PR / News
NISH SHAH
06 October 2020
NISH SHAH
VP, Strategy
Initiative, Toronto
One part strategy, one part creative, Nish has developed award winning work across a broad range of clients and agencies from creative to media.
In his current role as Vice President of Strategy, Nish goes beyond what is expected, redefining the work of a media agency. Initiative was also recently named "Media Agency of the Year" by Strategy Magazine, a first for the agency.
Outside of work, Nish also serves on the Board of Vibe Arts, a non-profit focused on supporting emerging artists and bringing arts education to underprivileged youth in order to help them discover their creative potential. In his spare time, Nish enjoys spending time with his family, collecting vinyl records and dancing off-beat.
Finding Joy in Uncommon Places
Have you ever asked yourself what the point of all this is?
Ads that are viewed for mere seconds. Click-through rates that are close to zero. Views that were never even fully in view.
We spend months, tirelessly working on the launch of a campaign only to quickly move on to the next.
Underneath it all, there is a growing anxiety towards the fleeting nature of our work.
You are not alone.
Things feel even more pronounced lately: working from home, a global pandemic, injustice. Chaos all around us.
So, how do you pick yourself up and move forward?
After many years in this industry, I can say with certainty that the relationships we build across our teams, clients and peers are the only things that are not fleeting.
Cue eye roll. Here's yet another article about "people being the most important element within this industry".
Wait! Don’t go click on something else just yet.
This is not another piece about the vague importance of people. It's about what you can do for the people, and for yourself in the process.
And the secret lies in finding joy in the mundane.
There's no denying the fact that every job has it. So, let's just call it what it is.
Every so often, you will find yourself working on a project that reminds you of why you fell in love with this industry in the first place. It will light your fire all over again. However, what do you do when you are not working on that project?
I've found that you can find that fire again simply by looking at the most mundane task on your to-do list (or are we using the bujo method now?) and ask yourself: How can I bring a little bit of joy to it?
Let’s take the dreaded campaign wrap-report as an example. Packed with data, observations and next steps. Often hundreds of slides long.
A mundane task.
We recently turned a wrap report into a Spotify playlist with each track representing a key learning. Presented as the back of an album cover with a link to the playlist to listen to while reading the larger wrap report.
It was completely unexpected but brought so much joy to everyone involved.
We have turned wrap-reports into pop-up books, spoken word poems and plenty of vinyl records with an accompanying record that represented the essence of the campaign handpicked from the nearest second hand store. The best two dollars you will spend when you see the joy it brings.
Everything can be creative. Everything communicates.
I promise, it is something that works no matter what your role is, what discipline of advertising you are in or if you have been in this game for one year or twenty. It is an approach that has consistently brought me joy.
If you are feeling stuck, especially right now, look for something mundane that you can flip the script on. We all need to feel like we are making forward progress in our careers. I would argue that we also need to feel that what we are doing actually matters. Doing something that brings joy to others accomplishes both.
Equally important, if you manage teams, ask them what they are currently working on that is bringing them joy. And if they can't find anything then help them turn one of their tasks into something that will. A simple question but packed with so much potential for both you and them. Double Rainbow.
We are all just rhyme artists trying to grind our hardest.
Sometimes it’s as simple as inserting a De La Soul reference into your writing.
All it requires is a little imagination, creativity and play.
Isn't that why we got into this crazy industry we call advertising in the first place?