Vida Cornelious

When you think of people who are masters of their craft, there’s no doubt that Vida Cornelious would be part of that list. Her 25+ year career in the advertising industry reads like a who’s who of agency titans — GlobalHue, DDB, Burrell Communications, Walter Isaccson…the list goes on. Now, Vida’s latest role as VP of Creative for New York Times Advertising will allow her work to reach a global audience.

After a quick end-of-year check-in, Vida spoke about her work at the Times and the launch of their first ever creative franchise called “Soul of Us.” From there, she talked about growing up in New Jersey and being surrounded by the arts, attending the venerable Hampton University, and dove deep into some of the campaigns she created over the years before landing her current role. For Vida, the importance of mastery is key to her success, and it’s definitely paid off in a big way!

Transcript

Full Transcript

Maurice Cherry:
All right, so tell us who you are and what you do.

Vida Cornelious:
Hi, my name is Vida Cornelious. I am the Vice President of Creative for New York Times Advertising. I oversee all the custom creative and the operations of our content studio, T Brand.

Maurice Cherry:
What has this year been like for you so far?

Vida Cornelious:
It’s funny how to answer that because as we all know, 2020 was definitely a challenge, and I would say 2021 has been a year of recovery in many ways, like coming off of that year, a year of reckoning so to speak. I just feel like there was a lot of emotions. It felt like 2021 was a time to heal, so to speak. Personally, I feel like I’ve definitely learned the meaning of resilience over the course of this year. And staying the course, staying focused has been my personal mantra in the workplace. As a leader, for one, I’ve really been trying to be as empathetic to my team as possible. I’ve really had to dig in and think about everyone is processing this whole upheaval in so many different ways, and in some cases loss. So I want to be mindful of that when I’m still trying to manage to the demands of the business. So yeah, that’s what the year has been for me.

Maurice Cherry:
Are you already back in the office or are you still working from home?

Vida Cornelious:
No, we’re working from home still, but we can go into the office as we choose. We haven’t officially returned, but I go in probably two days a week now.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah. And so do some of the other people on the team.

Maurice Cherry:
How was it adjusting to that work from home life with being over, I would imagine, a pretty large creative team?

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, it was a challenge at first to really think about the ebb and flow of how to make sure people stayed motivated. I also think there were fears that people may have had on the team thinking that their currency of not being able to walk the halls and talk to people and be seen was going to somehow affect their work and the perception of their work. But I think once we all settled into a groove of what needed to get done, just putting our heads down and understanding that, hey, this collaborative work style, being on Zoom calls, we can still brainstorm. We can still utilize one another to get inspired creatively. The work didn’t suffer. We set a path and then drove full steam ahead towards it. So I would say that actually people found their own ways to be productive working from home and still maintaining a level of integrity and excellence with the work that I was personally looking for.

Maurice Cherry:
I talked to so many folks, I guess, right at the beginning of the pandemic, like spring going into the summer, and it was interesting because you’d have folks that were definitely seasoned creatives that were like, “Oh, I’m trying to adjust to how do I work from home?” Some people, for example, got a new job, moved across country, and then they may have worked in the office for two days and now you have to work from home in this new place that you just moved to. But then I also talked to graduates who had just started new jobs, and this is all they know, is working from home. This is their normal as it relates to doing a creative job is working from home and being a part of a distributed team, which I think is a really interesting shift.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, It’s interesting you say that because I don’t want to necessarily say it’s generational, but for sure like myself coming up in the industry where it was very much about brainstorming and sitting in a room and hashing out ideas, you get very accustomed to the tactile nature of working with people face to face and sharing ideas back and forth, bantering back and forth with a partner and all that kind of thing. So the working from home could feel very isolating for some and feel like there becomes a little bit more writer’s block, you feel a little bit more stuck because you want someone to bounce ideas off of or you want to be able to just have someone to dialogue with or talk through ideas. It doesn’t feel as natural if you have to do that over a Zoom call.

Vida Cornelious:
But you’re 100% right. I mean, there were people who obviously started new jobs during the pandemic where they never met anyone. So it is interesting to see you get a different perception of the value of the connection you make personally with people when you’ve had an opportunity to work with them versus just meeting them for the first time in the square on the screen.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I mean, I think for all of us it illustrates just how my much we have to do during the day, especially if you’re just at home working by yourself and you don’t have those moments of comradery of just talking to someone for a few minutes and then getting back to work. You realize just how much you have to be focused on getting the work done. Not saying people slack off at work, but people slack off at work. But that’s also part of the creative process in a way.

Vida Cornelious:
Right. Exactly. I used to make a joke that everybody… For folks who were smokers, it used to be a thing those people to go downstairs, have a cigarette break. If we add up those breaks, that was like an extra hour [crosstalk 00:08:39]. But now it’s funny because working from home, I’ll be honest, hey, in between a meeting or two, of course I’m going to go throw some clothes in the laundry, you know?

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Vida Cornelious:
And I’m going to clean up my kitchen or something that I neglected doing. So there do become these moments in the day where you can woosah, I guess, take the pressure off slightly for a moment and take your mind away from it and then come back. But I still find that for the most part, my experience with my team has been that people are very productive and responsive, which is great.

Maurice Cherry:
I mean, it also sounds like you allowed them just the grace to just acclimate themselves to the situation, you know?

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, I mean, the hardest part about the pandemic for everybody was just trying to figure out, and I hate using the term new normal, but what was going to just be their way of operating. I don’t have children, but I felt for people who had kids at home who were trying to figure out how to homeschool and still be attentive at work but having very restless children at home that didn’t understand the whole scenario of not being able to go to school or see friends or having their own emotional meltdowns of sorts. And that was a lot. That was a lot for people to process and deal with and also just trying to deal with how out of work and be productive. For sure, we saw it in the real estate boom where people just literally realized, especially living in New York, raising a family in a one-bedroom or two-bedroom apartment just wasn’t the move anymore. [inaudible 00:10:11] ran to the suburbs. Of course, we saw that.

Vida Cornelious:
So that, I think, is also a manifestation of how the pandemic just changed all of our perception around the value of work and how that balance between work and personal has to be reevaluated.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Let’s talk some more about your work at the New York Times. What’s an average day like for you?

Vida Cornelious:
The day is, well as we just said, I mean, it’s definitely full of Zoom calls, I would say a pretty steady stream of them from 9:00 to probably about 6:00 PM. But for the most part, I feel like right now the majority of what I’m doing is a tremendous amount of work around new initiatives, product development, working with our newsroom on any types of brand collaborations where appropriate or alignments. But the team has really been delivering some imaginative custom content. I oversee all of our creatives, so working with the team on what those creative franchises are or brand stories and collaborations we’re doing. So I’m really excited about that.

Vida Cornelious:
I mean, an average day definitely is meeting with my direct reports, tending to operations type needs, making sure that there’s a full outline of what we’re trying to accomplish with regards to a certain number of RFPs or making sure that a program is launching or we are doing recruiting. So it varies in the course of a day what I have to turn my attention to, but I always try and make sure there’s a very nice chunk of my day committed to creative endeavors. I would say if I had to break it down, probably 65% of my time is something creatively motivated, and the other 35% of my time is operational.

Maurice Cherry:
Speaking of projects, there’s a project from the Times that you were a part of or oversaw called Soul of Us. Can you tell me some more about that?

Vida Cornelious:
Sure. I’ll start by saying as an overall philosophy of the creative team and T Brand, we adhere to what we call our storytelling commitment, and it’s how we really keep diverse perspectives at the forefront and pursue representative storytelling in everything that we do. There’s been a few programs that actually are great manifestations of this passion for diversity and inclusion, Soul of Us being one of them and probably the primary one. And it is a creative franchise that was created by T Brand really to expand the narrative around all aspects of the black life in America that are rarely portrayed in the media. What I mean by that is it really is a franchise that we are crafting and collaboration with brand partners to give voice to black creators to tell stories of black love and joy and success and beauty and pride and wealth and empowerment and progress. The more brands that join us, the more chapters of this story we will unfold.

Vida Cornelious:
The reason we do it is because at the time that Soul of Us was concepted, there was so much narrative around Black Lives Matter and the opposite side of that coin of like, “Why should a black life matter? All lives matter.” We saw a lot of that. Soul of Us was a way of saying, “You know what? The only way to help people understand why a black life matters is to really show them what a black life is.” And more of black life is it’s beyond the narrative that we’ve seen which is the narrative around disenfranchisement and struggle and the fight for equality. There’s so many other aspects of black life that media doesn’t really portray. So Soul of Us was an opportunity to expose some of those more nuanced, beautiful stories in a way that shows that black life really is rich and full and robust and worthy of a narrative larger than just what the media has currently shared. So that was the impetus behind that franchise.

Maurice Cherry:
I like that it’s called Soul of Us. Well, I think if someone were looking at it and not really thinking about it as us, it could also be seen as like Soul of US, like Soul of the United States. I remember reading through the press release and it was mentioned that it’s about helping brands elevate the conversation of representation in America. I know that’s during that last summer when there was so much going on in the streets and, of course, that spilled over into the board rooms and such, theoretically speaking, because nobody really was in board rooms because of the pandemic. But companies were now starting to get in on this conversation around racial equity and what does that mean for us and this individual business. Like, yes, there’s what’s happening out in the streets in terms of protesting police brutality, but our black employees, unfortunately, they suffer from that as well. They have to inherit all of that trauma and that pain, and they have to bring that to work.

Maurice Cherry:
I think it was really good that companies were starting to try to, at least in some small way, get in on the conversation even if it seems like it was just a fleeting thing. I remember seeing now how a lot of companies have faded back from that initial talk about it, but I think it was good to see it when it happened, certainly.

Vida Cornelious:
Right. Yeah, I mean, there were a few brands that misstepped, and it felt as if it was a passing fancy for them or something that was a trend to get in on at the time. The things that we really wanted to make sure, as we put this franchise out in the universe, it was to make sure we were letting brands know, “Hey, this is an opportunity for you to join us in telling these stories on a narrative. It’s not for the purpose of you being able to rectify any wrongs that has been done in the past by your brand, but rather to support what should be a part of your mission. So if your mission is, say, to put out products for the betterment of families, then let’s tell stories of why black family is important. You can support that, that’s already in your DNA.”

Vida Cornelious:
We were very specific about the type of brand partners and collaborators we were looking for as a way of helping us bring these individual chapters or narratives, if you will, to life. It wasn’t as if we were looking for inauthentic connections. We legitimate connections to the black community, to black storytelling, and we wanted brands that supported that because it’s work that they’re already doing.

Maurice Cherry:
One of the most interesting parts I noticed throughout the project is that even the typeface that was used, the halyard typeface, was done by a black designer. That was done by a black typography designer, Joshua Darden.

Vida Cornelious:
Yes. Yep. Absolutely. Every contributor we’ve used on the project and was very intentional, and that was part of it, was to elevate not just in the storytelling but elevate black voices and creators. All of our illustrators, typographers, photographers, designers, writers are all black contributors to the project. We have a hub, which is where you can see the work, and within that hub, there is a page of contributors. So it’s very clear. You can read each of those persons’ bio and have a better understanding of why we wanted to partner with them, why we work with them, the passion that they have for what they do. And that was important to us as well, to make sure that those were the voices that were elevating these stories.

Maurice Cherry:
How has the project been received so far?

Vida Cornelious:
It’s been fantastic. I mean, we have had quite a bit of press around it. Our inaugural partner in the effort is Starz, the network, and they told with us stories of black leadership. What we explored there was the journey and the pathway to how leaders are made in the black community when it starts from childhood, those moments of affirmation where you’re basically told or you’ve been taught things like, “I am somebody,” all the way through college where you maybe are a part of your first taste of being a part of a black student union or a fraternity or sorority, all the way to the boardroom, where you could find yourself being the only person of color in an organization but you have to walk into the room with the same premise that Maya Angelus taught us, which is, “I come as one, but I stand as 10,000,” right? So knowing you have to bring your ancestral strength with you in order to be effective. We explored this journey of leadership in partnership with Starz because they have an amazing program called Take The Lead, which is all about creating space for black leadership and creators to emerge in the entertainment space. So it was a perfect alignment in that way for us to tell these stories together.

Maurice Cherry:
Did you have a favorite story from the project?

Vida Cornelious:
Yes. From this first go-round, I think one of my favorite stories was about a teacher in Philadelphia who has taught her students a mantra called Push Through, and it was really great. We used some of the actual soundbite of her doing the affirmation with her little second grade and third grade class, which they do every morning. That was a part of the pay post, so it was wonderful to be able to actually use the actual audio of her doing the affirmation.

Vida Cornelious:
But I also remember myself as a child, your own parents telling you things like, “You have to be smarter. You have to be better. You are somebody.” There were so many ways that your family would teach you these little affirmations basically to help you know that you were going into the room strong and that you had a right to be there. And whether you knew it or not, in first, second, third grade, that’s essentially what was being instilled in you. So seeing someone, a young woman doing that today for this generation of children, it just kind of warmed my heart and the writer’s heart that worked on it when we discovered her.

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you see the initiative going next? I know you mentioned Starz being the initial partner. Are there other companies lined up that are going to talk about other stories as well?

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, we do. We have quite a few partners out there, collaborators, brand collaborators that are looking at proposals right now and how we can align with them on their efforts. I think if we’re successful, we’ll have a chapter about black progress and wealth. That gives us an opportunity to talk about things like the black elite or how people have created whole communities around going to the vineyard and what that whole lifestyle is like and the bonds that tie those individuals together. It gives us an opportunity to talk about home ownership and some of the famous neighborhoods that were inhabited by or created by black wealth, things like Striver’s Row in Harlem and how that was a bustling place of economic development and empowerment for blacks. So that could be an angle that we have. Another brand that we’re talking to would allow us to explore stories of black beauty. And last one would be about black family. Hopefully, if those brand partners come on board, that becomes three more chapters right there that we would be really happy to see come to fruition.

Maurice Cherry:
That’s awesome. I’d have to say it’s especially awesome seeing it come through such a large imprint like the New York Times. That’s really great.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, it’s amazing.

Maurice Cherry:
When you look at your work, not necessarily with this project, but at the New York Times in general, what would you say is the hardest part about what you do?

Vida Cornelious:
I really don’t find there’s necessarily a hard part, but I do feel as though one of the things that, I don’t know, I’m always just so fascinated by is there’s just so much richness of storytelling at the New York Times. In my world, I feel like my responsibility is to just make sure that the work that the team is doing on our side, on the business side of the house, if you will, is befitting of sitting alongside that superior journalism. We want to make sure that we are continually rising and upholding the standards that we know that the Times is so famous for and so respected for. So we want to make sure that the way we do our custom creative work and supporter brands is indeed living up to that same standard and expectation. So I would say that’s probably the hardest part because there’s so much amazing journalism and innovation that comes out of the newsroom every day. It’s just a matter of our team just keeping up with it, if you will.

Maurice Cherry:
Let’s switch gears here a little bit because I want to know more about your origin story, how Vida became Vida. Tell me about where you grew up.

Vida Cornelious:
I’m a Jersey girl. I grew up in Neptune, New Jersey, which is a town on Jersey Shore. One of five girls, no brothers. Mom and dad both professional people. My mother, she sang at the Met when I was a kid. She took opera. She’s sang in college and took opera lessons and developed her voice and sang as part of the chorus at the Met when we were kids. So I got introduced to the arts and the fine arts early in life. I had an older sister who was amazing painter and just as part of just a hobby, I guess you could say. But there was always some artistic pursuit going on in my house when I was growing up. My dad was an engineer, so he was a solid, science, math person, so I guess that gave us a certain amount of well-roundedness. It wasn’t all artsy-fartsy in the house, so to speak.

Vida Cornelious:
But growing up, it was fun. I mean, I felt like my family was very supportive heavily into seeing us be comfortable with our education, pursuing our passions. So I never felt like I wasn’t able to explore what an artistic endeavor would look like. I had no idea that it would turn into a career in advertising. I was just a kid that just loved drawing and painting and doing things that felt creative me, right? As I got older, going off to college was about having an opportunity to pursue art as a major in college. My parents weren’t so fond of me going to somewhere like Parsons or Pratt. We went up to those schools, I got in, and they saw one moment in a dorm where the kids were running around and was like co-ed, they were like, “Forget it.” It didn’t seem strict enough or whatever you want to call it. So they didn’t like that as a pursuit for me.

Vida Cornelious:
But I was able to go to Hampton because that’s where my sisters had gone. So there was a little bit of legacy there. So I went to Hampton, but I was still able to pursue art. At Hampton, I got a great background in education in… at the time, it was called commercial art or graphic design. I thought I was going to eventually come back to New York, come back to the East Coast, and go work in New York and design album covers. That was my big plan. But I had a professor who basically told me, “No, you need to pursue advertising. You have ideas like an art director.” I was like, “What is this mystery career?” I’d never even heard of being an art director. I didn’t know what that was. He explained to me, you know, “You make commercials. You make print ads. You take great trips. You go and stay in hotel for weeks at a time while you shoot a commercial.” I was like, “This sounds like a dream job.” I had no idea.

Vida Cornelious:
He was like, “Yeah, you need to go to graduate school, really work on your portfolio because right now your portfolio is strictly design. They need to see you can think about ideas. You need to be able to craft ideas.” So I pursued going to graduate school. At the time, University of Illinois was one of the better schools for an advertising degree. Now, it wasn’t advertising creative like what we now know of, say, schools like The Creative Circus or Portfolio Center or VCU Ad Center, those schools came much later. But at the time, University of Illinois had a very solid program in terms of you getting a master’s in advertising, so that’s what I did.

Vida Cornelious:
I was able to go there on a scholarship, which was great for me. I had a wonderful batch of teachers who I was kind of the guinea pig of the kid who wanted to do creative, but there wasn’t necessarily a specific creative track in the graduate program. So they kind of mashed up a few classes for me in addition to the required classes in order for me to get my master’s but still get a creative portfolio coming out of it, so it was really good. Did some internships while I was there. But I definitely feel like probably the biggest thing I learned at University of Illinois that as a black woman in this industry I would later come to find out was pivotal for me, was my scholarship required that I teach undergraduate students. I taught two days a week, and it was brutal because I had to teach myself the class before I could teach them. I had to teach myself the material and then teach the class.

Vida Cornelious:
But what it forced was me basically presenting a couple of times a week, like getting up in front of a lecture class and talking and presenting. So what later on in my career I would realize is that that the groundwork for me being able to really feel comfortable presenting. And as a creative person, that is one of the things that will make or break your career, is your ability to present your ideas and be confident in presenting your ideas and being a storyteller. I really, really value that experience for that reason more than anything you.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Let’s go back a bit to Hampton, because I know you mentioned you had sisters that went there, so there was some sort of form of legacy for you going there. What was it like going to Hampton during that time? Because I’m imagining this is around the early nineties when there was so much… And maybe I’m just remembering this from back then. I felt like there was a lot of, not hype, that’s not the right word, excitement, I guess, around attending HBCUs. You had the AACA sweatshirts. It felt like there was this really big push on graduate and go to a black college because it’s lit.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean, you used to have all the bootleg shirts like, “Hampton, just do it,” with the swoosh. I’m sure that the licensing department at Nike would’ve been very upset to know that there was a whole string of t-shirts that you could buy in a variety of colors with their logo on it, but we had all that stuff going on. You’re absolutely right because at the time that I was at Hampton, A Different World was on television. It was literally like we would all run back to the dorm and watch A Different World, and it was almost as if the writers of that show had been on campus. It was like they were writing about our lives literally, and we were looking at it in real time.

Vida Cornelious:
We had a munchy shop where everybody went and hung out, a little campus grill. We had the step shows, we had the Greek life. I don’t want to call it a golden time, but it was definitely a fun, vibrant time to be at a HBCU. For me personally, I did pledge Delta Sigma Theta-

Maurice Cherry:
Okay.

Vida Cornelious:
… and very proud of that. And so that also gave another layer of texture to my college experience because, of course, pledging a Greek letter organization on a HBCU campus is probably as HBCU as it gets. That is like the quintessential experience. But yeah, having sisters there, my mother went to Hampton, it was definitely a school that I was very familiar with. So I felt like I was in very familiar territory in going to school there. The school itself in terms of how it was run, everything you’ve probably heard about HBCUs is fairly true. There was curfew. You weren’t able to be out if you were a freshman after a certain time at night. There were all kinds of superstitions and things like if you walk across Ogden Circle you won’t graduate. Those are all parts of the culture and just the narrative of what made the school so great.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. I went to Morehouse. I mean, I was a teenager during that time sort of watching… Well, I was a kid becoming a teenager during the time when A Different World was on. And then there certainly was this big push to go to a black college because, one, at the time, my mom worked at a black college, she taught biology at a black college, and she graduated from black college, she went to Talladega University. So there was no really other choice. I applied to other places, but the huge implication was that, “You’re going to a black college.”

Vida Cornelious:
Right. Right.

Maurice Cherry:
End of story. So I know what you mean about you get on campus and you learn all these mythologies and superstitions and things like that, but I mean, it’s such a magical place. And then the fact that you were studying design there, back when we had a blog on Revision Path, I remember we did a whole thing about Hampton’s Design department and how many people they’ve graduated that went on to do great things in the industry. So Hampton has a really rich legacy of generating black designers and artists and folks like you. Really, that’s amazing.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah. I mean, I’m very proud of the fact that we got some exposure to some amazing artists at Hampton. I mean, John Biggers painted the mural in the library and all of us that were students at the time got to assist him because he was the artist in residence. And Hampton’s museum has some of the most… They have an amazing collection of black artists that’s been curated. I feel like the art program, the arts has always been something that Hampton respected. I just remember it was like people would look at the art students because we all walked around with our little plastic cases, our little art bin cases. Our classes were over in Armstrong Hall, which was sort of out of the cut, but it was where the… What do you call it? The pottery studio was, and that’s where the architecture students were. And that’s where all the open loft live drawing classes were. So it was such a mystery to all the rest of the student body because we were like the kids that were in there creating. It was a good time though. It was definitely a good time to be at a school like that.

Vida Cornelious:
I feel you 100% because I went to a summer program at Princeton, they pursued me coming there, but I don’t know, there was just something… I mean, it was Ivy League, I probably should have differently about that, but I really felt like Hampton was home in some way, so that’s where I ended up.

Maurice Cherry:
Going back to University of Illinois, you graduated in ’94, you left grad school, what was the next step? What were those early post grad years like for you?

Vida Cornelious:
When I was in grad school, I ended up having an internship at Uniworld in New York, which was a great experience, worked with some amazing people there, learned from some wonderful people. Valerie Graves, who is a legend in advertising was my boss at the time when I was an intern, so I learned a ton from her. They offered me a job after school, but I really wanted to go somewhere else because I felt like I would be forever the intern, just that psychology. I ended up getting an offer from their competitor at the time, which was Burrell Communications Group.

Vida Cornelious:
So I got very fortunate in that coming right out of graduate school I was able to land a job pretty easily. I had it in my mind that I was going to be like Angela from Who’s The Boss? I had a suit, I had the big portfolio case. I had no idea what the ad world actually looked like. My whole impression of the ad world was what I had seen on television for wearing suits and being frazzled all the time. I was offered the job at Burrell. I went to Chicago to pursue that. It was a great training ground. I worked with amazing people there. At the time, Burrell was on the top of their game. They had all the major accounts, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Sears, BellSouth, which was pretty much like the Verizon of that time. What other clients did we have? We didn’t do too much. I mean, Tom Burrell had a pretty strong feeling about things like cigarettes and malt liquor advertising to black people, so he didn’t really accept too much work like that. But it was a great experience being able to cut my teeth, if you will, at Burrell. I was able to do some pretty big commercials that still are cult classics for some people in the hip hop community.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, you did the Obey Your Thirst campaign, that’s right.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, some Sprite work. That’s funny to see young people that are playing it on YouTube and consider it as a classic, and that’s your first piece of creative out of college. But there were so many fun things about just learning back then. You just felt like you were a sponge, you’re just learning so much. So that was a great experience. I was at Burrell for a good… I want to say I was at Burrell almost 10… no, maybe five or six years, I can’t remember. I think I left there in ’99 and then went to DDB.

Vida Cornelious:
DDB Chicago was a general market agency. At the time, it’s like you start in multicultural, but the bigger pond to be in was general market. Everybody wanted to get to a big general market agency. That was the stamp of approval that you were a real creative if you were able to get to a general market agency. So getting into DDB Chicago was a big stepping stone to be able to work on national accounts, accounts that were not meant to be just for the black audience but the general market audience, bigger budgets, things like that. But what came with that was a sense of loneliness and isolation. Being one of 120 or so creatives and you’re the only black, maybe one of three, is hard.

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, wow.

Vida Cornelious:
Incredibly hard when you’re not even 30 years old and you’re trying to figure out, okay, how do you navigate this? How do you know if you have people who are really in your corner or people who want to sabotage you? And even though DDB’s culture wasn’t like some other agencies at that time, it was definitely a norm to know that creative departments were incredibly competitive. People would steal each other’s work. People would shred their work at night because they didn’t want their work stolen, things like that. All of those myths were somewhat true in some places. Fortunately, I didn’t run across much of that, but I did still feel like I had to be really, really good in terms of my talent and feeling very secure in my talent in order to survive that.

Maurice Cherry:
People were shredding their at work at night?

Vida Cornelious:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Not at DDB, but other agencies. There were some other agencies where that was notorious. That was well known that the culture was very competitive in that way.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow, that’s cutthroat.

Vida Cornelious:
Very much.

Maurice Cherry:
Goodness. So you were at DDB for almost a decade. Aside from the cutthroatness of it, what do you remember the most from that time?

Vida Cornelious:
I mean, DDB, it taught me a ton, besides for the fact that I worked with some good people there. I worked with some people who really were interested in seeing me develop, and they were really interested in seeing my career take off. There was one real defining moment that I can always play in my brain because it was one of those type of things where someone is mentoring you and they’re kind of preparing you for a moment, but you don’t even really know it at the time.

Vida Cornelious:
I had a boss that I was like the sidekick, right? Whenever he needed somebody to prepare the bag for the presentation or get the work together, it was always like, “Vida, I need you to do that.” Right? Initially, I felt like, “Am I being asked to do this because I’m the lackey, because I’m the only girl on the team, because I’m the responsible one?” I had no idea, but ultimately what it allowed me to do was be able to always see all of the work. I had an opportunity to see all of the work, and he would ask my opinion of the work once I had put the bag together, made sure all the scripts were there, made sure all the boards were there, made sure there was no typos. It was almost like I knew the work better than he did because I was spending more time with it.

Vida Cornelious:
I would prepare the bag. I would go with him to the meeting. I would sit in the back of the room because he was doing the presenting, and I got to see firsthand how he presented, how the client responded to his presentation, how the work went over, what ideas landed, what ideas fell flat. I didn’t know it was a training at the time, but it was a training. I was getting to see it firsthand. My colleagues weren’t. My peers weren’t. So that was the trade-off for me being the person that always had to stay the latest to make sure the bag was ready for the meeting and all that kind of thing.

Vida Cornelious:
One day, that training kicked in because I was going to a meeting at McDonald’s. He happened to have the bag, but I always kept copies. I always made sure I had Xerox copies of everything that was in the bag so we had a way of making sure nothing got left behind. And so, I had my copies with me, like I always did, and we got a call that he had been in a car accident, so he wasn’t going to make it to the meeting. The whole old team, obviously, was panicking, meaning myself, the account people. I was just a sidekick. He basically was like, “Well, Vida’s there, so she can do it. She knows the work, she can present it.” I was like, “OMG. What?” I think at that point the account people were losing it too because I wasn’t seen as someone who was a stand-in for the boss. You know what I mean? But it was my shot. That was my shot, right? As they say in Hamilton, “I’m not going to lose my shot.” That was it. I didn’t know it.

Vida Cornelious:
But I went in, I had my little Xeroxes. We quickly rallied and got the Xeroxes distributed, like printed more copies and got them distributed. Yeah, I did what I saw him do, and we ended up selling the campaign. The client was very happy, told my boss that I was amazing and all that. The account team thought I was amazing. And shortly thereafter I got promoted. And it became upward trajectory from there. So those kind of moments, I think, were defining for me at DDB. It definitely changed the trajectory of my career. Being a person of color, being a black woman or a black young person in an environment like that, you’re not given that many people who want to really groom you per se. So you have to either absorb it on your own or figure out ways to just be in the right place at the right time. There’s a lot you have to do to rely on yourself. I got pretty comfortable with the idea that I may never have anyone who is going to choose me, right? So I need to just make sure that whenever I am chosen, I’m ready. I think that’s the philosophy I took on from there.

Vida Cornelious:
Then I got paired with a really, really great partner. We worked together for a long time, a young guy named Skip Tramontana. The two of us did a gazillion TV spots together and slept on the floor of our office and banged out ideas and had the quintessential young creative experience at DDB. But the two of us kind of rose up in the ranks together because we were a good team. We understood our clients. We understood how to sell work. And that was a really fun experience. And then we went our separate ways because he took a different job and I ended up getting promoted again and started managing more people and having more responsibility, and my career just went forward from there.

Vida Cornelious:
Most of my time spent at DDB towards the end of my time there, I was doing a lot of new business, a lot of big new business pitches, working across the agency as a whole. Probably one of the things I was most proud of there was working on a project for Budweiser because it was so outside of the norm of what they were trying to do. They were trying to reach young adults, multicultural, millennial adults. So it gave us an opportunity to really do something very different for them, which turned out to be highly successful. Working on beer was nothing that I was aspiring to do, but at the time at DDB, the beer accounts were like the Holy Grail. So being able to work on something there, pitch it, win it, successfully launch it was a big feather in the cap for this little black girl from the 35th floor.

Maurice Cherry:
By the time you left DDB, you got 15 years in the game working at two well-known agencies doing a lot of really big accounts. And then from there you worked at several other agencies and companies. You did a stint at GlobalHue. You did a stint at Walton Isaacson. You were at the Walt Disney Company even for a while. And of course, now you’re at the New York Times. When you look back at those past experiences after leaving DDB, what would you say are the most valuable things that you learned about yourself?

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, I think each of those positions or moves, if you will, taught me something different. I mean, for sure when I went to GlobalHue, it was right after the Obama election, and I was hellbent on like, “Black agencies are going to take the world by storm, and I want to lead the charge.” I was fired up. I was fired up to do something to really prove that black agencies were not subpar, and going to GlobalHue was almost like a perfect storm of events that allowed us to win the Jeep account while I was there. That was the first time a black agency was helming a massive general market account and one that was a truly beloved brand, American brand, Jeep. We really, really dug our heels in and flip turned it around. I had some incredible wins on that business, helped grow that business.

Vida Cornelious:
But I learned there that you don’t always get the credit that you’re due, no matter how hard you work on something. That was the hard lesson there. Even though I made some incredible friends not just in the agency itself, but in the client space and vendor space, there were so many people that were rallying around us to just see us win because we were trying to do great things and great work, but in the end sometimes the world at large, the industry at large doesn’t give you the credit that you deserve. When I moved over to Walton Isaacson, it was, again, an opportunity to try and build something, to try and bring a point of view. But again, you have to learn that sometimes if your name is not on the door, it’s not your dream to really try and bring to reality. You have to sometimes understand that your aims or your ambitions as a creative person and what you see is not necessarily in line with the person whose name is on the door, so you have to be okay with that and find a way to be diplomatic about how you do exercise your leadership and authority.

Vida Cornelious:
And then in going to places like Disney, that was an opportunity for me to learn about a brand from the inside out. That was an opportunity to pivot away from agency life where you’re in a more service role, in service to your clients that is, to be in on the brand side of the table where you’re literally setting the aims and mission that you need brought to life by your agency partner, right? Being on that side of the table gave me a more deep purview into what makes for sustainable creative ideas, what makes for building loyalty amongst an audience, and also building loyalty amongst the people that work in an environment with you. If there’s one thing I’ll say about the culture of Disney is that I love the fact that it is one where they’re very loyal to their employees in terms of people love the brand. People who work there love the brand, and they’re loyal to it. That was something that really helped me see the value of how much more passionate people are when they believe in what you’re doing. It made me see that you can’t fake the funk sometimes, right? You have to believe in what you’re doing too, and if you don’t, move on. And also being at Disney, it gave me an opportunity to really see the value of storytelling because Disney as an entity is really about storytelling.

Vida Cornelious:
Coming to New York Times is telling a different type of story, right? Is getting to see the stories of truth, of life, of journalistic integrity, and being able to bring that philosophy to the work that we do with brands. But for myself, it’s always about learning. It’s always about expanding my own capability and getting back to that notion of mastery, being able to master something. Your voice, your creative process, your ability to ideate, all those things are, in my opinion, very important being a creative person and how you formulate your own way of working.

Maurice Cherry:
What is the advertising industry like for you at this stage of your career? It sounds like you’ve done it all, pretty much, except run your own agency.

Vida Cornelious:
Oh my gosh.

Maurice Cherry:
You’ve managed to start as an intern, and you’ve worked your way up to being Vice President of Creative at the New York Times. When you look out at the landscape of the ad industry now, what do you see?

Vida Cornelious:
I’ll be honest, what I miss is, and it’ll sound old school, I’m sure, to anyone that’s listening, but there was a certain kind of beauty and real magic in finding an idea that a client would want to stay with for a while and replicate and build their brand around. Now we live in a space where it’s a lot more immediate. We’re living in a space that’s social, it’s faster, it’s a much quicker connection that that needs to be made because of people’s attention span or just what we’ve become accustomed to, how much time we really spend absorbing something. To that end, it feels a little bit at times like advertising is chasing the horse, is chasing something, whether it’s a new platform or how to capture an audience with a very short attention span or battling for our attention on a variety of devices.

Vida Cornelious:
Sometimes I miss the notion that you can build a brand through an idea, you can build an idea over time. Because a lot of times, time is not something that people are willing to give you anymore. But what I do look at in terms of how advertising is different in this landscape is I love fact that video and connecting through video and photography and storytelling formats that are visually-driven are something that is very appealing to me personally. I love film. I always have loved film and video, so anytime we can create things in that kind of format, whether it’s short form, whether it’s documentary style, I still find that probably to be the most appealing and satisfying for myself personally.

Maurice Cherry:
What are you excited about at the moment?

Vida Cornelious:
I’m excited about seeing more diverse voices actually be brought to the forefront. I mean, even though it’s not directly related to advertising, I love the fact that there’s so many more black storytellers writing shows, TV shows, episodic, television, film, that more voices are coming to the forefront. Because it does have a trickle-down effect. That representative storytelling is real. When we can see that there are audiences that are craving more than just the narratives that have been previously being fed to them, it gives us an opportunity on the advertising space to really find legitimate connections to audiences and bring new ways of telling stories to brands. I think that’s really important. So I’m loving seeing all the different types of creators that are out there whether it’s people on TikTok who are making a name for themselves on TikTok in some way, shape, or form, all the way up to creators like Rolonda Watts and Issa Rae’s and now James Samuel. I love the new movie that has just come out, the spaghetti western, and seeing people of color in a variety of types of storytelling formats, and those voices coming forward.

Maurice Cherry:
I still need to see that movie. You’re talking about The Harder They Fall, right? It just came out fairly recently.

Vida Cornelious:
Yes.

Maurice Cherry:
I need to see that. So funny you mentioned TikTok. I don’t want to say obsessed with TikTok, because that sounds a bit too much, but I am really enjoying TikTok. I’ve actually even found some guests for the show on TikTok, just I’m randomly going through my For You page, and I’m like, “Oh, who is this? Oh, it’s a black person that painted the world’s largest mural. Let me talk to them and get them on the show,” or something like that. But it’s been really interesting seeing how people have come up on these new mediums. I mean, before TikTok, it was what? It was YouTube. It was podcasting. It was blogging. That part kind of blows my mind a little bit. A lot of people now who maybe are thought leaders or really progressive journalists now, I remember when they started out on BlogSpot. And they worked their way up now to book deals and television shows and podcasts and all this sort of stuff. It’s amazing to see.

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, and they have these… I mean, I know it’s not a new thing anymore, but the influencer houses where they’re influencers coming together, living together, creating their own collective.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Vida Cornelious:
[crosstalk 00:52:48] create content. I know there’s one in Atlanta that is all young black creators. I’m missing the name right now, but-

Maurice Cherry:
Oh, the Collab Crib.

Vida Cornelious:
The Collab Crib, yes. Yes. I mean, I think that kind of stuff is really inventive for young people finding a way to basically monetize what they know about culture and the stories that they want to tell. So it is fascinating to see how these platforms have enabled so many young people to kind of find themselves, find their way, find their audiences.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. Speaking of Collab Crib, New York Times plug, for folks that are listening, go to Hulu. The New York Times presented a whole documentary on the Collab Crib called Who Gets to Be an Influencer. Definitely go check it out.

Vida Cornelious:
Correct. They sure did.

Maurice Cherry:
If there’s someone that’s out there listening, they are hearing the Vida Cornelious story and they want to follow in your footsteps, what advice would you give them?

Vida Cornelious:
Oh, wow. I mean, it’s like, let’s see, what things should they do? No. Real talk, I would say some of the things I wish I had known then that I know now is that the ability to really listen and not get so deep into what you think something should be that you can’t or another point of view or a critique or a criticism is something I wish I had learned very, very early on. It took me banging my head against the wall a few times in the very early stages of my career before I fully understood that and the value of that. So I would definitely say that’s important.

Vida Cornelious:
The other thing that I would also say is important is your integrity, your character is all you have. Don’t ever let anyone force you to sacrifice that or put you in a position where you feel like you need to sacrifice that. Because at some point in your career and life, it will come back to haunt. I’ve seen it happen to other people. It hasn’t happened to me, but I have seen it happen to other people where they literally have to eat those words. They’ve treated someone a certain way, and then they find out later on in life that that person is in a position to either hire them or they’re the client now or whatever. And I’ve literally seen that. So always know that being kind, being gracious is important, that that’s more powerful than being someone who wants to lead by fear or bring fear into an equation, that never works.

Vida Cornelious:
I would definitely say to someone, “Try and understand and appreciate your worth early on. What makes you different? What makes you someone that has something to say, that has a voice?” I mean, at one point when I was Chief Creative Officer GlobalHue, I would interview people, maybe this isn’t appropriate to ask now, but I would interview people by saying, “When you come to the interview, wear at least one piece of clothing or an item that has some meaning to you. I’d love to know the story of it.” One of the reasons I asked people that was because I wanted to, number one, get a sense of who they were outside of the work that they do, the things that were in their portfolio. But I also wanted to know what had meaning to them.

Vida Cornelious:
I’ll never forget, a guy came in the middle of winter wearing a white linen suit. I said, “Wow.” I said, “Well, why did you choose to wear that?” And he said, “Well, this is the suit that I got married in. Besides for the fact that my wife was my best friend, I mean, this suit reminds me so much of how happy and how joyous I felt on that day, and how complete I felt on that day. And whenever I need that feeling, I remember this suit. I remember this day.” And so that just told me a lot about him and who he was. So I really liked doing that because it gave me a way of having a better understanding of people’s unique value and what’s important to them and the things that are never going to show up in their resume but can become very value as part of their experience in the work environment and in the place of work.

Vida Cornelious:
So I guess a short story for someone listening to this would be, be true to yourself. Be kind, be generous. Know that the people that you’re working alongside right now could be people that you need to reach up to or reach back for in the future. And those are probably the things that I think have sustained me.

Maurice Cherry:
Who are some of the people that have influenced you? I know you mentioned a couple of coworkers, you mentioned this professor at Hampton. Were there other people that have really influenced and mentored you throughout your career?

Vida Cornelious:
I would say I never had any direct mentors, anything that was a formal, per se, mentor relationship, but I definitely had people who I felt like invested a lot in me or poured in me. Rather it was family friends, personal friends, people who had nothing to do with advertising at all. Probably one person that I can definitely speak to or speak about is someone named Bob Sayles. He was a very, very good friend at Burrell, and he was our Head of Print Production. But besides for him just being an amazing person at work, I mean, he was just the most generous, gracious person. He had the most full life. He could make a friend anywhere he went. He was just that person. I mean, he had that hearty, big laugh that you can hear ringing in your ears well after he’s left the room.

Vida Cornelious:
I just learned so much from him about people and about what makes people feel important to you, how to connect with people, not just when you work with them but in just understanding them and really being able to look inside and see the truth that people have and what value they can bring to a situation. To me, he taught me more about human nature, I think, because of his personality and the way he was and the type of person that he was and the amount of time that we spent together as friends, and that became something that I actually use as part of my creative process. When I’m not fully clear on who is this audience I’m speaking to, or who is this person I’m trying to write this ad for or connect with, in some way, shape, or form, I have to figure out what is the truth that connects that person to whatever it is I’m trying to promote to them, right? I have to figure out what is the truth that they would believe.

Vida Cornelious:
So I kind of lean back on my time with him as a way of doing my research and digging around to better understand what motivates people, what makes them tick, and how that makes them feel seen. He was excellent at making people feel seen.

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you think your life would’ve gone if you didn’t go into advertising?

Vida Cornelious:
Oh, if I hadn’t gone into advertising, probably when I was at that summer program at Princeton, I would’ve solidly moved into being some type of lawyer. Because I was definitely interested in writing. I was definitely interested in… not necessarily justice like criminal justice or anything like that, but just the pursuit of fairness in some way, shape, or form. I was always intrigued by that. So I probably would’ve ended up being a lawyer. Many, many years, now we’re going to fast forward 30-something years, I mean now, I picked up a love of flowers and floral arranging when I lived in Chicago and had a little side hustle business of doing flowers, which ended up, long story short, landing me doing flowers for Obama for one of his presidential election dinners like [inaudible 01:00:24] dinners. That bug right there, I never shook it.

Vida Cornelious:
I mean now in hindsight, plan B… I mean, if I fast forward, my plan B going forward after advertising, I would love to just own an amazing flower shop somewhere when it’s not about earning money but it’s just about being able to get up and go somewhere every day that you just really, really love. But yeah, if I hadn’t found advertising, I’d probably be a lawyer. Now that I’ve found advertising, been there, and I could say I’ve done that, I would love to probably pursue something a lot gentler on the soul like being a florist.

Maurice Cherry:
I could see it. Oh God, what was the show? I was watching Project Runway, and they just had a designer on there, this guy, Lewis Miller, that does these huge gorilla flower installations in New York City. Have you heard of this?

Vida Cornelious:
Oh yeah, yeah, uh-huh (affirmative).

Maurice Cherry:
He’ll take a phone booth or something and just into this explosion of flowers and stuff. That could be pretty cool. What do you want your legacy to be? Where do you see yourself in the next five years? What kind of work do you want to be doing?

Vida Cornelious:
Ooh, in the next five years… Honestly, I really would love to do more… Hopefully, I will continue to be with the Times. I’m going to say that, put that in the universe. But I would love to continue pursuing how can we do more film. I’d love to get into things like documentaries, more episodic film franchises, really expanding on the notion of how a brand can show up and be relevant in culture and be of service to culture. So finding innovative ways to do that. But I also think that it’s really important from a legacy standpoint to just continue to pave away for young people, particularly young black people, and making them feel like they deserve to be in these spaces, that when they come in these spaces that they’re prepared, they know how they want to show up as their best self, their whole self, not feeling like they have to be something that they’re not in order to fit into these environments, but know that their voices need to be here and need to be heard. But also how to be effective in doing that.

Vida Cornelious:
So if I’m able to leave a legacy of being able to help another young person be the next Vida or be the next other ad person who’s climbed up in the ranks here and there, then I’m happy to do that. I feel like it’s important for me to teach at this point and pave the way for others. I’m very proud of a mentee that I had at the New York Times who, although he chose not to stay at the Times, is doing very, very well in his new role. It makes me super proud to know that all the conversations that we had, all the plans that we laid, he put it in motion and it worked. So my goal is to just leave a legacy of the literal each one, teach one, if I can.

Maurice Cherry:
Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more information about you and about your work and everything online?

Vida Cornelious:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I’m always available on LinkedIn. That’s the fastest and easiest method. I do have a website, vidacornelious.com. I can’t say it’s updated at the moment. I hate to say that, but I’ve been doing so much work as of late, I haven’t had a chance to update it in a little while, but I will. But those are, yeah, for sure, two spaces that you can find me. If you just want to peek in on my dog, my French bulldog, which I love a lot, his name is Leo, you’re more than welcome to find me on Instagram as well. But I don’t do too much work talk on there.

Maurice Cherry:
Okay. What’s the dog Instagram?

Vida Cornelious:
He’s just on my page, vida.c. But my dog’s name is Leo. Yeah, he’s very cute, and he’s going to be featured in one of our upcoming articles on departures, which is one of the big projects I do with our special projects team.

Maurice Cherry:
All right.

Vida Cornelious:
Yes.

Maurice Cherry:
Vida Cornelious, thank you so much for coming on the show. One, just for sharing the rich career that you’ve had in the advertising industry. I think certainly for people that are listening to this, I always try to get people that are at all stages of their career, whether they’re just starting out or whether they’re captains of industry like you are. So it was great to just hear about your journey as a black woman in this industry, but also to hear about how you’re really about making sure that you pave the way for the next generation. I mean, it’s one of those things where certainly we walk the road to make sure that the next gen has a much easier path. So I certainly think that with the work that you’ve done and that you’re continuing to do that you’re helping to make that happen. So thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Vida Cornelious:
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I love what you’re doing, I think it’s so important, so I’m happy to be an installment in what I would say is your legacy, observing all of our stories.

Sponsored by Brevity & Wit

Brevity & Wit

Brevity & Wit is a strategy and design firm committed to designing a more inclusive and equitable world.

We accomplish this through graphic design, presentations and workshops around I-D-E-A: inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

If you’re curious to learn how to combine a passion for I-D-E-A with design, check us out at brevityandwit.com.

Brevity & Wit — creative excellence without the grind.

Ashley Bozeman

Black history isn’t just confined to February, as this week’s guest Ashley Bozeman clearly indicates. As the first Black woman art director at The Martin Agency, Ashley brings years of professional experience to the table to help some of the most well-known brands in the world get their message across to their customers.

We talked shop about the day to day grind of working in advertising, and Ashley shared how her time at Hampton University and at The Creative Circus helped prepare her for the work she does today. She also gave some great advice for those looking to become art directors, and even spoke on how she finds time for joy in these current unprecedented times. Whether she’s putting together briefs or working on comps, Ashley is poised to become a top talent in the advertising industry. Keep your eyes on her!

Transcript

Full Transcript

Maurice Cherry:
All right, so tell us who you are and what you do.

Ashley Bozeman:
Hi. So my name is Ashley Bozeman. I am an art director here at the Martin Agency, which is located in Richmond, Virginia. So as far as the title of my actual role, so basically I work in the creative department at a creative ad agency. I’m usually paired with a copywriter and together we are the ones who are briefed and tasked to basically come up with ideas for campaigns, commercials, social posts, really anything you can think of. It’s our job to basically come up with that creative idea. And then specifically as an art director, it’s my job to bring that to life visually. So how does that look? Who is being represented? What are the color choices? What are the style choices? Cinematography, … working with directors and things like that, but we basically just, we’re the ones who control how everything looks. Whereas our partners are copywriters, they are the ones who control the tone of voice and what that sounds like and the scripts and things like that. So together we’re the ones, kind of the big brains behind a lot of the things you’ll see on TV as far as commercials and things like that.

Maurice Cherry:
It sounds like your work is a lot of, I guess meetings and sort of heads down work sessions. Is that true?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah. Yes, definitely a lot of meetings, but it’s also a lot of concepting. So it’s a lot of just, I was briefed earlier today, we’ll get a brief and then we’ll look at our calendars, “Hey when you have some time.” We’ll put two or three hours on our schedules and then we’ll just find a room in the office and literally just sit and come up with ideas. Ideas that are large and kind of lofty that we’re not sure if the clients would ever even buy or do. And then ideas that also fit the brief exactly. So we basically, we’ll just kind of get together and just kind of brainstorm of different ways we can kind of find the best solution for that problem in the brief to be solved or for something to be showcased in the best way possible.

Maurice Cherry:
And now this brief document that you get, this is coming? I’m assuming this is coming from the client or is this someone else is kind of putting this information together for you?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, so internally we have our strategists, so our strategists are the ones who had to work with a client and then they come and work on their own research and insights. So, basically develop a kind of, just kind of a brief, so it just, it’ll give us insights. It’ll have the actual problem they’re trying to solve. It’ll have a target demographic about when we’re trying to do said thing, have a timeline, maybe important events that are happening around that time too. That then they kind of all compile it together to kind of create this kind of, it’s usually about five or six page long document that we can also then use to kind of go back to, to kind of make sure that whatever ideas we do come up that they fit the brief and they fit that target … clients. And they fit the platform that they asked us to create on. Yeah, it’s kind of a mix. A lot of it does come internally, but they definitely have to use findings and have these conversations with the clients to make sure that it’s good to go.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, from what I heard, you were the first black woman hired there as a creative in the history of the agency. Is that true?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yes. So that’s actually pretty crazy. It’s pretty crazy considering I started in 2018, in the beginning of 2018. And I think I didn’t find that out probably at least a year and a half? A Year and a half maybe into my career here. But so it was kind of a shock. But I think also too, it was something that was also still really exciting. And I think that my friends and my parents, especially my mom, was trying to hype me up about, where initially I felt kind of scared. You know? You kind of feel worried like, “Oh okay, I don’t know if I really asked to be the first.” But something my mom always says is, “Well somebody has to be the first, so why can’t it be you?” So I think that things like that are also just so important when it comes to just kind of remembering your place. And then again, not take it as a negative, but just to know that like, “Hey, this is pretty exciting. We’re starting new things and somebody has to do it.” And all of us are more than capable in being that person.

Maurice Cherry:
Who are some of the brands or clients that you’ve been able to work with?

Ashley Bozeman:
When I first started out I primarily was working on Land O’Lakes Butter. So I know a lot of unnecessary facts about butter. Which is so funny with creatives and that’s why I love creatives, especially in the ad industry. Because everybody knows wild things about wild things, random things. It’s just so interesting. So I know a lot of things about butter, I worked on butter for almost a year. And then last year I did a lot of work for Discover Card, I’m a little knowledgeable actually in credit cards. So that’s kind of exciting. This year and at the end of last year too, I’ve been on more Oreo work, which has been fun and exciting. And then a lot of different other things. As we were pitching for Old Navy, I helped out with that some and that was really fun. And so many that they literally just have us go back and forth. I’m working on Penske now. I’ve done UPS. I’ve done Ritz Crackers, I’ve worked on that for a while.

Ashley Bozeman:
So, there’s definitely a lot of brands that I’ve had the opportunity to touch here, which has been fantastic. But then also too, we also just have a lot of cool brands too that I’m excited to hopefully touch this year, DoorDash and CarMax and things like that. So yeah, it just kind of changes and it’s nice because I’m never just on one thing. I’m usually on a few different things, so that, and I think especially when you have a mind that’s literally all over the place, it’s nice to be able to divert your energy into other paths rather than just one.

Maurice Cherry:
Is there a specific type of client that you enjoy working with? Because I would imagine in an ad agency you’re working with, like you just mentioned all these different clients, they’re in all these different industries. There’s a lot of variety there.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, there are. Yeah, there is. It’s interesting too because I think I find that, that almost changes sometimes. I think there’s been parts of every client that I’ve worked on so far that I really, really have enjoyed and I really, really liked. I think Oreo is really fun because they are kind of design heavy and I do love design and they also really love big ideas. So that’s kind of a really fun place to kind of come up with these larger ideas. But I think also too, I really love projects that use their platform to kind of spread a larger message. And I think that that’s something that’s really nice because it’s kind of few and far between. A lot of times people just want to make sure that their brand or their product is put, placed first, which I totally understand. But I think at the same time, I also love, love, love when a client can tap into an issue that is relatable for them and appropriate for them and they want to do something about it. And I think that that’s really fun and I think that’s what gets me most excited when I get, on [inaudible 00:08:52] like that.

Maurice Cherry:
Now, I have to ask this question because you’ve spent a lot of time talking about really sort of kind of the great things about your job and what it is that you do, but what’s the worst thing about being an art director in an agency?

Ashley Bozeman:
I would say the worst thing would probably, honestly and I think you can ask any art director this, I’m pretty sure they’ll say the same thing. I think the death of every art director is making comps and making comps is literally just the art of basically intense hours of photoshopping and searching for images. And let’s say you’ve come up with this grand idea, you said, “Okay, we want to make a truck that has a slide on the back of it.” And of course every client is just like, “Okay, I don’t know what that means. Can we see what that looks like?” So again, that’s our job so now we have to find a truck, I’m going on Getty and search all these things and find the perfect truck then photoshop that truck to make it Oreo branded, let’s say. And then put a giant, and then find another image of a slide that still fits and then still have it look somewhat realistic.

Ashley Bozeman:
So, I think that part can just be just such a time consuming thing because you can search for pictures for hours and you can get stuck in this hole for hours. And so I think that that might be the most difficult part, because how can you move fast but then also make something look as nice. So I think that that’s something I’ve really been working on this year too, is just my speed but then also to my craft and making sure that those two things go together. So, that can just be a little time consuming. But like I said, I think a lot of art directors can feel my pain when it comes to making comps.

Maurice Cherry:
So when you’re working together with the copywriter, are there, it sounds like you’re also kind of the designer too. There’s not designers that are in house that are helping out or you’re kind of?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yes. We definitely, we have a whole super, super talented design team and we also have a very super, super talented studio art team. The studio art, so that’s a group of people that will more so be the ones to kind of help us with those comps and kind of help us get things together and make sure the images are perfect and the files are perfect before they send them off to be shipped to whomever. And then our designers are more so, they’ll kind of sit in concept with us sometimes. So sometimes they’ll even be in the brief if it’s big enough, they’ll be in the brief with us and so then they know that they’re kind of concepting and thinking about it design-wise. Whereas we’re kind of focused on still the imagery, but also too the core of the idea. That’s still a big part of our job description as well. So we still have people who can help us out, but nine times out of 10 they have to kind of, they still have plenty of things they have to do on their own. So it’s just, I think as an art director you kind of have to be multifaceted. But I think a great art director is also a great designer and vice versa. So, it’s an interesting role because it kind of dips into a bunch of different things.

Maurice Cherry:
Was design kind of a big part of your childhood? Growing up, you grew up in Milwaukee from what you told me before we started recording. Was design kind of a big part of you growing up?

Ashley Bozeman:
So, you know what? Not necessarily design but more so just art. It’s interesting because, so I’m the oldest of five and both of my parents are super smart. My dad is an engineer. My mom has always been great at math and science and so I feel I came out and I was just this little, “Hey, let’s draw.” I just always felt, “Wait, what happened? How did I not get that gene?” But it’s fine. I think what’s interesting too is, now that I actually sitting here and talking about it, I think because of my dad’s job, we moved around quite a bit. And by moving around, we’ve probably moved around almost every three years. So, I was constantly going to new schools in new states and trying to, I was always the new kid, but I think I found comfort in art. I think that was something that wasn’t reliant upon somebody else. So if I were to move that summer or something, I could still draw, it was something that still keep me occupied. It was something that I really enjoyed, seeing a picture and then trying to, then bring it.

Ashley Bozeman:
Seeing a picture and then trying to then bring it to paper. So that was something I think kind of like that all kids do. But then I noticed that that was one thing that I really kept with. So I kept with it throughout middle school, I kept with it throughout high school, I even kept with it through, actually, through college, which I had then realized like, “Oh, maybe I should have majored in art. Maybe this should’ve been a thing.” But I still took, like I literally took an art class every single semester and there’s only one semester I did it and I literally could feel the difference. I just didn’t feel the same. So that’s when I realized, “Okay, like this is probably going to be a part of me forever.”

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Ashley Bozeman:
So yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Were your parents kind of really supportive of you going into art, like that?

Ashley Bozeman:
They were. They were and I thank them all the time and I’m just so appreciative. They’ve always been super understanding. They’ve always been very supportive in that, and so I always say it. Before I left or right after I had graduated from Hampton, I had gotten a degree in Public Relations, which I still really liked. But you know, I just, I don’t know, there was something about it where I was just like, “Okay,” I basically made a deal with myself. I said, “Okay, so I’m job hunting. You know, I’m looking for a PR job but I’m going to take art classes on the side because I think that that’s something really important to me.” So I was looking for jobs in different cities and I lived in Atlanta and so, of course, I was probably looking up the art schools before I was looking up the jobs, but … so that tells you a lot right there but …

Ashley Bozeman:
I found through a Google search, I was like looking through like art school and then up popped up two different things. It was the Portfolio Center and then the Creative Circus. And I remember reading through, because as I was doing like the job search or like as I was looking at like descriptions for the PR jobs, it was interesting because art director would never be that far because it’s still all in communications. And so I would always see that job position, that job role and I was just like, “Wow, that sounds so cool. It literally sounds right up my alley, but I don’t know how would I become an art director? That doesn’t make any sense.” And like, “That’s really cool. I don’t know how people get into it, but whatever.” Once I found the Circus I was looking through and it was basically, I was just like, “Oh, so this is a two year program where I could learn how to be an art director.”

Ashley Bozeman:
I said, “That sounds lit. That’s exactly what I want to do,” and so I remember I had like, I found it, I thought about it, like I prayed on it and I sent my parents this really long text one morning. I was just like, “Hey, I found this school. I know I wasn’t planning to go right back to school, but I found this school. I’m in Atlanta and I can study as an art director there. And I think that like, I think it’s legit. Like I think this is something I really want to do. It’s something I’m really interested in. What do you guys think basically?” And they were just like, I mean, “Okay, crazy girl.” They’re just like, that’s fine.” They’re like, “Okay.”

Ashley Bozeman:
So like I was like, I was the one who was like really stressed, like, “I don’t know, like hopefully they’ll be okay with it. X, Y, and Z.” They were like, “Yeah, that’s fine. Like, sure why not?” And so for that, I’m very thankful because I just know it’s hard. I think it’s hard really for anyone to kind of tell like their parents and stuff, especially after we just spent all this money at a four year university that, “Hey, I want to go to a portfolio school where, you know, also mind you, you don’t get a degree in.”

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Ashley Bozeman:
“You, more so, just get a certificate,” and it’s kind of crazy. It’s like, “Okay, so we’re about to put some more money back into schooling that you technically don’t get another degree in.” But I was trying to explain the importance. I was just like, “Well, look, like still like there’s like a 99% placement, 95, 99% placement rate after graduation. I think it’ll be great.” So yeah, they helped ride that wave with me ever since then and even before and still now. So for that, I’m very grateful. I know that that’s very much so a privileged that I don’t take lightly.

Maurice Cherry:
So I want to go back to the Creative Circus, but even before then you kind of glossed a little bit over the fact that you went to such a prestigious HBCU for undergrad. You went to Hampton University.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah. Those were some of the best years of my life so far. I think that’s where Ashley came to be Ashley. I think I had grown up in predominantly white institutions and places and schools. My mom was the one who actually really pushed for that. She was very adamant and “Hey, I know that, like, obviously, like we couldn’t help like by school district with so much like while you were in high school and stuff,” but she was like, “If you decide to go to HBCU, just know that this is probably one of the only times in your life you’ll be surrounded by so many beautifully educated brown and black people who look just like you and you just won’t necessarily get that opportunity anywhere else.” And the more I thought about it, it was interesting. I was a little nervous because I was actually going into the Hampton, I was worried that maybe I wasn’t “black enough.”

Ashley Bozeman:
You know, I didn’t necessarily have a lot of black friends growing up and I technically wasn’t in all those spaces and necessarily didn’t know all the music and things like that. Of course, I was still like with my family and stuff, but you know, it’s still not the same if you don’t have like a core group of friends and stuff in high school and things like that. So it just wasn’t the same. And so I was a little worried about that, but honestly it turned out that there were a lot of Ashleys at Hampton and it was fantastic. And I think I wasn’t the only one who felt that way, but that fear was just a projected fear that I had. It was never anything that actually happened. There was still a place for me as there was a place to someone who grew up in all black schools their entire life.

Ashley Bozeman:
I feel like that kind of flowing into Hampton was more, way more seamless than I thought it would be. But yeah, Hampton was an incredible experience. I have lifelong friends from there. I have bridesmaids, I have probably maid of honors, like I just have some of my best friends I’ll have for the rest of my life. I just love also, too, I think also, too, I came into terms of also celebrating just who I am and also being black and like how much, like how much power there is in that. And so Hampton taught me a lot of that as well. And so that’s really exciting and it’s interesting, too, it even transcended into some of my art, too. I notice growing up I actually drew more white women, more people who probably weren’t of a black ethnicity. It was interesting to kind of see how my sketchbooks have changed, too, by just being introduced into that.

Ashley Bozeman:
And then also like again, it’s important to know like … Well, it’s important as a child, even just growing up as a teenager, what you see and what your perception is on things and how much that affects you. But it was crazy how that was affecting my art and how I never really drew girls that necessarily looked like me, but now like if you asked me today like that’s all I do.

Maurice Cherry:
Wow.

Ashley Bozeman:
So it’s very, very, very interesting to see how just that influence that I think that I had [inaudible 00:06:55]. I think that that was probably the best decision I could’ve made. And that’s one of the best decisions I’ve made. Like flat out, in my 26 years or so.

Maurice Cherry:
You make an interesting point there about HBCUs. I mean, so I went to an HBCU also. I went to Morehouse and HBCUs in general are … I mean maybe this is just us speaking as black people, like they’re very warm, comforting open spaces for everyone.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
I don’t know if people that maybe don’t know the HBCU experience or just aren’t familiar with HBCUs in general really see that. But like it’s such a unique sort of family thing. I think one just among students and alums at a particular school, but also between HBCU graduate students and alums of other schools. Like we see like a certain kinship in other people that have went to HBCU. I don’t know if that, if that kind of makes sense or not, but, no. Essentially because you said your mom kind of really wanted you to go there to sort of soak up that culture. I’m curious to know like because Hampton has such a well known design program, I mean we’ve had several people on the show who have graduated from Hampton that went on to graduate school. Actually, you mentioned the Creative Circus, nikita Pope, she’s a Hampton grad. What was the program like there for you? Like did you feel like it really prepared you once you got out there as a working art director? As a working designer?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, so I think what’s interesting is I think as most … Well, I was 17, 18 year old going into college, I think I knew that I wanted to be kind of creative. I knew I liked things that were more like thinking based than creation based, but I don’t think I ever really knew how to fully get into it. And so with that being said, I think some of that, it was also, too, of my own misunderstanding and kind of almost like canceling it out completely. Whereas I think maybe I probably in those four years, I look back now and I’m just like, “Man, I wish I would’ve learned Photoshop and Illustrator and Adobe Suite during Hampton rather than trying to learn it at the Circus.” And so I think that was almost kind of my misstep in like not maybe taking full advantage of all the programs that were there currently in Hampton as I was kind of more so just focused on like just fine art and just drawing and painting and things like that.

Ashley Bozeman:
So looking back I’m just kind of like, “Man, if I would have only really known that like I could have done this and then went here and then that would’ve made sense then I think I absolutely would’ve set it up that way.” But I think, I know it’s not just me. I know it’s a lot of people. I think it’s just like you realize and you’re just like, “Oh, shoot, this was an option and this was a path.” And like looking back I definitely would have done some things differently as far as like my track and kind of like my major, definitely my minor. I think that they have a great solid program and I do have friends and I do know people who have successfully gone through the program, but they’re doing great now still, too. I just think I just wasn’t like for sure, for sure just yet, while I was at Hampton. It just wasn’t able to fully tap into all the resources.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, I think that’s probably like, I don’t want to say a regret, but I feel like that’s a regret for … Sometimes I think for people that are at schools, they don’t feel like they’ve gotten a chance to really utilize all the resources. It’s sort of one of those, you know, hindsight, this 20-20 kind of things. You look back and realize how good you had it in a way. But I mean what you learned at Hampton though at least kind of propelled you forward to then go to the Creative Circus.

Ashley Bozeman:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think also through Hampton, I think that also, one of big … Well, a really big takeaway that I got from Hampton is learning how to just work with people and learning to really come into your own. I think I feel like that that was almost like, I think college in general, it just, it comes at the right time and then always feels like it ends too early. But I’m sure that it ends right on time, but it definitely prepared me to work with people and professionalism and kind of again, like you were mentioning earlier about that sense of community that now I carry into when it comes to, here amongst all the employees here, Martin, but also especially our black employee network.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Ashley Bozeman:
And that’s something that I really lean into hard because I think it reminds me so much of Hampton. So it’s something that I really kind of latch onto and really try to kind of just, I don’t know, just really attach myself to, because it really feels like home.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah. So when you ended up going to the Circus and you were here in Atlanta, I’m curious like what was that time like for you? Because Creative Circus, I’m thinking, I’m sort of trying to line it up. So this is like between 2015 to 2017 what was that time like in Atlanta for you?

Ashley Bozeman:
Atlanta was a great time. So it was interesting because Atlanta necessarily wasn’t in one of my cities to live necessarily. But I realized that I had really made a home out of Atlanta by the time I … like those two years were up and I miss it almost every day. But I think my time there was just such a whirlwind, was probably the best way to explain it? It was like anything I’ve never, like I’ve ever experienced before. It was just, I just call it, it was just like this crazy two-year bootcamp, I felt like.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah.

Ashley Bozeman:
Because the Circus is also set up by quarters, so it’s pretty much year round, and so that was something new. I think also too, that’s the biggest city that I lived in and I lived in my own. Also, too, kind of just going off a whim and doing something that I personally did never knew of anybody doing before and kind of leaping out to take that chance was also really scary. And so I think, what I was like 22, I think I’d just turned 23 the day before my first day of class. And it was just a crazy time. But again, like that was just another time where I learned so much and I got to be just so creative and that’s something else, too, that I miss. There were like, there were barely any restrict

Ashley Bozeman:
… that’s something also too that I missed. There were barely any restrictions. There were barely any like, “Oh we can’t do that or you can’t use those colors. You can do that.” Like everything was open for grabs. There was time to actually do things and even as rushed and as stressed and as busy as we were because we were all those things all the time for those whole two years. At the same time, I think that I still made incredible, incredible friendships and experiences that like, again, kind of like the Hampton, I think that that play in my life will stay with me forever too. I think that that was such a big, important time as far as my career development and also my development as a creative.

Ashley Bozeman:
I really think that that was also the time that I really fell in love with design and digital design and graphic design and digital art and how to transfer my traditional skills and kind of put it more into like this modern day age. So it was like this big squirrel, but it was fantastic. And again, I think that that was also a great choice that I’m very happy I did.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Now when you look back over your career, look back over your education et cetera. Who are some of the people that have really helped motivate and inspire you throughout the years?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah. So I think a lot of times when I think about those people, a lot of times they are just people who have just been just kind. And a lot of times it’s friends, it’s family, everybody in between. So I would say that first off, of course my family is always super supportive, always have been day one, very thankful. Then I feel like I had my Hampton core group friends, they were always so supportive. I would call them in tears or super stressed out about a project and they would always pick up the phone, always be encouraging like, “Hey, we don’t really understand 100% but we know that you’re doing the right thing. So just keep going.”

Ashley Bozeman:
And then as I got to the circumstance stuff, I’ve met amazing creatives who are just all like just fantastic. And so I’m learning from them every day. And it’s really nice to also go through this journey at the same time with them and hearing similar stories. And I think that that’s something that’s more empowering that I think people may not realize, but having a group of people who are doing similar or pretty much the same thing as you but different places, it’s really cool to see us all grow all over the country. I have some really fantastic, fantastic coworkers who have now turned to friends who have now turned to family. And a lot of those people here at Martin, they are like brothers and sisters. They are like big brothers and sisters. They’re mentors. And I just am so thankful for all of them and I think that they are really single-handedly helping me navigate my career, which is priceless.

Ashley Bozeman:
I just learned so much from each and every one of them and I’m so thankful for their presence. But I think it takes a village and it’s been taken a village. So there’s a ton of people that I feel like I’ve been blessed with that can help me out with that.

Maurice Cherry:
Do you have a dream project that you’d love to work on one day?

Ashley Bozeman:
Yes, I feel like I’m not 100% sure what that is, but as far as like a name, I think my dream project would be visually stunning, very well designed. And then also too it would be for a bigger cause. It would either be for like a nonprofit, it would be either some kind of announcement. I’ve also always dreamed in maybe doing design or art direction for an art museum. Even like I’ve also been watching a lot of music videos lately. Low key I would love to art direct a music video. And then two, I think also my dream is to work on a movie one day.

Ashley Bozeman:
It kind of like it spans, it can be anything from like a book, like a very beautifully like well art directed well laid out books all the way to helping out to say that I was able to help out with even like a Pixar film if I could. Like be in the room to help out with like art direction or color or things like that. Things like that just really get me excited and those kind of projects too I think would help also to remind me of why I love my job in the first place and it all comes back to being able to make something and I think that that’s what I love the most is just physically making something and that’s why I love being an art director. I love coming up with ideas but also really, really love making things. Yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
I have to ask since you mentioned a music video, which artist would you work with?

Ashley Bozeman:
I mean obviously I love Beyoncé. I would do anything she would ever ask me to do. In drop of a dime if she called me right now, I would run to LA or wherever she’s at, but there are some really, really, really cool artists out here that I really love. So I recently watched … I believe her name is Victoria Monét. She just had a music video drop for her new song Moment and visually it’s beautiful. She did such an amazing job. Her art direction is fantastic. Like things like that I would absolutely work with her in a heartbeat.

Ashley Bozeman:
And also too, I’ve been watching a lot of Brent Faiyaz. He also has some really cool artsy and kind of grungy art direction, which I would also be very into. And obviously Solange also does a great job. There’s just a few different ones. And then even too, people I would also say don’t sleep on even some of the rappers like Playboi Carti, he also does a great job as far as like his editing team, kind of like I love the effort that’s being put behind a lot of these music videos. They’re just so visually engaging.

Ashley Bozeman:
And it’s just interesting because we don’t necessarily have that like 106 apart or MTV playing music videos all the time. You kind of have to go out of your way to kind of watch them. But I love that we’re still putting the effort behind them even if we’re not being watched all the time. You think that that would kind of die off, and in some aspects it has. And I think people that’s why maybe we don’t even have as many music videos on a consistent basis than we think we should. But I think I love music so much. And so to be able to tell a story within a song, I think that that would just be such a fun challenge and you can take that story so many different ways as people do and find meaning and find purpose for everything. But I think that that would be something really, really fun to do.

Maurice Cherry:
I am seeing how the music videos now for certain artists are certainly, it’s bringing me back to like the Heyday of the 90s when we had like Hype Williams video that you had like really dope videos by Missy and everything and it’s like you get so in throbbing. Of course you love the song, but then visuals along with the song, it makes each video like an event of sorts.

Maurice Cherry:
I feel like we have to really give it up to Michael Jackson for making videos releases and events like a prime time of it that people used to tune into. I remember as a kid tuning into watch Black or White or tuning into watch Remember The Time, but like yeah, now you really kind of don’t see that. It feels like the big thing now is the surprise drop. I mean like Beyoncé did it of course. And now everyone else is trying to find some way to get your attention really quickly. So it’s not only, yes, we want you to look at the video and consume the music. But it’s really about gathering your attention for a period of time.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah. And similar to how you felt like that. That’s how I felt in Atlanta when she dropped Lemonade. I vividly remember that night and I went over to my friend’s house saw that at HBO, we’d all brought stuff to eat and watch and I just remember just texting my mom like, “Oh my God, do you see this?” I think that that was fantastic. I think that also just goes to show the true craft and then like again that wanting to make something. Again, this is nothing she ever like necessarily had to do, but I think a lot of it for her and just like Michael, I think it’s that wanting to tell that story and go that extra step.

Ashley Bozeman:
Like yes, I made the song and yes I made the lyrics and I have to sing and perform it, but now it’s just like I want to bring it to life visually. And I think that that’s really, really exciting. And I think you don’t see that necessarily all the time. But all that to say too is like Lemonade, like that was an event and I just don’t remember the last music video since then. That has really felt like an event. I don’t know. Like I feel like my memory might be a little jog right now.

Maurice Cherry:
No, I think you might be right. Videos come out all the time, but it’s like they get shared on Twitter or something and you watch a vivo link, and you’re like, okay, then you go about your day. Like it’s not really something that you really are tuned in for or anticipated seeing. Because for the artists they want to surprise you with it. It’s like, “Oh, surprise. I put out a new music video.” And you’re like, “Oh, okay.” And you watch it and then that’s it.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, I know. I know. And that’s why I think her idea of like a visual album was fantastic. And then to also see all the songs coming to life from one bigger story, which I think also too, a lot of that just goes back to storytelling and the art of doing that, which is really fun. Whether you’re telling your own story or you’re entrusted to share someone else’s story. I think there’s a lot of power and there’s a lot of connectiveness that comes in being able to kind of bring those words and those experiences to life.

Maurice Cherry:
And I think we’re also fortunate to be at a time where the technology is also accessible enough where you don’t necessarily have to have the huge studio and the crew and everything. I mean people are shooting great music videos on iPhones with gimbals, like the tech and the hardware, I should say, has gotten a lot more accessible for more people to really kind of get into it.

Ashley Bozeman:
Right. Yeah, exactly. It is really cool to see how quickly things move every day. And I know people talk about that all the time, but really things move so fast and so it’s just like you’re just trying to ride away. I would say 15 seconds, but I feel like it’s less than that.

Maurice Cherry:
It is now. I mean you’re starting to see artists that are like … Actually I read this article and I’m sort of plugging work here for a minute, but I read this article on Glimmer, which is my employer’s glitch, but we have a lifestyle publication called Glimmer and one of the recent articles is about how artists manipulates their songs and their DJ system makes sure that they’re getting like the maximum out of streams and everything like that. So it almost feels like the music is not in as much about expression as much as it is about just charting or getting numbers, reaching some like arbitrary success metric.

Maurice Cherry:
And it’s good that you have the artists that are sort of outside of that, that are more interested in creating experiences. Like you mentioned Solange, you mentioned Beyoncé, I think Janelle Monáe is like another artist that tries to do that. Like just tries to elevate what she’s doing past just a track or an EP. She wants to make it like an experience.

Ashley Bozeman:
Exactly. It’s artists like that I really latch onto and I really respect them and their path because I think that that’s just like the definition of a true artist. Like you just legitimately want to make something for the sake of making it and expressing yourself. And I think that that’s so exciting. And also too, especially when you do a despite, maybe low views, may or may not help streams or whatever. I feel like in this day and age, if you’re really taking the time for music videos, a lot of times you’re just doing it out of artistry, which I respect. Especially really, really nicely well. Not just also like we’re just blowing this giant budget we have, getting this quarter of a million, million dollar budget. But outside of that we’re actually using it to actually sit down and craft a story. Those are the artists I respect the most.

Maurice Cherry:
What do you wish you would’ve been told about the advertising industry when you first started?

Ashley Bozeman:
I wish I would’ve known how quickly things move. And how things, things as far as like projects almost do like making me here today and gone tomorrow. It’s such an interesting thing and it’s such an interesting career choice because you are investing yourself. So like creatively and kind of like emotionally a little bit and mentally can be very straining and physically you can be very tired. So you’re just putting in all this energy-

Ashley Bozeman:
Basically you can be very tired, so you’re just putting in all this energy, and then into a thing that’s not even necessarily always for certain. So projects can still fall through. [inaudible 00:39:12] can be like, “Oh, we’re not going to do this.” Or they can be like, “Oh, we’re going to hold this for later. Oh, well, we don’t have the resources to do that right now, so we’re going to go ahead and table it.” There’s just so many factors that go into everything and way more factors than I think that people realize.

Ashley Bozeman:
Every time you see a really good commercial on TV now, I actually applaud it and I respect it because there are just so many factors that played into having great work get out there. So it’s just kind of hard. But that’s something I really respect.

Maurice Cherry:
How do you make time for joy?

Ashley Bozeman:
I make time for joy by, I think keeping to the things that I still want to do, regardless. I’ve learned that this job can be very stressful and there can be a lot of projected stress. It can be very rush, rush, rush, this, this, this. But I think what gives me joy at the end of the day, and when I go home and I go to sleep, is just my relationships with people and my friendships with people, and knowing how much those matter to me.

Ashley Bozeman:
So what brings me joy, I think, is doing whatever I can to maintain those, and to commit myself or be committed to still honoring the things that I still love to do on the side and actively making time for those things. So it can be kind of tough when you feel like you’re super swamped, and you have a lot of things going on, and a lot of projects, but I think it’s possible just with a little planning. A lot of things are possible with just like, “Okay, well let me move these things around so I can have some space.”

Ashley Bozeman:
And I also too, I think what I’ve been realizing lately, is just sometimes it’s solitude and sometimes it’s also just taking a step back and just finding joy and peace in also replenishing yourself. I think a lot of times too, we weigh outcomes, we define ourselves by the outcomes of our project. A lot of times, a lot, a lot, a lot of times, it’s because something fell through. A lot of times it’s not our fault, it’s just external factors. So I think it’s important for me to also find your way into other things, that I feel like maybe I do find more control in and putting more of my, some of that same, maybe not more, but at least some of that same energy that I put into for work things, that I will still put in for things like my side project, or if I want to just have a, I call them paint parties. My paint parties, it’s just me painting on my floor by myself.

Ashley Bozeman:
So overall though, I really do think that there’s joy all around us. I think it’s just our … Sometimes it can kind of feel scheduled or kind of like a responsibility. But in living in a world where things are so crazy, and things do move around so fast, and things get rescheduled, and this, that, [inaudible 00:02:58], you’re trying to keep up with things, I just feel like, “Well, hey, if I have to schedule time for me to [inaudible 00:42:03].” And if I put on my calendar, ‘Go have fun’ then that’s what I’ll do. But I find joy in my friends, and also, I find a lot of joy going to concerts too.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice.

Ashley Bozeman:
I love seeing live music, so that’s something that I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of, so I’m always at somebody’s concert. That’s something I plan to keep up.

Maurice Cherry:
What advice would you give to somebody that wants to break into the ad industry today?

Ashley Bozeman:
I would say, “Okay, cool. I’m glad that … I’m so happy that you’ve seen and considered this as an option.” I think that there are resources, and I think also too, it’s interesting now because I feel like the game is really changing as far as the way that recruiting is going. I think agencies, even Martin, is researching and finding new ways to recruit and find talent. It’s interesting, a lot of times it almost always felt like this secret almost. It’s just like, “How do you get into that? How do you do it?” But I think agencies are now trying harder to be more present, be more present at places like HBCUs, to go to more to a whole plethora of high schools and middle schools, to career fairs, which I’ve been to both and I’m helping with those efforts. Something that I’m also very passionate about.

Ashley Bozeman:
But I think that it’s definitely possible. I think if able, I think portfolio schools are a great, great, great in, a great in to the ad agency life. They really are a great pipeline to get in the door. But outside of that, just really tapping into those creative strengths, working on your craft and your skill, and then just feeling confident in concepting and coming up with ideas.

Ashley Bozeman:
But what’s lovely about ad agencies too, is what we tell everybody, is that there is usually a place for every type of person here, even if it’s not in creative. There’s usually some kind of space that everyone fits into. And so with that being said, I think it’s just so viable and it’s just, again, even if you’re not in [inaudible 00:44:10] department, I think there’s something to be said to be around so much creative energy and be in such a flexible environment. I really truly think, and I know a lot of people out there to feel the same way.

Ashley Bozeman:
But I feel like this is legitimately what I need. I feel like … I always tell people too, “In your heart of hearts, if you feel like you’re meant to do something, you might as well just start now because you’re going to end up doing it anyways because it’s not going to go away.” So, it’s just like, “All right, well if I’m able to start now, let’s just start now.” So yeah, but there’s a place literally for everyone and I think that’s what I love most about my job. Nobody, no two people, come from the same background or the same [inaudible 00:44:51]. It’s just different. But there’s all these different people but they all have a space, and so I think that that’s something to be said.

Maurice Cherry:
Where do you see yourself in the next five years? Like it’s 2025, what kind of work are you doing or working on?

Ashley Bozeman:
2025, at that point I feel like there’s probably a good chance I’ll probably be either in New York or LA. I would be working on some really, really cool, potentially lifestyle-esque brands. Whether that be like a Target, or do an interesting media company, like a Refinery29, or potentially even maybe even trying out what it’s like to be an art director at a magazine company like Elle or Ebony or any of those. And am I able to still empower people there too?

Ashley Bozeman:
I’m excited because I think by then my creativity will have branched out to something that’s still art direction, but I think might be a little different. And so that’s what I’m trying to figure out now, is what is it? I know I love creating, I know I love making things, but what are other ways I can also explore that too? And I also too, maybe I’ll have a side project by then that’ll just blow up, and then I can just be an entrepreneur for the rest of my life. You just never know and it’s just really exciting. But there’s so many opportunities to be creative but in different ways. So I’m excited to really explore those out in the next five years.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. Well, just to wrap things up here, where can our audience find out more about you and about your work online?

Ashley Bozeman:
My portfolio, which I’m working on updating currently, my portfolio is ashleybozeman.com. So A-S-H-L-E-Y B-O-Z-E-M-A-N.com. And then my Instagram is @AshleyCierraa. So A-S-H-L-E-Y C-I-E-R-R-A-A. So those are the two places that I am the most, especially Instagram, but I’m usually always around.

Ashley Bozeman:
I’m always down, I always answer almost every DM. Or if anybody who ever wants to chat or has any questions too about just getting started, that’s something I love to do. And I love to get people excited and just talk about it as a career. But I love to help out in any way that I can. I think that it’s so important to still reach back. And I know that I’ve only been doing this for two years, but if there’s some way I can help, I definitely will.

Maurice Cherry:
Nice. All right, well Ashley Bozeman, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you really for sharing your story about what it’s like being a young black woman working in the advertising industry, and then also sharing the things that inspire you. We have people, I think really of all ages, that are listening to this show. We’ve got students, we’ve got captains of industry, et cetera, and we try to hit just a lot of different points of creativity and design and everything. So it’s always good to hear from the perspective of someone that’s, I wouldn’t say just starting out in it, but you’ve been in it for a while now.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah. But basically, yeah.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, but I mean to get the perspective of what is it like for you now at this stage? I mean, 2020 for all intents and purposes, is the future, in a lot of ways.

Ashley Bozeman:
Yeah, I know. It’s scary.

Maurice Cherry:
Yeah, and I mean it’s good to know that you’re at a position where you’re able to craft the images that a lot of people see when it comes to representation for a number of different brands and companies, et cetera. That’s a really big mantle to hold. So it sounds like definitely you have the creativity and the skills to make it happen, and I’m going to be really interested to see what you work on in the future. So thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Ashley Bozeman:
Oh, my God. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fantastic. It was lovely to talk to you and yeah, just thank you so much for having me on this platform, and hopefully that this’ll help or inspire someone else.


RECOGNIZE is open for essay submissions for Volume 2! The deadline is April 30 – enter today!

Sponsors

Facebook Design is a proud sponsor of Revision Path. The Facebook Design community is designing for human needs at unprecedented scale. Across Facebook’s family of apps and new product platforms, multi-disciplinary teams come together to create, build and shape communication experiences in service of the essential, universal human need for connection. To learn more, please visit facebook.design.

This episode is brought to you by Abstract: design workflow management for modern design teams. Spend less time searching for design files and tracking down feedback, and spend more time focusing on innovation and collaboration. Like Glitch, but for designers, Abstract is your team’s version-controlled source of truth for design work. With Abstract, you can version design files, present work, request reviews, collect feedback, and give developers direct access to all specs—all from one place. Sign your team up for a free, 30-day trial today by heading over to www.abstract.com.

We’ve had several folks from Slack here on Revision Path, and the latest one is digital designer Angelica McKinley! She has a wealth of experience in digital storytelling from working at The New York Times, and she’s now making the switch from print to tech.

We talked about her work at The New York Times, which went into a discussion on how Black creatives use tech as well as on the importance of HBCU pipelines. Angelica also shared what has her excited at the moment, and what she plans to accomplish for the rest of this year. 2017 has been a big year for Angelica, and I’m glad that she’s one of hundreds of talented Black creatives out in the Bay Area!


Did you like this episode? Get special behind-the-scenes access for just $5/month!

rp_patreon_banner


Revision Path is sponsored by Facebook Design. No one designs at scale quite like Facebook does, and that scale is only matched by their commitment to giving back to the design community.
fbdesign_logo_75
Revision Path is also sponsored by Hover. The first 100 clicks on hover.com/revisionpath will get 10% off their domain!
hover_logo_75
Revision Path is brought to you by MailChimp. Huge thanks to them for their support of the show! Visit them today and say thanks!
mailchimp-logo
Revision Path is also brought to you by SiteGround. Save 60% off all hosting plans by visiting siteground.com/revisionpath. Excellent!