Angela Reid is copy manager for Starbucks Global Creative, the in-house creative group at Starbucks Coffee Company, where the work includes packaging, collateral, naming, regional and national advertising, international in-store promotions, innovation/platform development, you name it.
This is her first-ever, in-house job, after fourteen years at several West Coast ad agencies, including both FCB and DDB in Seattle. She’s created work for JanSport, NARAL Pro-Choice, Brooks Running, Eddie Bauer, The North Face, Columbia Crest Winery, Ronald McDonald House and several banks, breweries and cruise lines. She helped create the "I’m in." community service campaign for Starbucks, raved about by Oprah and her guests on a recent show. Her work has been recognized in CA, Print, HOW, Graphis, Archive, several regional awards shows and the Cannes shortlist; she is also a twice-selected poet for Seattle’s Bus Poetry Project.
08.04.09
Know How To Generate Ideas
If you have a degree in what field is it? BA in Communication from Washington State University.
If you could choose one person to work with (outside your own agency), who would it be? Jon Stewart. Oh, did you mean someone in advertising?
Who was the client for your first advertising project? Molbak’s Garden Center.
If you were to change professions, what would you choose to do? Something nerdy. Something to do with medicine, perhaps. Something that requires more school than I can afford.
What do you consider to be the greatest headline of all time? “One hundred years from now no one will find your e-mail lovingly bundled in ribbon and hidden under the bed.” Crane’s can thank Kara Goodrich for my continued patronage.
From where do your best ideas originate? After a good night’s sleep. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?
How do you overcome a creative block? Talk to someone who knows nothing about my assignment—better yet, someone who knows nothing about the business of advertising. My scientist husband is great for this.
If you could choose any product to create an ad for, what would it be? Public transportation badly needs a rebranding.
Do you have creative outlets other than advertising? I used to write a regular “column” that I distributed via email to about 100 subscribers. But then I had a baby, and now I just write about him. Blogs are the modern-day baby books.
What’s your approach to balancing work and life? Sometimes great ideas happen outside of work. And sometimes Facebook happens at work. This is the kind of business where work and life bleed into each other and I’m okay with that.
What product/gadget can you not live without? The Week. It summarizes all of the angles on all of that week’s news stories, mined from multiple media outlets. I would otherwise have no idea what’s going on in the world.
What’s your favorite quote? I have two and unfortunately, they seem to contradict each other: Voltaire's “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” and William Gibson's (Neuromancer) “Measure twice, cut once.”
Do you have any advice for people just entering the profession? Sure, be good at TV and spread ads, but also be recession-proof—know how to generate good ideas for anything, in any form.
What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started your career? The reason some people in the business make it look so impenetrable is because they're afraid you may actually be better than they are.