#AlumniSpotlight Craig Miller

#AlumniSpotlight The Creative Circus graduates the most sought after creatives in the industry. Take a moment to read about the lives, careers & personal stories of some of our fantastic alumni.

Craig Miller
Creative Circus Alumnus – Copywriting (2000)

VP/Group Creative Director at BBDO Atlanta
Portfolio

Advice to the graduating class:

The Millenial Generation has a stigma attached to it. People see you as entitled, spoiled, self absorbed and self-important. Frankly, I’m amazed at how often the stereotype has held true. I saw one millenial in their first job out of school recently quit and complain about having to order food and work overtime. Bad idea. And one young person I worked with on a freelance assignment once said to me, “the best option is whichever one I can finish by 6pm.” Another bad idea. But to be fair, when I was a young Gen Xer coming up, I wasn’t much different. But I wish I had been, because it hurt my career. I wish I could go back and slap my younger self across the face sometimes, and say, “Do you think good things just fall in your lap without you working your tail off for them? They don’t.” Don’t let that happen to you. EARN your advancement. PROVE your worth. Don’t expect mentorship. Don’t expect anyone to care about teaching you or “developing” you. People jump from job to job every 12-24 months it seems these days. Would you spend time developing someone who’l be gone that soon? Learn from doing. Learn from watching. Ask questions. Volunteer to help with the shittiest assignments. Have a good attitude. I used to think I was the most talented guy in the room. I wasn’t. And even if I had been, it doesn’t matter. Talent means jack squat. Potential means jack squat. Everyone’s talented. Everyone has potential. What will make you different is your attitude and work ethic. It’s about doing. So don’t expect to move up until you’ve done something amazing. Do take out the trash. Do order food. Do any soul crushing menial task you’re asked to do and do it with a smile, knowing that everyone before you did it too. Stay late. Come in early. Make your boss’ job easier. Have a tremendous attitude. Be the ultimate team player. At CP+B we took pride in “jumping on grenades” for each other. Yes. Do that. Always. Every second you waste thinking about whether you’re getting what you deserve, is one second further away from actually deserving it and getting it. You will be amazed at how fast you’ll find yourself moving up if you do this.

Advice to the Incoming Class:

See above. But also, make sure not to fall in love with your own ideas. Worry about becoming an idea machine. I spent too much of my time at Circus trying to polish mediocre ideas, and not enough time coming up with great ones.

What do I wish I knew while at Circus: 

See Question 1. Also, I wish I’d been a bit more courageous about my ideas. The great agencies hire people who show them something that they’ve never seen before. However, there’s often too much emphasis at the schools on making your book “bulletproof”. Screw that. Make it awesome. Make it the book of someone YOU’d hire in a heartbeat.

What does The Circus mean to me:

It was a special time for me. Great friends. Learning that creative work is a lot more of a skill than a talent.

Lightbulb moment for me while in school:

It was probably my first class. Radio. I was scared shitless. I had no idea if I could even do any of it. I was scared I’d be terrible and wind up dropping out. But I presented my first radio spot, and it wasn’t the worst in the class, and I said, “OK, I can make this happen.”

Life as a copywriter:

Harder than you think when you’re coming up. A crazy juggling act, and a very different job than the one you’ve been doing. But also, very gratifying when you get the hang of it a bit.

Favorite project:

I’ve had loads of fun on many projects. But the most rewarding was definitely Domino’s Pizza Turnaround. It’s extremely rare to have a fast food franchise owner hugging the ad agency creative team, but that actually happened on this one. The campaign was the summation of something I’d been trying to do since my circus days, be radically honest. I had a campaign in my student book for Prell shampoo, with people having all these amazing things happening to themselves due to their hair, and the line “It’ll never happen. Might as well use Prell.” And I’d always wanted to do something that honest. With pizza turnaround, it happened and it happened in a big way. And Colbert did a 4 ½ minute segment about our campaign, naming Domino’s his Alpha Dog of the Week, completely unbeknownst to any of us until it happened. So that was pretty cool.

 

Work examples:

Domino’s Pizza Turnaround. Budweiser “Harry Caray’s Last Call”. Volkswagen Routan Babymaker3000, Jammie Dodgers “A Certain Gooey Thing.”