My Role Model: Wade Alger

Throughout my young life, I have been asked the following question. What do you want to be when you grow up? One day I answered, “I want to become a copywriter”. Most replies were, “Oh copyright, like the circle with the C in it?”. Every response to the question lead to an explanation and sometimes to a story about how I ended up choosing this career. Copywriters write for the purpose of advertising, marketing and media. Copywriters are also a small part of a big group of talented individuals that are responsible for the commercials we laugh at and still remember today, and the jingles we hear on the radio that represents a specific brand. Jingles that we could sing along to if we tried and possibly get it stuck in our head. Every advertisement you see on your phone, billboard, even in stores, someone creative is behind that and making a lot of money from it. Creative Directors in the advertisin Adsoftheworld. g industry are responsible for overseeing a team of copywriters, web designers, brand managers etc. to ensure the outcome of executive projects. One of the most successful Creative Directors today is Wade Alger, Mr. Alger is responsible for the infamous GIECO commercials (creative-online, 2015). The most memorable was the Hump Day commercial that was published May 22, 2013. When this commercial was first aired it had people in my high school screaming “hump day!”, every We nunuu dnesday before lunch. One day, I hope to have enough talent and experience like Mr. Alger to create an advertising impact on consumers and increase sales for fellow clients.

His epic journey started with an education from Southern Methodist University and quickly led to eight years of experience in the copywriting field starting in 1995. As time past,he racked up over ten years of experience as a Creative Director. Currently Wade Alger is an SVP/Group Creative Director at The Martin Agency located in Richmond, Virginia. This company successfully works with big names such as AMC, Chips Ahoy, GEICO, Experian, Hanes and many more ( Linkedln, 2010).

This was the same company he worked with to produce the “Clouds Over Cuba” project for the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in 2009. After watching the video” Wade Alger from The Martin Agency-JFK museum talk” (Vimeo, 2014), I got to see the inside scoop of his project and was thrown back by the amount of effort put into the making process. It started out as an history and technology campaign in memory of JFK and the Apollo 11. The printed ad was supported with images founded in a library. This project quickly turned into Wade and his partner Brian Williams presenting an idea to take everyone to the moon. Indeed, the mixture of history and technology was born on an animated website. This website was designed to reenact the launch of Apollo 11 and also supply an interactive documentary for his audience to enjoy. After tons of networking, research and perseverance Wade and his team experience some minor set backs along the way.

An image that was said to be the final product for Mr. Alger’s’ printed ad project, was soon to be chewed up and spit out by a CNN expert of space. The image was of an astronaut in space with what seems to be a jet pack and a piece of the moon seen in the bottom left corner. The expert brought to his attention that there is no oxygen in space, therefore their can not be fire. After the product was refined and published, other issues arose with the integrative website. After calling NASA for digitalized video and audio for his project the time came to simulate the launch of Apollo 11. During the process the audio didn’t line up with the recording and produced glitches in the system. The day CNN covered it live they didn’t have enough servers to sustain the amount of users watching. The audio of the event was cutting out and crashing accrued. Despite the obstacles faced after hard work and effort from Wade and his team, this project won every award under the sun including five Cannes Gold Lions and an Emmy. After researching about Mr. Wade Alger I learned that one creative mind needs many minds and connections to make an idea a reality. It was amazing hearing how many companies partnered to make the project come to life. He reached out to CNN, NASA, Aol and a Production company, to make it all a success. The Martin Agency and a few other sources helped fund this project. I noticed that despite Wade’s experience and talent in his career, he still had to research. Research is a skill we can never forget, because there are always things for us to learn. Your career is your job and your job never ends. We constantly have to learn and sharpen our tools to be as great as Wade Alger. What I learned will encourage me to network as much as possible and put myself out there for opportunities and success. I will also continue to learn, and never stop being creative.