Creative

Basically, it all started they day I got laid off from my old writing job. It wasn’t a great job: client side and based on writing a ton of emails about coming to seminars that were supposed to make you all this money, but really just made my employer stinking rich. However, not rich enough to side step the recession that hit last year. Once people’s lines of credit started drying up, so did our attendance levels. Based on that, my employer cut about 80% of the staff. What a crappy day that was. Looking back though, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Everyone, please make note that getting fired during the biggest recession in 70 years is not as fantastic as it sounds. After getting over the original shock of being let go, I did what I figured the normal course of action was: I gathered my portfolio up, and hit the streets in my very best “I’m a hip creative guy” outfit, consisting of an inappropriate t-shirt, a tattered blazer, and a really euro-trash scarf (we all have regrets).

I met a lot of creative directors; many promising the moon, and one that actually asked me to start a new agency with him. Alas, nothing came of any of this. My phone never rang, and between 100–100000000 emails went unanswered.

Months have gone by at this point, and really the only feedback that I get is that I need more “spec work” in my book to show how far I can push ideas. Now, I get that spec is part of life in the ad business, but the whole thing seemed really self-serving and useless to me. I have lots of real working ads here folks; does that matter? No? Oh … uh, okay then.

At this point I started thinking. There are heaps of copywriters that just got laid off, many of them more senior than me—with bigger portfolios, and better connections. If I was going to get hired, I needed to do something amazing.

It was around this time that I started using Twitter quite heavily, and ran into a fellow by the name of Eric Proulx. He had (and still has) a website called Please Feed the Animals. It’s all about his experience of being laid off, and what he’s doing with his life in lieu of work. I was inspired by his glaringly positive attitudes on the lives of creative people, and the idea that we weren’t slaves to anyone but our own boundaries. His site grew and changed, and eventually he put up a barter section where you could trade services with other creatives to achieve mutual goals. That’s what really got me percolating. If he could barter via his site, why couldn’t I barter on Twitter? At this point I just wanted to put up a “really good” portfolio site, and needed a “really good” web developer. Of course, I couldn’t afford “anyone”.
Via trade-services, though, my only boundary was indeed myself, and how much work I was willing to trade.

With a few good barter-partners set up (web developer, photographer), I now had the potential to create a credible portfolio site—but I still knew that unless I did something great, older, more experienced writers would likely out maneuver me. I really had to think. Maybe I could create a campaign? Not spec, but a real campaign for a non-profit group. That would do two things: (1) show what kind of work I could really produce if I had no restraints, and (2) actually do some social good. I’ve always wanted to create work with real meaning; maybe this was my chance? In deciding what cause to focus on, all I needed to do in Vancouver was consider my old daily walk to work. I walked through an area called The Downtown Eastside, where the majority of Vancouver’s Heroine and Meth users hang out. It’s a post-apocalyptic scene featuring hundreds (thousands?) of limping and confused addicts of all ages. Some with mental health issues, and others just lost—taken in by the escape afforded by hard-drugs. There are all sorts of ideas to solve this humanitarian crisis (and it is a crisis) from housing creation and soup kitchens, to welfare cheques and safe injection sites to curb blood-borne diseases. I sort of saw all of these efforts as band-aids: temporary fixes to shore up the hemorrhaging. I felt the real solution would come from two places. (1) Stopping the flow of drugs, and (2) educating at-risk youth so they could begin normal lives, and not crawl too far down the rabbit hole.

I don’t really recall how it happened, except that I was sleeping off a budget hangover, and the idea flashed through my head. Homeless Copywriter. Being a freelance copywriter, I was sort of homeless in a professional sense; why not draw comparison from my employment status to that of actual homeless people? The idea would be: I’m out of fulltime work, but I can help myself. These people are out of work, on the streets, and totally screwed—they need your help. Please give. My charity of choice would be the Covenant House, as they focus on helping and educating homeless youth—the root of the issue.
Not bad, but still quite focused on the promotion of me.

After hashing out the first copy deck and sharing it with my web development partner, Fuse Interactive, the project really started moving. I linked up with photographer Cory Permack, and did the photoshoot for the creative. Originally, it consisted of the four pieces of creative you see on the site now, plus a series of shots featuring me holding cardboard signs saying stuff like “Will write ads for $$.” The shots of me with the signs were originally supposed to rotate on the front page with some support copy talking about how we need to help the homeless by donation to a yet undetermined partner. The idea was still about decreasing homelessness, but there was still a pretty big self-promotional slant to my thinking. Sort of “look how edgy and clever I am … I’m a hip writer saving the world with my out-of-the-box idea… hire me.”

Meh

I have a friend named Mark Busse. Mark runs an award-winning Vancouver agency called Industrial Brand, and is a past President of the Graphic Design Council of Canada. Needless to say, Mark knows his stuff when it comes to communications. On top of that, Mark is a very direct and non-partial person. The type of guy who calls it like it is—not necessarily passing judgment, just giving out his two cents at super-sonic velocity.
Mark had a good look over my concept (he owed me a favour, and foolishly agreed to help out with designing a logo and graphic identity for the site), and brought up a damn fine point. He said, “People are going to think you’re leveraging a charity for your own promotional gain.” Well, I was shocked—astounded! And totally called out. He was right; I had originally set out to promote myself in search of a great agency job. Along the way, though, something happened. I stepped out of my myopic state, and was actually doing the work to make social change. I actually gave a shit, and wanted others to do the same. The concept needed editing.

As a creative, I’m usually handed down edits, and have to chop-up and change work based on someone else’s strategic decision. Changing your own work because you realize it needs a redirect is a very sobering experience. There’s no one to blame but yourself, and if you need to cut elements you loved or worked hard on, they simply have to go. So, to that effect, I decided to lose all the shots of me holding the signs, and bury my portfolio deep in the site—as an aside. In fact, when you went to the new “About me” section, it took you to another URL: Geoffvreeken.com. At this point, I’m really much more interested in helping street youth than myself. I can get a job on my own, but these kids need real help.

After a number of lengthy phone and email conversations, I finally went down to the Covenant House for a meeting with Marty and Michelle, their communications team leaders. I ran through the project, and they were happy someone had taken an interest in the cause. They let me know that Covenant House had really never done any online fundraising campaigns, and that their primary donations came by way of response to direct mail campaigns. Direct mail aimed at Baby Boomers, that is—not Gen-Xers, or Millenials. They then began to run me through the gamut of what they offer kids, and the cycles they go through. Because Covenant isn’t government funded, they don’t have a bureaucratic body telling them when the kids need to move on. As a result, they are flexible to the needs of every drop-in; offering first stage care to meet basic needs like a hot shower, food, clean clothes and a safe place to sleep. The entire facility has a zero tolerance policy on booze and drugs, so kids have to leave their substances on the outside. Most kids drop in six or seven times before they even bother attempting to trust the Covenant team. That’s because so many of them have been screwed over by every authority figure in their lives. From parents and foster parents, to teachers and police, the kids have been left behind by an entire system. By left behind, I’m referencing the fact that they’re considered adults by the Canadian system at only 16 years of age. Then it’s best of luck, and see you later.

After a number of visits, some of the kids start to open up. They begin to wonder what Covenant House can actually do. That’s when the facility offers up all sorts of programs. Subsidized, semi-monitored living, work programs, education programs, counseling and a whole lot more. (Link to Covenant’s program page).

Now that I had my creative elements sorted, and the website all kitted out, I was ready to go. I wondered about what sort of fundraiser/launch party I could cook up. That was a short thought, as I can’t organize a decent house party, nonetheless a gala. So, I called a good friend who is a partner at Spark, a local PR firm. Like all the other partners involved, they stepped up huge, offering help with overall press, and the organizing of the fundraiser.

So there you are. The whole story. Now go donate already.