From zero to hero

I'm ready for the screenings now

Most of the work is done. My portfolio is ready and I've made CD-Roms in the same style of my book. As I told before, the theme of my portfolio is music. The portfolio is in the shape of an album and vinyl records in the book are the chapters. And in the electronics store I actually found CD-Roms that look like vinyl records. Now that's a fortunate coincidence!

Last week I was interviewed by a Belgium newspaper called 'De Morgen'. Recently I got the article in my e-mail. The heading above it was 'From zero to advertising hero'. It's always funny to see what journalists write about you. That journalists can't always stay neutral is something I experienced after reading an article about my trip to Croatia.

The Belgium article about the Miami Ad School was painfully true though. When I read about my time before Miami Ad School, how the first two years as a copywriter were really succesful and how I fell into a deep hole the years after, I thought: ouch, this must sound really depressing. But it's the truth. It was depressing. In fact, it was even worse than the way it was was written there.

But then I read about the story of Menno Kluin. His story before the Miami Ad School is also full of dissapointment and shattered dreams of breaking through in advertising. And as lot of people know, Menno is right now one of the best creatives in the world. From zero to hero really fits in his story. Although I never considered him a zero, because when I first talked to him in the Young Dogs-bus to Cannes he already had the enthusiasm of a future hero.

My career has probably been one of the weirdest. It goes from hero to zero and back again. And it's definitely the Miami Ad School that brought me back on track. Some creatives from Holland might cynically argue that I bought myself back into advertising. They think I was already good when I applied for the school and that I just needed the network that the school provides me. I can tell for sure that that's not the case. All the work I made before, even the award winning work, fades away by the work that I have in my portfolio right now. And if you read all my posts you'll find out that it hasn't been easy.

There are more students in this school that were advertising underdogs before. And they are often the ones that become the best. Not because they were good before, but because they know what they're fighting for. They know what happens when you fail in advertising and they'll work twice as hard to make sure that doesn't happen. Only after you've been a zero you know what it really means to be a hero.