Creativity, the Tie between Theater and Advertising

Writing was Suziette Akpomejevwe Ukey’s passion, before she ventured into advertising through the advice of three friends who saw the potentials in her. In this piece, she shares with Yetunde Ogundipe what motivated her to tow the advertising line.

I studied theater arts in school, but now I work as a copywriter in FK:G2, an advertising agency. Both fields have creativity in common.

I hail from Delta State. I studied theatre arts at the University of Benin and did national youth service with the Cultural Centre Board, Calabar, Cross River State.

I actually shifted from the theatre to advertising, when my friends who were artists in the industry came up to me and said ‘hey Su, you would make a fantastic copywriter (because they had read some of my works) why don’t you try and enter the industry.’

At that time, I was searching for a stable 9-5 job. So they got me books and cooked up briefs for me or told me to rewrite an already existing ad. The effort turned out fantastic. They were so thrilled that they went further to actually get me into and pay for my training at the Orange Academy, facilitated by Kenny Badmus.

One introduced me to ‘my Dada’ (Aderetemi Adetayo of TBWA), who helped me into TBWA as a trainee. I call him my dada because he is my dad in advertising I learnt a lot from him and my mentor, Davis Attah also of TBWA.

However I must place it on record that I have always had a flare for advertising right from infancy. I watch adverts as if they were movies. My favourite advert then was the animation done for KILM powdered milk manufactured by Nestle.

The door to advertising was hard to unlock. I encountered a lot of challenges. I recall that despite my passing tests for jobs, I was not employed because I lacked requisite experience. That was depressing. How would I get experience if I was not offered a job?

Well, through my friends and their belief in me, I pushed on. I didn’t even know I had it in me. I just knew I loved writing; poems, short stories and stage plays. Yes, writing is my hobby. I have a book; poems titled avalanche of emotions on myebook.com and also three poems on poetry.com. I entered the industry through TBWA’s kindergarten programme.

In trying to be the best in everything I do, I bring my guts, my wildness (in creativity), my knowledge, the think-of-the-end-in-mind mentality and the creative aggressiveness the theatre has thought me into my job. I have written couple of adverts, but I believe am not there yet. If I say I have one now, that means am expired and can’t think of anything better. But my high moment so far was hearing my first radio and seeing my first TV commercial.

I haven’t moved around the industry much, so far, I have been in just three agencies. I did a two weeks stunt with DDB. But my real experience started with TBWA. And now, am with FKG2.

It’s been interesting working in the industry, practitioners are being awarded for creativity, but there is still a need for professional training. The exposure to books, trainings and foreign experience is limited, most of the time we learn on the job. But in all, I believe the industry is growing and lots of agencies are responding to the wake up call to keep the creativity growing.