SCABs

How to cope with the last 6 weeks of SCA – By @charlesfare

By Charles Olafare

 

 

How to cope with the last 6 weeks of SCA

There’s less than 6 weeks till SCA finishes and I’m not sure how to feel about it.


On the one hand, I’m glad this’ll all be over soon. Not to dramatic, but it’s a pretty stressful environment even at the best of times. If I’m not pranging out trying to find a way to bring an idea to life, I’m staring at a wall wondering how I ever had an idea in the first place.


On the other hand, there’s the worry that once I leave these walls, I won’t be able to cope outside it. Like a prisoner whose jail term is coming to an end, the prospect of freedom is invigorating and frightening all at the same time.


Either way, there’s still so much work to get through before the cell door swings open and we’re free to step into the light. We’re at the fabled “Spit and Polish” stage of our books and at times it feels difficult to summon the creative energy we had when school first began.


At this point, we’ve learned so much about what’s right and what’s wrong when it comes to advertising and communicating ideas that it feels almost impossible to put a step forward for fear of careening further backwards. Does this headline sell our idea? Is the logo big enough? Do people even want what we’re trying to offer them?


It’s tough. Questions like this pop up a million times a day. But their answers don’t come around to often.


So what to do about all of this? How do I navigate this last month and a half and still keep my spirit up? The only solution I can come up with is to just keep plugging away, pushing past the various pain barriers and put as much on to the page as possible.


Easier said than done though, isn’t it?


What We Talk About When We Talk About Clickbait


In the spirit of Marc’s recent rants about the importance of SCABs, I’ve given this post a clickbait title. And in the truest spirit of clickbait, I’ve given no answers that could be considered useful.


Before coming to SCA, I worked at a place that practically invented the notion of clickbait. Every post I wrote would have four or five titles, they’d get thrown into an algorithm that magically chose the catchiest one of the lot. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.


But to me, it never really mattered because I was writing utter toot about who the most relatable Friends character was, or what your favourite cat gif said about your relationship with your parents. Who needs stuff like that in their life?


Speaking from experience, the act of writing solely to grab someone’s attention isn’t all that edifying. We did it because we got paid.


I suppose you could make the case that as advertising students, we’re all training to get better at grabbing people’s attentions. But the way I see it, we do that everyday anyway.


To me, SCABs are blogs and blogs are basically diary entries. If people want to write diary entries about which fruit they’d be, then so be it.


We basically spend 7 days a week trying to sell people things with imaginary adverts, who says we can’t let off steam by writing something nonsensical, sad, funny or ultimately meaningless? It doesn’t mean a student is stupid, it means their brain is likely fried from constantly having to draw a box around an A4 sheet of paper and fill that box with something meaningful.


Isn’t letting off steam exactly what reflection is all about? Who can say. All I can say is that I left my job and came here precisely because I didn’t want to write clickbait anymore.

Related SCABs

Go back

Student Application

  • Fill out the Application Form below to be a part of our next Award-Winning intake.

  • MM slash DD slash YYYY
image