Must love dogs: How I found a rewarding career at CurrentMarketing

Before I was a part of CurrentMarketing’s social media team, I was a photojournalist. As a photographer you think of photojournalism as changing the world one well composed frame at a time. I’ve been a part of some great storytelling, but as a freelancer it seemed more often than not I was standing at a ribbon-cutting with 20 other people, 15 of which were holding the ribbon and the other five were holding news cameras or microphones. I was ready for a change and a new challenge, and I certainly got that by joining CurrentMarketing’s team.
I had no agency experience, or any clue as to what I could expect at CurrentMarketing (besides dogs, lots of dogs). The biggest question was would I find advertising rewarding? It took me all of a week to figure out I loved working at CurrentMarketing – maybe even just a few days. Much of my time spent here has been learning the business as we go, and as my understanding of advertising grows, so does my passion for it.
Last year, we handled a campaign for one of our clients, Texas Steakhouse and Saloon, that I am very proud of and found incredibly rewarding. During the entire month of November we collected letters for US troops and the response was overwhelming. Hundreds of heart-felt letters began pouring into our office the following week. We received over two thousand total.
Part of our job was to review the letters. People of all ages sent us letters, from former servicemen and women who have been retired for decades to children who were barely old enough to write. The messages were always positive, and some tugged heavy on the heart strings.
“Come home soon, daddy,” was one that stuck out to me. The child signed their name and age – he was only five years old.
A retired naval officer prayed they have strength through the holidays, because he knew they were the toughest times when he was deployed years ago.
Some of the restaurant servers took time out of their busy schedule to say how much it means to them that the troops sacrifice so much.
Working on this project was a pleasure. Unlike turning in a photo from a crappy assignment and wondering whether or not anyone will even notice it, I know these letters will be appreciated. Service men and women will hold these letters and get to read these positive messages, and they will be thankful for them.
I’m thankful I work at a place that’s able to make things like this happen. I’ve loved every minute of working at CurrentMarketing, from the office dogs to our daily Jolt meeting. I feel like I’m building a rewarding (there’s that word again) career for myself, and I look forward to coming up with more projects like this for all of our clients and new challenges for myself.