Emily Sarale

This past weekend, myself and some of my favorite people in the world lost an advertising competition– a competition that we had spent 7 months and countless hours working on. We lost because, among a few other things, we were told we were too creative. Yes… TOO CREATIVE. I’d say that’s a pretty dope way to lose.

I’m not gonna pretend like not doing well in a competition was a fun experience. In reality: Losing. Sucks. A. Lot. 

But what IS losing?

According to my dear friend Merriam Webster, to lose means the following:

lose

/lo͞oz/

verb

gerund or present participle:

losing

1.be deprived of or cease to have or retain (something).

Well. I cannot say that I was deprived of or that I ceased to retain pretty much anything other than a shiny trophy. So… hol’ up. Let’s break this down a bit.

Through these 7 months of trial, I was retained the following in how to:

Work on a team

Lead a team (in da future) 

Be a TRUE teammate

Slam your head into a wall until an idea falls out

Write the same thing a hundred different ways

Read strategy

Understand a brief (like… REALLY understand a brief)

High five your teammates at 2 am despite feeling so tired you weren’t totally sure that your arm would extend upwards enough to meet your friend’s hand– which leads me to a question: if you’re too tired to hear the sound of a high five in the depths of your journalism school building, did the high five make any sound at all?

Understand the language of strategy (kinda)

Understand the language of media (more kinda)

Understand the language of design (even more kinda)

Drink so many cups of coffee you’re unsure if your hands will ever stop shaking

Know when to take a step back

Know when to step up

Put your favorite idea you’ve ever had on the table and be okay when nobody else likes it

Lose

–end of list for purpose of the conservation of time–

We lost that competition– straight up, we lost that shit. But had we won, (which, might I add, would have felt AMAZING) I’m not sure too much would have changed. In fact… I’m fairly certain the only things that would have changed would have been the addition of one trophy and a few more smiles. So yeah, the judges didn’t go our way, and maybe had the judges been different human beings, we could have won. 

But here’s the important thing: ideas are completely subjective to the mind of the viewer. 

There are a lot of viewing minds out there, including those that made the campaign we produced– and we thought that shit was fire. 

So, yeah; competition wise, we lost. But in every other way other than that of the competition, we totally won.

Totally. Won.

Take THAT, underlying insecurities that despise losing.

Next year, maybe we will win and maybe we will lose. But I can assure you that there will be many more wins in cumulation than there will be losses. There is no way I cannot be okay with that.