Sam Cable: Serviceplan, Hamburg Diary #8

Sam Cable is a copywriting student at Miami Ad School Sydney, currently interning at European ad agency Serviceplan, Hamburg as part of her portfolio course.

Our days at the internship are becoming shorter, just like the hours of daylight before the German winter kicks in. Weekdays are spent immersed in the world of headlines, adjectives, and crumpled pieces of paper. While weekends involve afternoons filled with barbecued meats and lying next to the Alster Lake. Especially on Sundays, the parks are alive with families and friends enjoying each other’s company. When children are not throwing Frisbees into the sky, they are running with their soccer balls getting in the mood for the world cup. Laughs are had, moments are shared, and the sailboats ebb and flow on the lake as the sunset disappears into the horizon. Hamburg is truly a sight to behold.

This week’s Internship Fact relates to using time wisely. My art director, Rafael Martins, and I have been in a team for the last three months, and it is only now we have discovered the perfect work rhythm. Rafael prefers the cool, quiet evening to ideate, while I prefer the loud, busy morning. Normally, our middle ground is late afternoon. It seems we are always racing against the clock. But when we create meaningful work, everything seems worthwhile.

During the course of the internship, I have come to the conclusion: advertising is not for the faint hearted. It is for the competitive, the brave, and the ones that will stop at nothing to make an idea work. The ones that will stay awake until 2am, and have the patience at 9am to work on a different route when the clients change their mind. Advertising is for those who put 100% effort into the 5% that makes the final cut. I have learnt that if you want to be in this industry, you have to love what you do more than anything else. Because it is only in advertising, someone in the office can yell, “If I was to buy a hover fridge where would I get one from”, and no one bat an eyelid.

A corporate place where,

Imagination runs wild?

An ad agency.

For more haikus, follow me @TheSamCable

Samantha Cable, copywriter

Sydney, Miami Ad School

Rafael Martins, art director

São Paulo, Miami Ad School