What NOT To Put Into Your Advertising Portfolio?

Developing your advertising portfolio is like conducting an orchestra. Highs and lows. Sour notes and beautiful ones. You get the metaphor.

When you begin building your perfect portfolio, it's natural to want to put in some sexy categories. You know...perfumes, fashion, cars, beer. The stuff you see around you every day. The high gloss type of products.

Big mistake.

You cannot afford to put products into YOUR portfolio that already have tremendous advertising behind them. You can't. You'll doom yourself. And you'll instantly make your search far harder than it needs to be.

Years ago, I had a great campaign for a beer that I loved when I was looking for my first job like you may be. It was, I have to say, really funny and tremendously powerful.

Beer. I mean, that's a great portfolio product, right?

I had really solid work, very smart. YET...Almost everyone who looked at it said the same thing, yeah. But it's beer.

but it's beer.

Exactly. It was a category well-known for super ads (IN FACT SUPER BOWL ADS) that had already been done. So instead of competing against other people for the job, I was suddenly competing against everyone who had ever done a great ad for beer.

And that's impossible.

No great sneaker ad in your book is better than a Nike piece. There's no car ad in your portfolio that is better than what VW has been doing lately. Sorry. There isn't.

It's a completely level playing field when that portfolio is opened and your great portfolio products pop to the surface and hopefully that blinding light comes out of it. And if you choose (after being told not to) to include categories and products that have already been hit out of the park) then you're nuts.

And I don't want you to be nuts.

So by being as careful of what not to put into your advertising portfolio as what to put into it, you greatly increase your chances of getting hired at Mullen.

And isn't that what you're after?

Kevin is the owner of Become A Copywriter, and ultra honest blueprint to follow in order to land a dream job in advertising.