Web Site Offers Advice on How to Get Ahead in Advertising

By STUART ELLIOTT

A longtime advertising executive and copywriter is behind an effort that might be called virtual mentoring for Madison Avenue.

Mat Zucker, who has held senior creative posts at shops like Agency.com, OgilvyOne and R/GA, is starting the Hindsight Career Project, which will live on a Web site, hindsightproject.net. The purpose of the initiative is described on the home page: “What we learn when we look back.”

Visitors to the Web site can watch video clips in which executives, from both the creative and account sides of the industry share advice by recounting stories about their careers. The videos are meant to address “a mentorship gap in the industry,” Mr. Zucker said, and are aimed at “people coming into the industry and mid-level people who want to move up.”

The first videos on the Web site present recollections of experienced executives who include Sarah Barclay, executive creative director at JWT; Brian Collins, chief executive at Collins; Matt Eastwood, chief creative officer at DDB New York; and Barry Wacksman, chief growth officer at R/GA.

The initiative is part of a nascent trend in advertising that seeks to use new media to share teachable moments. For instance, a New York agency, Seiter & Miller Advertising, has a channel on YouTube devoted to what it calls “Advertising's Greatest War Stories.”

Mr. Zucker is starting Hindsight with David Gaddie, a director at a production company, the Colony, and Andrea Leminske, a producer. Mr. Zucker said he hoped the effort could be expanded to include “technology, strategy, media and public relations.”

At this time, there are no sponsors for Hindsight on ads on the Web site, “but we will be seeking a funding mechanism to keep it going,” Mr. Zucker said.

A trailer for an initiative called the Hindsight Career Project offers people who want t o get into the advertising industry, and want to get ahead in the industry.

 

 

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter by clicking here.