Old Boys at Career Day - Sam Gold '78

“Advertising is a job where having a short attention span is actually an asset,” says Sam Gold ’78, who works as English Creative Director in the Montreal office of TBWA, an advertising firm with over 250 offices in 75 countries.

“When I was a student at Selwyn House, I loved lunch, I loved to play basketball, and I loved English,” Sam told the students. “I had an English teacher who wanted us to write, he wanted us to think out of the box, and it was the only class I didn’t fall asleep in.”

“I skipped a lot of school in Grade 9 and I just sat at home and watched television,” Sam recalled. “I started to memorize TV commercials and realized how much I hated them. I think commercials are a necessary evil.”

“After I left Selwyn House the first thing I thought was ‘I don’t want to wear a tie.’ It sounds superficial, but I wanted to wear jeans and t-shirts for the rest of my career.” Sam asked himself: “What can I do that will allow me to play for a living?”

With TWBA, Sam oversees all aspects of the agency’s English creative product, which can be a TV commercial, radio commercial, newspaper/magazine ad, outdoor billboard or a web initiative. The Montreal office of TBWA is described as one of the hottest advertising networks in the world, with a list of clients that includes Apple, Nissan, Alcoa, Maple Leaf, Nivea and Sears.

“I’m supposed to come up with the ideas for the commercials. My job is to think of fun and meaningful ways to get guys like me to buy a product.”

Asked what a young man should do to prepare himself for a career in advertising, Sam advised: “Go out there and read and surf the Net.”

“The single biggest phenomenon that has changed my industry is The Internet,” he said.

When developing an ad campaign, material is submitted to clients and approved all by email. “We have clients that we’ve never even met,” Sam says.

Sam also recommended checking out online video. “You can get anything on YouTube,” he says. Any interesting video, whether produced by professionals or amateurs, quickly finds its way onto YouTube. “Sharing is what we’re all about. There’s no proprietary domain when it comes to commercials.”

How can an advertising firm get the most out of its creative employees? “Give people a cell phone and a laptop and kick them out of the office and into the real world.”