ECD Tom Kelly Featured in Archive Magazine

July 28, 2016

Tom Kelly is Executive Creative Director at Brand Content in Boston and is uncomfortable writing about himself in the third person.

How I got into advertising ... 

My first job was writing junk mail -  “You may already be pre-approved for a gold card.” I was ready to go back to school and try something else when Mullen called.

A run-down of the most recent campaign I worked on ...
School the World builds schools for kids in third world countries. The creative team, Matt and Lindsey, discovered that kids walk up to three hours to school, each way. The split-screen video of the journey to school of a child in Guatemala and in the US is eye-opening.

The next big advertising trend is going to be ...
I’m ready to stop worrying about trends and the next shiny object and make work that matters.

The piece of advertising work I wish I had thought of is ...
Dove “Evolution” still gets me every time. You need that jolt of inspiration to remind you what’s possible.

My favorite app at the moment is ... 
I drove home from the beach last night on the 4th of July, so it has to be Waze. When you’ve figured out how to avoid traffic, you’re my hero.

The best piece of creative work around at the moment is ...
Axe “Find Your Magic”. The old work was funny, but Axe was never going to make three women chase me into a shower. “Magic” takes it someplace else that’s just as interesting, but real.

In a film about my life, I’d like to be played by ...
Paul Giamatti. We look nothing alike, but when Paul Giamatti is in a movie, everyone takes you seriously. That never happens to me.

A word or phrase I overuse ...
“Do more.” It’s terrible, generic feedback. But if you hire good people, most of the time they just need to keep going to get to something great.

My last social media update said ...
I’m sure it was something about my kids. No one cares what I have to say, but a picture of my 3 year old at a Red Sox game gets a bazillion likes.

My dream collaboration would be with ...
The Coen Brothers liked some scripts we did awhile back, and that was my dream. But then the release date for “No Country for Old Men” got moved up, and they couldn’t do it. Academy Award…pfffttt

A piece of criticism I’ve received was ...
”I get it. You can do comedy. Don’t you have anything else?” That one stung, but it was fair.

A great piece of advice I received ...
As a junior, I showed three pages of headlines to Spencer Deadrick, my CD at Mullen.
Spencer: I love five of these lines. Do three more pages.
Me: But we only need three lines for the campaign.
Spencer: Do three more pages, and we’ll have ten we love. Then do three more pages. When we’re picking the best three of all those, we’ll know they’re good.

That’s the first work I ever got into One Show, so yeah, good advice.