why aren’t you a doctor?

First, I’ve noticed when you tell people experiencing great pain to walk it off, they don’t like it very much. I also don’t like blood. Or hypochondriacs. When youth is spent in sweltering summers on the Indian equator where you see what real suffering looks like you don’t have time for hypochondriacs. Second, I’ve come to love the feeling of being the only brown woman at a table full of white guys. My highest grades were always in English. I loved to write. I kept winning writing and poetry awards through college and people kept encouraging me and the praise of language arts teachers went on longer than this run-on sentence. Also you’ve probably noticed there’s like 1.5% WOC in advertising in higher creative positions & I am here to change that.

How’d you start in advertising?

Asian kids have tiger moms. Indian kids have Bengal Tiger moms. That meant summer breaks - weren’t. When I was 20 I was one of 4 kids across the country picked to write cards in Kansas City for the Hallmark Internship and scholarship. Before I had interned at Time Warner, after I produced work as an intern at Saatchi & Saatchi, after that I…

Wait! I just googled you. you also act, too?

There goes that 1.5% again. Yes on top of many years in the ad industry I also act too. Media is a powerful thing. People of all backgrounds need to be seen, in front of the camera and behind it.

While you’re at it: if you google how many other WOC creative directors have also guest starred in 8 episodes of a Marvel series, or 30 Rock, or Broad City, let me know.

How do you feel about the word ‘side-hustle’?

I’m glad you asked.

I hate it. Is anything a side-hustle, really? If you’re working on something else you’re good at, own it.

These days, the word ‘side-hustle’ is a deceptive word that’s thrown around alot by most ad agencies. Agencies and clients want someone with a ‘life’ outside of advertising! No they don’t. If there is one thing I’ve learned in all these years in the industry, those agencies are full of shit.

When most ad agencies say they want someone with a life, they mean someone that almost got through to semi-finals on American Idol in 2009. (If that’s you, it’s better to stop reading here.) It means they want someone with an Instagram dedicated to oddly-shaped vegetables with 17K bot followers. Someone with an occasional Etsy sale. Those things are fun, but I’m not sure if they count as an actual life outside of advertising. Most places want a creative that has their heart’s wings stuck in what can be a sometimes very sticky business. And those creatives don’t fly, they burn out.

how has an acting background impacted you as an advertising creative?

Well done! I like your questions. Acting has built my confidence, tenacity, listening skills, and presentation abilities immensely. It’s built my empathy. It’s allowed me to put myself in another’s shoes to write from their point of view. You can’t just see a demographic from the outside, you have to become them. Most of all it’s taught me to not get nervous in the room. In the ad industry there are millions of dollars riding on you and clients believe the energy you bring into that room. So often I’ll see ad creatives shaking with fear as they speak. I’m not one of them. When I was in high school I received 9 full-ride scholarships for acting to major universities but that wasn’t in the cards for immigrant parents, and I can totally see why, the life of a full-time artist is quite non-linear. Life is about balance, and the term Renaissance shouldn’t just be applied to Man. I thrive when I’m good at more than one thing. I’m a Gemini.

what’s your long-winded brand story where you name-drop all the products, companies, and clients you’ve worked on so we know you’re legit?

Killing it with the questions! I’m impressed.

I’m an advertising copywriter from right outside of Tampa. Not a lot of great things exist outside of Tampa, unless you like Calvin and Hobbes stickers on the back of pickup trucks, or being asked if you live in a teepee (true story), or if you’re Seminole (I’m a Gator), so New York City was the dream.

Graduated from the University of Florida with a major in Advertising, a minor in English, and an outside concentration in theatre. In other words: improv nerd. I loved how improv created spontaneous thoughts in my head and I could come up with ideas faster than the other ad kids. Plus I could present without the world’s greatest fear - public speaking. I won the most creative student of UF in the advertising program, and graduated with a hankering to be a copywriter like nothing I’d ever felt. Closest I got was a job in ad sales. Right outside of Tampa. Actually, it was in Tampa, next to Mons Venus. And conveniently, the airport. There was no juice, no creativity, I hated putting our weekly totals on the board. Sadly, there were no steak knives. But I did learn how to talk to people. Cold calling, am I right? Pick up that phone. Develop relationships. Advertising 101. I saved enough money to enroll in Miami Ad School’s Ad Masters Program – that meant I had to develop a full portfolio and get an Integrated Marketing Degree from FIU.

Boring part? Classes in media planning, integrated strategy, and with mostly boring people. Great part? Same classes gave me further knowledge about how advertising extends further than just creative. Than just goofy ideas. Than just me. Lesson learned. I had to write a thesis, which made me use that left side of the brain, and I constructed it around how improvisational thinking helps with creative concepting and presenting, particularly for art directors and copywriters. In my spare time, I taught improv ad concepting workshops at Miami Ad School Brooklyn and McGarry Bowen. I’ve even done improv with Tina Fey. They basically get you out of your head and thinking from not only a place of logic but also emotion.

My favorite two things to melt together to create compelling, motivating ad work. After doing 5 internships (since the age of 15 in advertising), I produced 2 TV spots as an intern at Saatchi & Saatchi. We had to lie and say we were the new jr. team, because the client hadn’t bought anything from the real creatives. I got a job right out of Miami Ad School at Berlin Cameron, where I worked in every realm – traditional and digital - for Coke, Jaguar, Heineken, Boost Mobile, Escada, Ford, Comcast, Belvedere Vodka, Tidy Cats, Silk Soymilk, New York Life, Vitamin Water, and Zyrtec. I was there for 6 years, what can I say. I loved working on different brand voices, so I decided to freelance for a while. I landed at places like KB+Partners, JWT, Moxie, McGarry Bowen, Translation (2 years), and Code & Theory. Brands have included: Burger King, Benadryl, Centrum, Nestle, Carnation, Verizon B2B, Bud Light, State Farm, and Maybelline New York.

I like the challenge of learning the cultures of different agencies and brand voices. It’s developed my skill set. I stayed at Translation for 2 years because the CEO liked my presentation skills, and had me present with him to Bud Light, which was a $250 million dollar account, which I helped him win on the day of our Christmas Party. It turned out to be a pretty great Christmas Party. I’ve been freelancing for the past year, and for fun, I wrote my first play – which got to the top 10 out of 1500 entries in the Samuel French Playwriting Contest this August. Top 1% - pretty good for a first play, eh? ;) Thanks for taking the time to read this, if you’re still reading this, and if you have any more questions I can be reached at: Sunita.Deshpande@gmail.com