble opinion), the National Post has put together this simple and neat interactive piece chronicling 101 muppets from the show. Credit goes out to Steve Murray, who wrote and illustrated the piece, Rebecca Yanovskaya for the interactive design and the information from the muppet wikia. The piece isn't going to win any awards, but It's going to draw a lot of traffic and engagement for being simple, cool and fun to use. It also doesn't hurt that it's subject matter covers Sesame Street. True story: when my brother was born in 1990, I insisted my parents name him Ernie, after my favourite Sesame Street character at the time.
I recommend you give the piece a look. After that, you can come back here and check out my favourite Sesame Street song. I love it so much, I even have it on my iPod.
If you've been in and around the Greater Toronto Area over the last month or so, you may have seen these ads for the Planet in Focus Film Festival. What makes this campaign significant to me is that it was developed by my friends and fellow Seneca Creative Advertising alumi. Much respect goes out to Slava Yedlin, Christine Porto, Victoria Morozova, Francesco Fiore, Steven Tran, Cole and "Leader of the New" Keely Powell for a great campaign and for earning the opportunity to make power moves straight out of college!
Image from Stephanie Harrison
How did they land this awesome opportunity? A few months ago, Cundari gave our class a chance to create campaigns for Planet in Focus and Slava Vodka. They put a lot of hard work into it (as did every other group assigned to Planet in Focus) but their team, known back then as BGE (Best Group Ever) wowed Cundari and the client enough to land the job.
I was proud back then for them having won the pitch and even moreso now that their all of their hard work has been realized into a full campaign. I wish them, the rest of my fellow alumni and all of the up-and-coming advertisers much success moving forward!
(I'm going to try and write this with as few toilet jokes as possible)
If you're looking for your first or next corporate blogging gig, Charmin might have the job for you. Well, Charmin is looking for people to handle their business while you "handle your business" (sorry, I couldn't help it). They're looking for 5 bloggers to staff Times Square bathrooms and blog about it. Tryouts for this position are at the New York Hilton at 53rd Street and 6th Avenue. If you're planning on doing it, don't forget to bring your resume, a photo as well as an explanation for why you "enjoy the go". As bizarre as this may seem, I think it would be hilarious to have this on your resume. It also pays handsomely. At $10,000 for 5 weeks of work, that's almost an insane amount of money to for the work they're asking you to do. If you're planning on going for this, good luck!
Hitting the Internet today from John Mayer is the world's first augmented reality music video. While most of the augmented reality experiences I have tried out don't really expand beyond short animations, this one depicts John Mayer performing the entire song with video elements and changing backgrounds. Check it out HERE. The idea of an augmented reality music video is really cool. As a final product, it does demonstrate some potential for the future if augmented reality, but not without highlighting a few of the technology's current weaknesses.
I think due to limitations of the technology, it doesn't look all that great visually. Usually these executions feature only animated 3D renderings. Because they used video, John Mayer is a bit flat and pixelated. Also, there are only two fairly generic backgrounds that switch in and out. If this were an actual music video, it would be slammed for being one of the ugliest and cheesy videos of all time.
As an augmented reality piece however, it's an exciting new step and a proof of concept for something more than what it currently is. It was a weird sensation to be "holding" John Mayer in my hands. I look forward to seeing how creative minds push this technology.
I am a huge fan of Google Maps because of the many ways it can be used and integrated into other technology. Some of its uses are really convenient, such as finding the closest parking lot in your downtown core, to more voyeuristic purposes just for the heck of it.
The application I'm about to blog about definitely falls into the latter category, as I Just Made Love is well, fairly self explanatory.
Using Google Maps, a user can place a marker down on a map to indicate where they just made love, then leave a description, whether your experience was indoor or outdoor, the sexual orientation of the two involved, positions performed and a few other juicy details.
The creepy voyeur in me wants to click on every single one of these and read the details behind every hookup. That could take some time, as there are over 35,000 markers worldwide to date.
Neat idea. However, I don't see this catching on as the next big thing. I'm fairly certain that 99.9% of these markers are fake, and even then the comments people leave are pretty boring. The other major issue I see is that this could lead to some creepers using this information for who knows what.
Next time you make love, will you be dropping a marker on Google Maps?
Remember the old days of radio payola? Or heck, even the more recent days of radio payola? To this day, people still question on a regular basis the legitimacy of the songs they hear on the radio. Having worked in the radio business for a number of years, I can't say I've personally seen it happen, but heard the skeptics on a regular basis. While I haven't heard the same type of criticism and cynicism aimed towards bloggers, the Federal Trade Commission nonetheless have taken major steps towards curbing blogger Payola.
Is it too late for me to tell you how AMAZING the Sham-Wow is? I'll be right back, right after I...make a deposit :P All jokes aside, Ad Age does a pretty good job outlining the consequences and reasoning for the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on bloggers getting paid to say nice things about products or services without full disclosure. At $11,000 per violation, that's a whole lot of money to lose as an individual blogger. However, is that enough to curb a major corporation from rolling the dice?
Nevertheless, I think it's a good move on the FTC is taking steps to curbing such shady tactics online.
While my blog has been fairly stagnant for the last little while, it's not because of a lack of effort. Okay, I probably could put in a bit more effort, but I've been busy with a number of personal and professional projects, such as the book I'm putting together for myself, working on career stuff and...being a rock star? I have mentioned in the past that I dabbled in music. In my free time over these last few weeks, I've decided to learn the bass guitar. I'm having a lot of fun with it and even performed live at my local street party. Anybody looking for a drummer or bassist for next year's Battle of the Ad Bands in New York?
My other big "excuse" for not updating as frequently as I used to is, I've been busy getting career stuff together. In fact, I got a new job and am officially starting Monday! I'm really excited for a chance to live the dream of aspiring ad people everywhere.
If you still follow my blog, thank you for your support! I'll do my best in the coming weeks to make it up to you!
By now, we've all seen the ridiculous outburst made by Kanye West to Taylor Swift at the MTV VMA's on Sunday. Immediately after the incident happen, celebrity tweets went through the roof condemning Kanye's behaviour. He immediately posted on his blog an apology, but it has done little to put out the flames that have come with his actions.
Of course, it didn't take long for the rest of the Internet community to bombard the landscape with parody videos, gifs and images. One site I found compiling the best of these parodies is I'ma Let You Finish.
I know he's been making the apology rounds, but is there anything he can do to gain back respect? How badly will this hurt his future endeavours? How quickly will the Internet drive this joke into the ground?
Click on the READ MORE link to check out a few choice images.
Making the rounds of video game websites and blogs is the above video from YouTube user Corporalgregg2, who recorded a few of the awkward things you can do with Kurt Cobain in Guitar Hero 5. Everything from imitating Flava Flav's trademark, "Yeah boy!" to four Kurt Cobain's performing a Megadeath song with invisible instruments.
My initial reaction is, "LOL! Look at Kurt Cobain being crazy!" However, as someone who knows a little bit about the life and death of Kurt Cobain, I can't help but feel eerily uncomfortable watching this. I'm sure when the marketing team pitched the estate of Kurt Cobain to try and have him in their game, part of the deal didn't include playing in the same band as a skeleton or singing high-pitched vocals to a funk song. Part of the reason why Kurt Cobain is no longer with us is because he hated celebrity and the commercialism his music brought to him. He wanted to be seen in a certain light, and that not happening partially lead to his death. Ever since then, the legacy of Kurt Cobain has been fairly well protected.
So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see cyber Kurt Cobain in the video singing music from Bon Jovi and Stevie Wonder with an XBOX avatar and a skeleton. When the makers of Guitar Hero pitched this idea to the estate of Kurt Cobain, did they mention that this would be possible? If so, was the estate of Kurt Cobain cool with it?
I understand from a marketing perspective that having Kurt Cobain in your rock music game sounds like a good idea. However, giving users the ability to take him out of context doesn't seem very tasteful to the life and legacy of a deceased, iconic rock star that probably wouldn't have approved of this if he were still alive in the first place.
I’m not gonna lie. I fell in love with advertising after watching What Women Want with Mel Gibson. I remember sitting there and saying, “That’s what I want to do… throw ideas around.. pitch it.. and then make it all happen!” But that was years ago and back then I didn’t know if I had what it took to succeed. But after winning the student IMC campaign for BMW I knew I had what it was the perfect career choice for me.
Everything about it just feels right.
You have a background in volunteer work. Tell us about it.
Most of my volunteer work has been in the community-based level, but as I got older I wanted to extend my services towards third world countries and global causes.
I had my first international experience back in 2007 when I traveled to Haiti with a group called Third World Awareness (twawareness.org). My family and friends were worried about my safety and didn’t think I could handle the rough conditions. And to be honest, I was really scared too but knew I had to just throw myself head on and embrace it.
The experience was tremendous and life changing. And from that I learned to continually challenge myself to the next level in every aspect of my life.
Do you ever plan on incorporating that volunteer experience into your advertising career somehow?
Definitely. I am very passionate about both and I think together exceptional things can come from it.
Advertising is no longer just about selling goods. It’s a communication tool that can be strategically and creatively used to create a cultural movement. And in this case, for the better good- whether it’s globally, nationally or on a community based level.
*This is usually the part when my friends put up their peace sign and flick their lighters for me. They think I’m a bit of a hippie.
You were on a very important trip in Dubai recently trying to encourage the world to “Choose To L.I.V.E.”. What is that all about?
I was selected as one of the international delegates to attend the Education without Borders conference in Dubai. This event was a platform for students from all over the world to share their ideas and solutions to some of our global challenges. And fortunately, I was blessed with the opportunity to introduce my “solution” for cultural exchange.
My concept was to address the challenges that come along with cultural globalization, such as war, violence, hate and racism. Unfortunately, due to so many variables and differences there is never just one solution. But I do believe that through inter-connectivity and positive engagement we can strive toward narrowing the gap of misunderstandings and ignorance to achieve better tolerance, deeper understanding and enduring peace.
Choose to L.I.V.E. is a concept that I developed as a global call to action for human betterment through inter-connectivity. L.I.V.E. is a catalyst representing four elements of effective communication: learning, interacting, volunteering and expression through creativity. This initiative is called Choose to L.I.V.E. because I want it to be a conscious statement that we make. I want people to understand that the decision to contribute to the survival of humanity is as vital as our decision to live.
You did an internship at an agency in Dubai. What agency is it, and what were you doing with them?
I interned at Axis Integrated in Media City - the advertising hub of Dubai. It’s a small agency so I had the chance to see how the overall operation works. Most of my responsibilities were related to the client servicing side. The type of work I did included market research, PowerPoint presentations, revisions with studio team, writing up briefs and assisting the account manager. The main account that I worked on was for Heinz baby foods. But since it’s a small agency I had the opportunity to work very closely with the creative team and really share my ideas. I even had the chance to do some copywriting, which is something that I really enjoy doing.
With your experience traveling the world and living abroad, how has that affected your view and approach on life?
My view is that we constantly have to keep aiming for the next level. The only way I see this being done is to do things that are not within our comfort zone. We surprise ourselves of what we are capable of when we throw ourselves into a challenge. Traveling to a foreign part of the world or living abroad is a gateway of growth and learning.
I’m the type of person that embraces an experience for its entirety - emotionally, physically mentally and spiritually. And then I step back and analyze for the faults, improvements, success and hidden lessons in it. I want to be constantly evolving.
Define what success is to you in your own terms.
Success to me is in three folds.
1. Success to me is being able to get up after each time I fall or fumble and continue to fiercely go after what I am passionate about. 2. Being true to myself. 3. Being able to overcome challenges and seeing the lessons in them.
Elevator Pitch:
My psychic says I’m gonna be successful in my career, but I can’t give details. But I’ll give you her number so you can have your own reading done and see how accurate she is.
If you're an advertising student or are just starting out in the business and would like to be featured on Leaders of the New, send me an email atjettlandicho@gmail.com
MSI is doing a YouTube contest that asks users to create an "extreme crazy video" with an MSI notebook.
One entry in particular is catching like wildfire, and for good (?) reason. It features a guy catching laptops with his butt. What?
Click READ MORE to watch the video!
As I'm writing this, it's been watched over 125,000 times on YouTube. While I'm not sure that being able to catch a laptop with your butt is a great way to demonstrate the portability of the unit, I don't think it's hurting the brand, either. At the very least, it's garnering a lot of views, buzz and people talking about it, like me!
I would love to have been a part of the creative process that lead to this video. An idea like this I would never pull out of my...yeah.
Marketing and Advertising Internships is a great resource for students looking for an internship or employers looking for the best new talent to join their team. It's definitely worth your time. As I've said since the beginning of Leaders of the New, my hope for the initiative was to help fellow fresh advertising and marketing professionals get their name out there. This is a good start.
*brownie points for anyone that can correctly name the song I'm referring to in the post title*
Today on the Adweek website, they've posted an article about Augmented Reality (AR). While the technology isn't necessarily new (I remember seeing videos of this type of technology in action years ago, unfortunately I can't recall exactly what the video was called to show it to you), Adweek discusses it's potential as the next big thing in advertising. The article focuses in on one company in particular:
Zugara is dabbling in this area with its Webcam Social Shopper app. The prototype, which the shop created as a test for clients, lets consumers "try on" clothing -- via their Webcams and monitors -- as if they were in a store. In a twist reminiscent of Minority Report, users can switch to new outfits by motioning with their hands. They can also share their outfits through social networks like Facebook.
It's kind of crazy to think this is the stuff we thought of being way off in the distant future, and it's happening now. And it's cool to see that they're doing something a bit more "practical" with the technology. As new technology is rolled out, we get caught up in doing the flashiest and coolest things we can while losing site of our overall goals, objectives and concepts.
These types of executions have mostly been done using paper, but the article discusses the next step of bringing this type of technology to mobile devices. I think once that is up and running, it'll really take off.
Matt Szymczyk, CEO of Zugara, goes as far as saying that AR will be the big thing in the next year. Yes, he has a vested interest in this technology taking off, but do you agree? Disagree?
Even without the mobile integration, I'd love to start thinking of ways to use that technology. Do you have any ideas off the top of your head?
As Twitter continues to grow, more and more businesses are jumping on the bandwagon to try and improve their web presence. For a lot of start-up advertisers and marketers (such as myself), creating and maintaining a Twitter account is going to be an increasingly important part of our future.
Thankfully, Twitter has launched a guide called Twitter 101 for Business. Having read through it, it seems like something you should definitely check out if you have any sort of social media work coming your way. If you're already a Tweet junkie, you can probably skip the basics (such as the lingo section), but the "best practices" section in particular I recommend you check out. Using Twitter as a business tool takes makes your role in the Twitter-verse a bit different, and people's tolerance for your "Twitter-rhea" is minimal. I've removed myself from such accounts cause it was just too many tweets to go through.
One of my favourite things about Twitter besides telling everyone how awesome my lunch was, is the Trending Topics feature. I've always found it fascinating to see what people are talking about and be part of the "party line" either by reading what people have to say about the topic or jumping into the conversation.
But recently I've noticed a ton of people taking advantage of the system and to me it's really hampering the experience. Let me pull up one example from a trending topic this instant: Wal-Mart.
Why is it a trending topic right now? Let's see if I can find out.
Swing and a miss. Spam is becoming increasingly prevalent on Twitter and it's really disrupting the conversation. People who throw in trending topics into their tweets to draw attention to their spam are just as evil as any other form of spammer.
It seems like every time something new breaks into the trending topics section, 80% the tweets then become, "Why is this a trending topic?" instead of just hitting the topic button and finding out for themselves. Ugh.
Divas365I sometimes hook in Wal-Mart parking lots hoping to meet harry potter & Nia long.
Personally the worst to me. The people who think they're clever writing a sentence with every trending topic at that moment are just maddening. Your not clever if everyone on Twitter is doing it. And the idea is dumb in the first place just a shameless cry for e-attention. I'm about 100 tweets in, and I STILL don't know exactly why Wal-Mart is a trending topic? I found only two bits of news (something about India and something about rating eco-friendly products), but 98% of the Wal-Mart tweets were just garbage.
I'm not sure if there's any solution to spammers or people being...people. But I do miss when it was easy to find out why a trending topic was a trending topic.
I trace my roots to this industry back to a couple things. One, my “big present” one year for Christmas was a giant box of art supplies (which made me a very happy child). Two, my elementary school graduation ceremony presented me with the first ever art award. They felt the need to give this to me based on my level of enthusiasm for arts and crafts time (they also gave me the Science Award, and I’m far short of being a scientist!).
However, I would have never known that Advertising and Design was a career option had it not been for my cousin Adam who looked over my shoulder and said “you know you could be getting paid for that stuff” one day while I was screwing around on Microsoft Paint.
Do you think you could have pursued a career in advertising with just your Graphic Design experience?
I have friends that are currently trying to do that with little success, very talented friends. So not saying that it is impossible to succeed with just the graphic design background, but I would do school the exact same way if I had to do it all over again. At the end of the day having both Graphic Design and Creative Advertising makes me more well rounded and polished as an AD.
Describe your creative process. How do you brainstorm? How do you keep track of ideas? How do you know when one of your ideas is good? What do you do when you're creatively stumped?
Creative process- Well, I feel every brief creates a unique problem. Therefore, every brief needs a new angle and therefore new creative process.
Brainstorming- Ideally I have someone to bounce ideas off of. Whether I have someone or not, I generally try and get to the most basic idea and then add a twist of originality to it. I don’t like using traditional ways of brainstorming like creating an idea web.
Keeping Track- This varies from the traditional notepad, to a napkin, sometimes even the palm of my hand. I occasionally find myself trying to just remember the idea, like when it comes to me via laying in bed at 3:00 a.m. (I’m trying to break this habit because a lot of ideas have died in this process.) The best and most unique way I’ve ever kept track of an idea is drawing on the shower wall using the steam and glass as my canvas.
Good Idea/ Bad Idea- This is subjective but I base an ideas effectiveness on the waiting game because if I can look at an idea a week or two later and still like it I generally don’t care what other people think of it. Someone will always hate an idea, but there is always someone who likes it.
Creative Slump- The best way I have to get out of a creative slump is by looking at it in a new angle. A trick I find myself using a lot is trying to place the product at the centre of a joke where as I am the bully poking fun at it. This trick creates as unique of an idea as the product is. If you have a truly unique product this trick is almost always a winner.
How did you go from being a student to being an intern at Soda & Tonic Advertising?
That was a fun process, one day I’m stressing to find an internship the next I get an email from David Barbuto, a teacher of CAB, basically telling me that he would like to have me as his intern. I jumped at the opportunity and have been having a blast there since. I got the email around week 5/6 of semester 4 of CAB.
Describe a day in the life of Craig Brandon at Soda & Tonic.
I have a nice schedule, 9:30 - 5:30. On a day to day basis I hardly ever know what project I will be working on next. Sometimes its an ad campaign, sometimes its a design project. Regardless of what it is I am generally busy during my time at work. When I’m not and I have down time, I spend time doing spec ads that we later try to set up a meeting and pitch.
What have you learned so far from your experience at Soda & Tonic?
I’d say as a creative person, you never stop learning. I’ve learned new ways to approach things, I’ve learned how to handle client demands, I’ve learned that what a client and what your boss asks for are two very different things. Overall I’ve learned that I made the right decision by joining this industry.
Outside of advertising, how else do you express your creativity?
I constantly keep a notebook on me to scribble art into half of which has nothing to do with advertising. I like to draw/ illustrate on my computer whenever I get some spare time. But I would say my biggest creative hobby outside of design and advertising would be the 2 novels that I have on the go. Both of these novels are being co-written with people more polished in the ways of grammar. They both are fiction based stories, think Peter Pan, or Alice in Wonderland style writing.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
I want to be as high up on the work latter as possible, at a well known industry. I don’t know the industry process well enough to properly estimate whether I’ll be a senior AD, a CD, a partner in a firm, or whether I’ll still be a Junior AD. I do know that the first 5 years of my career will be an uphill battle and I need to work as hard as possible to get wherever it is I will end up.
What do you do for fun?
Outside of work I spend a lot of time watching sports, mainly football and hockey. I like to roller blade, write, hang out with friends, rock climb, swim/diving.
E-Elevator Pitch: Sell yourself in 140 characters or less.
Passion in a career means you’d work for free. I currently do.
If you're an advertising student or are just starting out in the business and would like to be featured on Leaders of the New, send me an email atjettlandicho@gmail.com
While the world still wasn't sure of the fate of Michael Jackson, Perez Hilton of celebrity blogging and more recently, getting punched in the face fame, was quick to judge the early reports of MJ's condition and...I'll just let you read what he had to say.
The original post:
We knew something like this would happen!!
Michael Jackson was taken by ambulance from his Holmby Hills home to a nearby Los Angeles hospital on Thursday afternoon!!
Supposedly, the singer went into cardiac arrest and the paramedics had to administer CPR!!!
His mother is even on the way to visit him!!!
We are dubious!!
Jacko pulled a similar stunt when he was getting ready for his big HBO special in '95 when he "collapsed" at rehearsal!
He was dragging his heels on that just like his upcoming 50 date London residency at the 02 Arena, of which he already postponed the first few dates!!!
Either he's lying or making himself sick, but we're curious to see if he's able to go on!!!
Get your money back, ticket holders!!!!
If you look for it now (which you can read here) it's been edited with no acknowledgement of being edited. As someone who just got punched in the face for being insensitive, this type of commentary really didn't help his cause for the world to feel bad for him. Even though he soon edited the post, the message of the original entry wasn't let go by the readers of his site, lashing out with a ton of negativity towards him.
Here's just a sampling of the almost 300 hateful comments they had to say on his blog:
What if he's dying?
Seriously, I sort of get your point, but atleast wait with saying stuff like that until we know what the hell is going on…
- Shuyinda
I thought maybe you would have turned over a new leaf after all the negativity directed at you for your recent idiocy, but it appears as you are just the same old fat idiot. Making fun of someone that has had a serious medical emergency.
You are not worthy of being a human being…good thing you look like a pig, cause in the pen is the only place you will be accepted soon.
- KCP1967
Perez, for Christ sake, if he suffered cardiac arrest it means his heart stopped beating. If someone has a cardiac arrest and doctors don't administer whatever needed to restart the heart beating again, the person is DEAD. My father had a heart arrest, the doctors worked and worked on resuscitation and brought him back to life. Next day in the hospital bed he looked better, and suddenly his heart arrested again, the line on the heart monitor went flat, and the doctors worked and worked on him, but he was dead.
- soccer mom
What happened to your original post on him Perez?!? You know, the one where you were "dubious" and thought he was faking this to get out of his concert tickets? The one where you told ticket holders to get their $$ back? It was mysteriously edited after you posted that he DIED.
YOU COWARD!!! I hope you feel disgusted and ashamed of yourself, you deserve nothing less.
- LOLA BB
What should have Perez done? Well first, not jump to conclusions. He made some very insesitive comments that angered many people, and they all called for him to edit what he said. Second, he shouldn't have tried to edit his post without any sort of apology or acknowledgement that it was edited. You can't sweep anything under the rug on the Internet, and for Perez to think all he had to do was edit the original post and act like nothing happened was really shady and unprofessional.
Once you've gone that far in, I think the only thing left for him to do is to clearly state that he edited the post and apologize for the original comments. He has yet to make it clear that he edited what he said and I don't expect him to now.
I know he's a celebrity tabloid style blogger, but he went too far this time. And the lack of any acknowledgement of his editing makes it even shadier. I hope we as bloggers and posters on the Internet can learn a lesson from this.
You may not be a country music fan, but odds are you won't be able to escape the opening of last night's CMT Music Awards, which featured Taylor Swift kicking dope rhymes with T-Pain.
Personally, the whole Andy Samberg shtick is growing a little tired to me, but since I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift, and since country rap hasn't been the same since Cowboy Troy, I'll let this one slide.
While I'm sure that this video by itself is going to be huge, do you think it's going to draw in a broader audience to country music? I'm pretty sure T-Pain wasn't brought in to appeal to the country folk. Taylor Swift is about as crossover as it gets, and hits a much younger target than Shania ever went after. Maybe it's a step in that direction? Does it even matter?
I hope at the next major music awards show, they collaborate again, only this time have T-Swizzle on the AutoTune and T-Pain singing with a country twang over banjos.
Last night, I saw the PS22 Chorus rendition of "Eye of the Tiger" on CNN and thought, "Wow! This is cool! I wish I had a music class as cool as this!" Today, I check into YouTube and their rendition of Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" is currently the second-most popular video on YouTube. They've made fans out of Perez Hilton, Tori Amos, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and more. And the PS22 isn't some special music school...just an ever-changing group of grade 5 NYC public school kids.
I love this whole initiative primarily for two reasons:
1) The implementation of more "popular" and "contemporary" music into its curriculum and
2) The leveraging of social media such as the PS22 Chorus blog and YouTube videos to not only keep the kids interested, but spread the word about what it is they're doing. Personally, I've had a very weird and informal path discovering, learning and creating music. Little to none of which occured in school. A lot of that unsatisfactory feeling towards my school music experience came from not being able to sing and learn the songs we wanted to learn. It was always the by-the-book kiddie stuff or music we students couldn't connect with.
Why not work some work some "cooler" music into the curriculum?
I know school will never be the place for choirs to sing Crank That by Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, but is there any less musical merit in a Miley Cyrus song? A Fleetwood Mac song? Heck, "Eye of the Tiger" is almost 30 years old, but the choir sang that song because the lead singer loved that song in Guitar Hero. If part of your job as a music teacher is to get the kids to enjoy music, why not work with more songs that the kids like?
Also, can't let these boys and girls go without talking about their social media implementation. Their teacher has created a blog and a YouTube channel to document their performances and major accomplishments to add an extra level of legitimacy to what these kids are doing. Even if they weren't discovered by Perez Hilton or Ashton Kutcher, just being able to show my parents and my friends what I'm doing at school is super cool. Not only that, knowing that the whole world could be watching, I'd try a little bit harder to make a lasting impression too.
Great job everyone at PS22 Chorus. Can't wait to here more music from you!
This video brought back a lot of old memories for me. Back when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were at their commercial peak, they put down the weapons, picked up some instruments, and hit the road. At the time, I thought that the Coming Out of Their Shells tour was the coolest thing ever. I had bitten on the Ninja Turtle cultural movement, and HARD. As part of my conquest to have everything Ninja Turtle-related, I made my parents take me to Pizza Hut to pick up the poster and album.
Until watching these videos on YouTube now, I actually never saw the concert. It's a really weird feeling of my life feeling one puzzle piece closer to completion, yet the piece doesn't fit quite like it should have back then.
Click on the READ MORE button to see how hardcore I actually was/am for the Coming Out of Their Shells tour. This is me, at age 6 or 7. Not only did I have the official Coming Out of Their Shells tour poster on my wall, but if you look really carefully, there are Ninja Turtle drawings on there too. One of those pictures in particular was a picture I drew of the first Ninja Turtles game on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
I don't have any of those pictures or that poster anymore, but I still have this:
That's right, the original album on cassette. I still remember listening to this all the time when I first got it. I remembered each song word-for-word. Then for a long time, this tape was just lost to me and I forgot about it. But at some point years after we had moved, I found the tape in our new house. Of course I threw it in the tape deck to relish in nostalgia only to find that, the music now wasn't nearly as awesome as I remembered it.
Oh well, strictly as a nostalgia piece, it's one of the best things ever to me. Now I'm gonna go back to watching the rest of this concert. I'm on part 6 and the Shredder has taken over the show. Will the Turtles overcome the Shredder one more time?
One more thing: no talk about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and music is complete without the following.
I was reading the June 15th issue of People magazine when I saw this Walmart ad as the back cover. The average person probably would have never caught this mistake, but I circled the mistake in red. Apologies for the glare, I took this picture with my digital camera and there were fluorescent lights in the room.
These two kids are rocking out with Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero guitars, leading us to believe they're playing some sort of guitar-centric music game. I can tell they're playing Nintendo Wii from the fact that Nintendo Wii Guitar Hero guitars require you to insert the remote into the guitar. The kid on the left in the picture has a Wii remote plugged in. But the kid on the right? He's pretty animated for someone whose guitar isn't actually connected to the game.
One thing I love about Twitter is being able to join and follow the conversation. Regardless of the topic, you'll be able to use the search engine to see up to the second what people have to say about pretty much anything.
Though this method does have it's limitations, which is why I find Tweet My Gaming so cool. It tracks in real-time all tweets that mention video games or anything video game related. Using Twitter search, you can only find stuff if it's hash-tagged or very specific things. For instance, if I wanted to find stuff about "video games", Twitter search would only pull up results where people typed "video games". Tweet My Gaming seems to be able to grab anything with a video game reference. It'll be cool to see all of the different variations on this idea pop up to follow all sorts of subject matter. Tweet My Baseball? Tweet My Lunch? Tweet My Re-tweet?
I never cease to get tired with the crazy acts of creativity that happen on the Internet.
This video was made by YouTube user bunliu as his senior project at Savannah College of Art and Design. While post-it art isn't necessarily new, the concept behind the piece and the execution is spectacular.
Right now it's #1 on the Viral Video Chart. I wonder if the Post-It company is looking at this and going, "Damn...why didn't we think of that?"
If you'd like to see how this video was made, hit the READ MORE button and watch the making of "Deadline". Amazing stuff!
A few years ago, my brother and I posted this video of us playing Street Fighter II using DDR dance mats. We thought with such an original stupid idea, we were bound to skyrocket to e-fame.
As it turns out, a Taiwan-based video game website used our video, which through them has been viewed over 800 times. From what I gather, it was a rundown of every video game controller they could think of. Those two paragraphs above us? Here's what Yahoo! Babel Fish had to say:
A game's operating mode during like everybody knows, is coordinates in the picture the instruction and music rhythm, grasps punctually steps on treads fills up all around 4 directions to tread the spot, completes the dance step which the game assigns. Following and grows imitates innumerably, treads the pad also to grow each kind of variety disposition from the primitive section paper, until now is considered as on is one of as before popular game types.
Because the home use version treads the pad usually is treads 4 directions the point correspondence to the standard controller's direction key, and provides confirmed that Niu with cancels Niu the control function menu, therefore plays the family will work as a volunteer the attempt with to tread the pad controller to play other type game, even challenges the instruction complex wrestle game, also will be the kind impractical, but the bountiful interest the kind will slight the law in addition.
I think whoever wrote that was trying to say that you can use DDR pads for games other than DDR, even if it's dumb and pointless. I'm not quite big in Japan, but Taiwan is close enough for now.
READ MORE
You probably already know this, but come this Saturday at 12:01 AM, there will be a mad scramble of users trying to get their user name because they can't spend another day as Facebook ID # 103898908909022. If your name is John Smith, you might as well give up now.
Are you excited to finally not be a number anymore? No? Me neither.
Will I make a mad scramble like everybody else to get the name I want? Probably. Facebook says they're doing it to make it easier to find people, but I never really had a problem finding people on Facebook, and people who wanted to add me don't seem to have a problem finding me either. And I never access Facebook in a way where I need to check out specific profiles on a consistent basis.
The only reason I'm remotely interested in this is for the mad scramble that is bound to happen when the time comes. Will Facebook crash? Will Bob Joe in Kentucky take Oprah away from Oprah and charge her a gazillion dollars to get it back? Will it actually make a notable impact on the Facebook experience in the long run? Will anybody care within 24 hours of this launching?
Probably not. But I'll be here, hitting F5 over and over until I can finally get my hands on facebook.com/keyboardcat.
Full interview after the jump! When did you know that advertising was for you?
Lisa Atkins’ intro to copywriting class semester one - She was explaining a day in the life of a copywriter and I got goose bumps from excitement!
I remember when I first met you that you had your heart set on working on the business side of advertising. Why the switch?
I’m going to admit to something here: sometimes, I’m really slow. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I guess I never thought I could actually make a living out of it. Again, back to Lisa’s class, after that one lecture, it hit me and I was sold!
Describe your creative process. How do you brainstorm? How do you keep track of ideas? How do you know when one of your ideas is good? What do you do when you're creatively stumped?
For the record, that’s three questions in one!
Brainstorming:
Mind maps! Study the brief/your product/your target. Figure out the ONE thing you want to say. Narrow it down to one word and go from there! Just associate anything and everything that you can with that word until you find your direction.
Keeping track:
I write everything that comes to mind down. I either type things or write them in my giant sketchbook, a notepad or on a piece of paper that I stick on the wall… I’m pretty much all over the place!
Good idea:
The really good ones are the ones that make me super nervous. Then I ask anyone and everyone (sometimes everything) to tell me what they think about it and I go from there.
How has your previous career venture affected your current path towards advertising? Do any of the lessons you learned before cross over?
I’ve been working for a divorce lawyer for 3 years. It has taught me not to get married. Ever.
You’ve formed a creative team called “She Writes. He Draws.” with Art Director Ryan Bannon. How did you two form that partnership? How do you complement each other?
Funny story! Actually not that funny… We went to breakfast at Cora’s one morning and discussed our hopes and dreams for the future. We realized we had many of the same goals and decided to team up as we were both willing to put in ridiculous hours and all our energy. Okay, not a funny story at all…Fail.
You’ve competed in a few advertising competitions. What were those experiences like?
I really enjoy participating in those competitions as the tight deadlines force you to really push yourself. You learn something new about how well you perform under pressure and challenge yourself to do better in the future. I think that’s excellent practice.
What is your biggest accomplishment so far in advertising? What is your biggest accomplishment so far in life?
The thing I’m most proud of in life is my ability to relate. Putting myself in other people’s shoes is a skill I’ve been practicing since I was very young. My circle of friends consists of very opinionated and unique individuals. It helps me appreciate and understand their decisions when I’m able to put aside my own views and see the world through theirs.
I also believe this is beneficial to my career in advertising as it makes relating to the target a tiny bit easier.
What would happen to the universe if you and I ever get to execute our genius Wonderbread campaign for real?
Every other brand of toast would go out of business. Permanently.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
I would like to run my own agency while I’m young and fresh!
What do you do for fun?
I really enjoy conversing with people who are different than me - whether it’s cultural differences, or religious/ spiritual views. I’m very intrigued by human behaviour, morals, values, etc. and love learning from all sorts of people.
To feed my curiosity, I like to check out different scenes around town. One night you’ll find me at a metal bar hanging out with people sporting bikes and spikes and the next night I’m all dolled up having a Kir Royale in Yorkville.
I also LOVE to travel. The experience/knowledge you gain from traveling is absolutely priceless.
E-Elevator Pitch: Sell yourself in 140 characters or less.
LET ME WRITE FOR YOU! I’LL WORK MY BUTT OFF AND I LOVE ADVERTISING! (I’ll be wearing a hoodie so the exchange will be intimidating and effective.)
If you're an advertising student or are just starting out in the business and would like to be featured on Leaders of the New, send me an email atjettlandicho@gmail.com
For the few dedicated souls who check into this page every day, I owe you an apology.
My life over these past few weeks has been a whirlwind of professional and personal craziness. If you read my interview, you would know that I just got a full-time job. The transition to that has taken up a lot of my resources.
Also, I'm still working another part time job on top of that. And somewhere in there, I have to try and have a life too.
So I haven't been as prolific a blogger of late. I don't ever plan on stopping this blogging thing, but I don't make many guarantees as to when I'll blog either. All I can say is I'll keep this updated as often as I can, and I'll do what I can to make sure you keep reading. Please click "READ MORE" and accept my peace offering.
Leaders of the New is an ongoing series at jettlandicho.com that will focus on the future talents of advertising. Click here to check the archives.
Name: Jett Landicho
Career Path: Creative Strategy for Interactive and Mass Media
Education: Radio Broadcasting at Humber College and Creative Advertising at Seneca
Advertising Experience: On-Air Talent, Promotions Staff and Copywriter for KICX 106, Promotions Staff and Corporate Blogger for Z103.5 and Senior Marketing Associate at Pure Fun Confections
One Thing About You: Before pursuing a career in advertising, I worked almost four years in the radio industry. I did a lot of different types of work in that time, from corporate blogging, to street team work, to being a country radio announcer. If you would like to listen to my old KICX 106 country demo made from live air checks click here.
Read the full interview after the jump! When did you know that advertising was for you?
I took a class in high school called English Media. The final project was to create a product and an advertising campaign around it. My group wanted to come up with the dumbest product to sell, in order to highlight how great our advertising would be. In hindsight, it was pretty bold of us to assume that our advertising was so awesome that we could sell just about anything, but hey, we were young and maybe a bit cocky. We decided to create "Bling", a brand of coloured water.
I had so much fun with that assignment, from building the website to the print ad to producing television and radio commercials that I heavily considered taking advertising in college. But I also hosted a morning radio show at my high school, and when push came to shove, at the time radio won. I was drawn into the whole "celebrity" aspect of it and I'm still just a big music fan in general.
However, what goes around comes around I guess. Through my experience in the radio industry, I've written scripts that went to air, helped out a lot on the promotions side and even worked in corporate blogging. It brought back all the memories of that one high school assignment and how much fun I had doing it that I decided to pursue advertising for real.
How has your previous experience in the radio broadcasting industry helped you?
My experience in the radio industry has helped me grow, both as a professional and as a person. As a professional, the radio industry has taught me a number of things, including the power of opportunity. In an industry that's so small and insular, you need to work so hard for those opportunities. Even when it seems like opportunities fall into your lap because you know someone that knows someone, you helped make that opportunity by knowing that someone in the first place.
As a person, working in the radio industry has been a huge factor in my maturing process. Not to neglect my Z103.5 experience, but in particular, my time at the country radio station was a real coming of age moment for me. I was very hesitant at first to accept the internship at KICX 106 in Waterloo, because country music wasn't my scene and the station was in a city over 100km away from home. But I took the chance because I knew it would be a great career experience.
What I didn't know was that it would also be an amazing personal experience too. Coming out of college, I sort of felt like I had learned everything I needed to know. However, being so far away from home, meeting new people and trying new things made me realize that I still had a lot to learn and it opened my mind up to the bigger picture of the world. During that time, I had to learn about country music, the Kitchener-Waterloo area, and everything about the people that listen to our station. I had a lot of fun doing it, and wouldn't trade that experience in for the world.
Ever since then, I've tried to keep myself open to new knowledge and experiences. If I could learn to appreciate country music and the country lifestyle, what other awesome things am I missing out on that I just don't know about yet? Even though it's been years since I worked there, I still have a little bit of country on my iPod that I like cause I think it's good music.
My KICX 106 t-shirt autographed by the best country artist of all-time, GM Paterson;)
What interests you most about interactive and social media?
I admit, I'm a bit of a geek. So I already have a bit of a technology slant to me. However, I love interactive and social media, and would be working with them whether I was in advertising or not.
I was one of those kids that made websites on Geocities that grew up into a teenager who wrote in a blog into a young adult that made a podcast when I decided to take my announcing career into my own hands. It's a shame that the podcast had to end the way it did, because we were at 1,000 subscribers! And that was achieved by promoting the show through Facebook, iTunes, YouTube and a blog. I had just as much fun plotting out the strategy to advertise the show as I did recording and editing the show. When we find the time and the right concept, for sure we'll get back into podcasting again. In the world of online, I love the fact that the average person can have a very large impact on the world.
As advertising vehicles, I love the engagement factor that interactive and social media offers. There are so many different ways that advertisers can reach consumers in a way where they feel like you're giving them a valuable experience in return. And the ways to engage consumers grows every day with new technology and techniques.
When I realized that there were opportunities for me to combine my love of advertising with my love of online and social media, it was almost like an epiphany for me. I hope that I can make both aspects connect to make a fun and exciting career path for myself.
How does this blog fit into your career plan?
My initial goal for this blog was to be a place where I could bring my best foot forward to anyone wanting to learn about me, from teachers, to friends, to potential employers. Sort of like a portfolio, but showing a different and wider scope of who I am. But through the "Leaders of the New" initiative, this could prove far bigger than just me. By showcasing a lot of my peers starting out in this business, this blog also becomes a way for them to sell themselves.
I want every person featured on "Leaders of the New" to be proud enough to show their interviews to potential employers as another resource in their arsenal. Even better, I want potential employers to find these interviews and go, "Hey, this person is really good! I think I need to talk to them!" With the power of Google and the power of blog tags, that second scenario doesn't seem too out of reach to me.
How did you go from being a student to working at Pure Fun Confections?
It's a crazy story in hindsight. At the time, I was working really hard to get an agency internship. I'd been in talks with a few agencies and even did a few interviews. During school though, I was working on a group assignment where we were asked to put together a pitch to present to a small company. We were never actually assigned to present it to a company for real.
Our group had chosen Pure Fun after finding an article about the company on the Toronto Star's website. We really liked the company's vision and the idea of working on organic candy, something new and different in the marketplace. While in the process of working on that assignment, Stephanie and I found the President of the company on Facebook. Thinking nothing of it, we decided to contact her, let her know what we were doing and sent her a rough brief we had put together so that she could check the validity of our information. She was really impressed with what we had done, and told us she was willing to meet with us when we were ready.
From there, it really got us thinking that this could be a lot more than just an assignment. We kept in regular contact with the President of Pure Fun, asked for a lot of advice from our teachers and industry contacts on how to approach this pitch, and tweaked our plan to make it just right for the presentation. On the big day, the President of the company came down to the school and we had booked a school boardroom to present to her. Chris De Corneille, one of our teachers, was on hand for support. I was unbelievably nervous throughout the whole thing, but Stephanie and I both proved our worth and were brought in to intern for the company. After two months of interning, I was offered a job.
That was another eye-opening experience in my life. While advertising students tend to focus on working for just advertising agencies, there are a lot of other opportunities out there to do similar work for other types of companies. Despite the tough economic times, Stephanie and I were able to create opportunities for ourselves within a company that didn't have opportunities before. I'm sure that others can find success with an advertising education in a variety of places if they're willing to look outside the box and work hard to make those opportunities happen.
If you want to think bigger, Stephanie and I have already in a way won a client pitch before even graduating and have done the work to prove our worth. Who says we couldn't do it again? Who says we couldn't go as far as starting our own agency should we so choose? Who says you couldn't do the same or better?
What has the transition been like from advertising to marketing?
All of the skills I've learned from Seneca's Creative Advertising have proven relevant to me here. I've had to dabble in account services work, media consulting, public relations, direct marketing, online and even some copywriting and art direction where necessary. I feel like thanks to the education I got at Seneca, I have the tools to get to where I need to go.
What I've learned sort of the hard way is the differences in advertising and marketing. Advertising is primarily marketing communications, but on this side of the fence that's just one aspect of a bigger picture I need to look at. I need to look at everything happening above that, from the distribution channel to product development to retailer relations and more.
One of the aspects of Pure Fun's business I'm going to have to learn more about is the entire organic scene. Just as an example: do you know why high fructose corn syrup is an issue? As an advertiser, I would just think of a way to tell that to generally one target audience. But what I have to do on the marketing side, is communicate that to everybody that makes the company work, from the people in product development, to retailers to consumers and more. It's daunting have to tackle the entire marketing mix and make every element of that mix work together, but I'm up for the challenge.
For those who have an advertising background and are considering making the jump, I'd say go for it. It opens up your scope of potential work opportunities and if you're willing to learn some additional stuff on top of your advertising background you'll do fine.
If you could offer one piece of advice to future advertisers, what would it be?
My one piece of advice isn't so much an advertising-specific piece of advice as it is life advice: always continue to learn. Back to my story about how much of an impact my country radio stint had on my life for a second. It made me realize that I was living life in a small bubble and the world was just so much more than my little slice of reality had grasped up to that point. My personal quest for knowledge from that point on wasn't even driven by a desire to be "smarter". My motivation for learning more about everything was just to be more aware of the world around me.
It's not hard to be more aware, either. You can learn a lot from just reading the headlines in the newspaper or taking off your headphones while you're out in public and paying closer attention to the world around you. Try out new kinds of food. Read any random message board on the Internet and see what people are talking about. You never know when a nugget of knowledge can prove valuable to you in the future.
And if you keep your mind open to new opportunities, who knows what success you could have? I never could have predicted that I would have worked for both a country radio station and an organic candy company, but I was open enough to give it a chance and it worked. I still have a ways to go on my quest for success, but I'll always be on the lookout for the next big thing for me, wherever it may come from.
What do you do for fun?
I love spending time with friends and family. It's been tough trying to make time for the people I love due to school, career ambitions and multiple jobs, but it's important to make time for them too.
Speaking of podcasts, I'm a huge fan of the medium. It's not for everybody, but a lot of my day revolves around podcast consuming. Currently, I subscribe to 35 different podcasts, ranging from a variety of subjects from video games, to the How Stuff Works series of podcasts, to news. I don't have time for all of them every week, but I have content that interests me to consume basically anytime, anywhere.
I love to play and watch basketball. Also, I love making music. I've produced over 150 hip-hop instrumentals since I started that in 2003, and have been playing the drums now for 8 months now. I'm not formally trained in either discipline. I was self-taught on the hip-hop side, just struggling to play the instruments, handle the technology and develop the "ear" till I got to a point where I was happy with the music I was making. As for drumming, I learned how to play real drums by playing the video game Rock Band. Sounds crazy, but it's true. You can listen to one of my beats by clicking here, or watch me play the drums below.
E-Elevator Pitch: Sell yourself in 140 characters or less.
I still can't top the original.
If you're an advertising student or are just starting out in the business and would like to be featured on Leaders of the New, send me an email atjettlandicho@gmail.com
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