My Story - Chapter 3: Diving into the planning universe (where nothing worked as planned)

In 2007, something extraordinary happened in my life. After living in a small town and working cleaning chicken poop, I created a blog that was becoming more and more popular and had gotten a job in an advertising agency in São Paulo to work with big brands. And all of that at 17. Everything was going very well, but two things would change the course of my life, making the journey even more exciting.

The first thing is that the 18 was coming and it was time to get into college. In 2007, I had taken ENEM (some sort of SAT from Brazil) to try to get a scholarship at a private university. The desirable course was obviously marketing and advertising. I remember I took the ENEM and got a reasonable grade (which could be represented as a B+ maybe), and I believed that this grade would be enough to get a 50%, 70% or Full scholarship in at least one of the 5 options that I had in mind. This belief came based on relatives who had spoken to acquaintances who had gotten grades around B and managed to get a full scholarship in good private colleges studying IT. There was also the fact that advertising was not as popular as medicine, engineering or law degrees.

When the registration date for the PROUNI (the government educational program that allowed students to use ENEM’s grade to get scholarships at universities) arrived I went all in and listed my 5 options without thinking: ESPM, FAAP, Mackenzie, Anhembi Morumbi, PUC (all big private universities in Brazil). Detail: I selected the full scholarship option for all.

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Browsing the internet and exploring the universe of advertising I came across a challenge from JWT, one of the largest agencies and reference at the time, for a planning internship. That really caught my attention because my brother had just migrated to the planning area and had told me with excitement about how the job was like. With my self-confidence up high due to the success I had in taking a business challenge to join Riot, I thought: Let’s do it!

I remember that the briefing was to put together a complete brand plan for a computer school. Things like market numbers, competition analysis, problem, insight, solution and marketing plan were required. I did my part and during the proposed time I created a business case and sent it to the agency. To my surprise, my work was selected for the next phase of interviews at the agency. It was the first time that I had the opportunity to visit a large agency. I was in awe with the infrastructure, the number of employees and the awards that were on display over the shelves. There, the interview was a more serious deal and I had to give everything I got to show that I had the potential and skills for the job. I left the interview without really knowing if I would be accepted, but the experience had already been super valuable. A few days later I get a call from the planning director at RMG Connect, a digital agency and affiliated with JWT. He told me that he had received an referral from his friend who had previously interviewed me and would like to chat. The agency was smaller, but was part of a large global network and had some large customers like Sprite, Kuat, UNICEF, Warner Bros among others. The job opening was a internship in the planning department and I was super excited about the opportunity. When I was asked about college I said that I would start studying in February 2008. I was just waiting for the result of PROUNI, but it was pretty much all set for me to study at Mackenzie. The proposal to work at the agency arrived the next day and I gladly accepted it!

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ESPM: Red. Mackenzie: Red. Anhembi: Red. FAAP: Red. PUC: Red. All red. Jaw dropped. Cold sweat. Wide eyes. Tears falling. My grade had not been enough to be accepted in any of the colleges I had selected. And there was no second chance. I needed to start at RMG soon and had already quit Riot. Neither my parents nor I had the money to pay a full tuition at any of those colleges. I was desperate. What would I do?

I told the situation to my parents and my brother and we decided to look for alternative solutions to the problem. We started a search for cheaper colleges. I did exams in some, but all required a monthly fee that would not be possible to be covered with my income neither my parents, since my father was still recovering from a complicated financial situation. The date for starting the new job was coming and the HR was asking for the college papers. It was a moment of despair, where I thought I would end up without my current job that had been a blessing in my life and without the new job opportunity.

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My father calls me and says: “Driving by a neighborhood close to ​​your house, I found a college that is currently accepting new students. And the best: the monthly fee is 250.00 Reais per month. ” We didn’t think twice: I took the exam and got in (I think it would have been accepted even if I had just put my name on the sheet). As expected, the college was pretty bad. My classroom didn't even have 10 students, bad infrastructure, disqualified teachers and very confused administration. In spite of everything, that college was my salvation. I sent all the documents and started working at RMG as a planning intern. That was close!

My first experience with planning was love at first sight. I loved participating in projects where I did a lot of research to understand the market, competitors, data and think of ideas along with the creative team. Later on I had the opportunity to be the planner for Warner's account and participated in booths for some movies and in partnership with the creative team, we brainstormed crazy ideas for promoting films that ranged from romance to horror genres.

It is worth mentioning that at that time, I also participated in a super cool project in partnership with my friends Gabriel Maluf and Guilherme Cury, two advertising blogger friends. With the rise of blogs about advertising, we informally brought together a group of advertising bloggers who would like to meet and connect in person with each other. From an informal meeting came the idea of ​​doing something bigger and then we created the EBP (an event for all the advertising bloggers). Together with Gabriel and Guilherme, we organized an event for an audience of about 50 people, and we went after partnerships, venue, speakers and promotion. At that time, Gabriel worked in the planning department of Africa, one of the largest advertising agencies in Brazil, at the time that Nizan Guanaes was CEO. Gabriel called me and asked if I was interested in replacing him, as he had received a proposal from another agency. I was only a few months at RMG Connect and I wasn't sure what to do. That's when my brother taught me something that I take with me since then: never deny a conversation. Even if it doesn't work out as you expected, every opportunity to meet someone new and make yourself known is valid.

Once again, I was delighted with the agency's infrastructure. The interview was very good and the job opening was to work at the intelligence center, an area that was part of the agency's planning department and was responsible for providing planners information, research, analysis and insights. I was excited with the opportunity and even more with the salary: 1,500 reais, more than double of what I earned as an intern. After much thought I decided to accept the challenge and started working in Africa at 18. This was a period where I most developed my professional career. I learned a series of skills that I still use today, I improved my English due to the amount of information that I needed to find from international sources, in addition to working with an incredible planning team that worked on several different industries (telecom, auto, finance, consumer goods, newspaper, etc.) . It was even during this period that Itaú bank bought Unibanco and Obama won the US presidential election. I remember that I had the opportunity to help the planning team by providing them with information on strategies and communication from companies that merged in addition to making a dossier Barack Obama, where I analyzed all the success factors of one of the first campaigns in history that used the power of digital and social networks.

That time in Africa even reminded me of a hilarious situation I went through. One day, just before lunch, one of the planning directors asked me if I would like to take her place at a telecom event that she wouldn’t be able to attend. She even asked me to write down all the data and interesting information that would be presented there. I promptly accepted and called the taxi to take me there (my first time taking a taxi in my life). I remember what my outfit wasn’t the most suitable: a dirty black All Star sneaker, straight jeans, a moss green T-shirt on top, with a white long-sleeved shirt underneath. I looked like a boy who had just left school (and in a way it was true). Since I worked on the backend, I never had to worry about getting dressed for client meetings or something like that. The event was taking place in a super fancy hotel in São Paulo. I entered the hall and headed to the restaurant where everyone was having lunch. Executives everywhere, well-dressed men and women and me, a boy with a dirty black All Star and a T-shirt. I had lunch alone and I remember being approached by two hotel staff members who asked me who I was and if I needed anything. I said I was from the agency and had gone to the event. Apparently they accepted that. The event was held in a large room, with Power Point slides and discussions. I wrote everything down and then put together a report of what was presented. Looking back I think: what should the event executives have thought of me? "Who is this boy? Is he someone's son? Why did they send an intern to a directors' event? ” I don't know what they really thought of me, but I did go, did my part and, looking back, I just laugh at the whole situation.

The work at Africa was going wonderfully well. I was earning a good money, the job was cool, the team was wonderful and the VP of Planning is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. But I had just turned 19 and a decision that would affect my life forever needed to be made. And in the next post I'll tell more about it. You must be wondering: but what about college? Yeah, I dropped off right after I entered Africa. And the funny thing is that about 2 years later the college went bankrupt completely.

Thanks for saving me and rest in peace, dear cheap college. I learned a lot during those ups and downs. And as I have done in the other posts, here’s a list of the things I learned:

• I learned to never lie, even if the intention is good and innocent. My attitude of lying when stating that I was already enrolled in a college could have left me unemployed and frustrated. Be honest with others and with yourself, all the time.

• Things will go wrong. Whether it's your mistake or something that is not in your control. I learned that I need to look for solutions instead of lamenting or blaming other people. Push forward until the last second and your effort will be rewarded.

• Accept challenges, even if they seem impossible. Even if you can't do it, something good will come out of it.

• The importance of research and information. I was wrong to believe in something that I had heard from my relatives. Learn to seek information, knowledge and use that information to make decisions and take risks.

• Never deny a chat. Repeating what I said earlier: Even if it doesn't work as you expected, every opportunity to meet someone new and make yourself known is valid.

Special thanks to people who were important in this phase: Gabriel Maluf, Guilherme Cury, Jean Boechat, Patrice Lamiral, Rafael Paes, Borrmann, João Canal, Pedro Cruz and the whole African planning team.