Why Advertising Makes Breaking In So Damn Hard with Nicolet Gatewood

0:00The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to The Last Advertising Podcast of all time. This is it, our last conversation. It's all done until probably next week, so enjoy this guest. All right, Nicolet Gatewood, welcome to the Breaking and Entering Advertising Podcast. This is actually the last advertising podcast, so no more after this here. It's all done. We're going to make it amazing. Nicolet, you are the Executive Director at BLAC. I'm so excited to finish this show until maybe next week with you. So for the folks that don't know you, introduce yourself, please.

0:38Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, well, first of all, Dino, it's amazing to see you again. Thank you. And thank you for considering me, of all people, to be the guest for the last episode ever. It's really an honor. So I'm the executive director of BLAC. BLAC is an acronym for Building Leaders and Creators. And we are a nonprofit organization that aims to bring more Black and underrepresented talent into advertising, prepared to thrive, find community, and ultimately lead.

1:06The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Incredible. What's one thing our audience might not understand about what you all do, or we might not understand about the mission and where we're at today in the industry?

1:19Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. I'm sure there are a lot of potential misconceptions. What I think I'd like to highlight are really the communities in which we serve and how we partner with them. So for emerging talent looking to break into the industry, we provide an incredible opportunity. That is a paid 12-week long summer internship experience. It is multifaceted and pronged, and it's incredibly rigorous. It's highly accelerated. But they leave the program with actual in-agency experience, which I'm learning is really critical for landing that first job, by the way. They've pitched to leading national brands by the end of the program.

2:03Nicolet Gatewood: They've been trained in their discipline and soft skills and in AI when they leave the program. And they've made just a plethora of connections, both inside the program and just throughout the industry. So we serve talent via that program and forever. Beyond that, once you're a program intern, you're forever an alumni and the support does not stop. The way we partner with agencies, I'd love to chat about.

2:30The Last Advertising Podcast Host: That's it right there. It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, yeah. I think that is incredible. What does that look like? Because you're helping them break into the – and that was something that I'm passionate about. I want to help people break in. But once they're in, I'm like, you're on your own. Like, I can't, I don't know what to do with you once you're in. You got to figure out on your own. What are you guys doing then once they're in?

2:52Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, so as you know, it's a difficult industry, one, to break into and two, to succeed in. And it's just getting more and more difficult seemingly every year. I joined BLAC in 2022. And every year since then, when the summer cohort enters the job market, we're just seeing the job market become, you know, the opportunities become more and more slim. We're in a difficult economy. There's contraction, there's acquisitions, there are layoffs everywhere you turn in the industry. So honestly, it's getting more and more difficult. And I see that, you know, especially every year when people are applying to the program.

3:34Nicolet Gatewood: Our most recent cohort, half of them should have been employees already. A number of them had worked at agencies already. It's just a truly difficult job market. So this provides a different avenue in. But I want to make it really clear that that's not the absolutely no experience and not even a college degree is needed to apply to our program. But pro's program, the alumni support, is robust. We aim to continue to build it out and grow it, especially as our alumni network continues to grow. So to date, we've done the program six years. We do it once a year. So that's six internship cycles. We have, I believe, 200 and no, I'm sorry, 325 program alumni now.

4:21Nicolet Gatewood: So grads who've gone through the program. And so I should make it clear, we're really small staff, BLAC, we're a nonprofit organization. I'm the only full-time employee. We do have some folks, a tremendous network of volunteers and a really great team of consultants who come in to support the program in the summer months. But outside of that, it's really me and a network of volunteers who aim to support them. So what we're able to offer right now, which we hope to always grow, we do monthly virtual meetups called the Career Collective, where folks connect after hours when they get home from work.

4:58Nicolet Gatewood: We have a guest speaker. It's really inspirational. And great connections are made there and incredible professional lessons learned. We also offer quarterly alumni homecomings, which are big virtual events where we bring in an educational partner. We offer some opportunities. The global DEI lead from VML spoke at our last one and highlighted some jobs. So great opportunities there. We also do in-person events, right? So you guest spoke at one this summer, which was amazing. And that event, by the way, is the biggest one that we do each year. And it's entirely alumni planned. So it was envisioned by an alumni, Zaria Gray.

5:41Nicolet Gatewood: The workforce was alumni and our host agencies just volunteering resources. It cost us ultimately nothing. And it was a really phenomenal, like incredible advertising event that gathered our folks. We have a scholarship fund for Book 180 for BLAC alumni, which is a virtual online portfolio school. Book 180, I'm not sure if you've encountered them, but it's a -

6:05The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Oh, yeah, I used to work with Fran and Sarah, yeah.

6:08Nicolet Gatewood: Love them both. But, you know, it's a phenomenal program that allows people to attend portfolio school at a fraction of the cost. And it's virtual. It can work around your professional schedule if you're having to work while building your book. I'm trying to think of the other things we offer Infinite access to us and all of our network I'm always available I'm a text away Agencies come to me with job listings all the time And we're constantly connecting them with alumni And there's just a lot of opportunity for them to gather amongst themselves Which they do and with staff and volunteers

6:44The Last Advertising Podcast Host: I will say when I spoke at the alumni event I could have swore I mean, I met Zaria for the first time, and I would have swore that she was a full-time paid staff. The passion that she had organizing that to learn that she was an alumni of the program just shows how passionate she is about the continued success in that community development of that. So I think that might be one of the things that people might not understand from the outside looking in. And having been a part of it for just a brief stint, seeing that in person, it was absolutely phenomenal. But I am so curious too. Now, the ad industry, if it is shrinking so much, does the program still feel confident of preparing them for the creative advertising industry?

7:43The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Are you expanding beyond that to the creative business industry is my question.

7:49Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, that actually is a great question. So while the program itself is advertising focused, so we partner with host agencies, who, by the way, host agencies becoming part of BLAC is a major investment and commitment from them. It's an investment of almost a full year of work. I meet with them biweekly. They go through mandatory training. They really are signing up and committing to a transformative experience, which is being part of BLAC. And so there's I want to touch on that community as well, the community of agency involvement and the true investment they've made in this program year after year.

8:33Nicolet Gatewood: So we really were built to help. We're founded by advertising agencies and owners and leaders of independent agencies. So we were really built to impact that specific industry, but we partner with others, right? So we have expanded a little bit. Like we have a production house that's been in the program for a number of years now. And our alumni post program are actually really well suited to enter brands. So we see them go client side quite often. We have alumni at Target, at Amazon, at PepsiCo and so many other, you know, like big national corporations and just creative like folks at Paramount, et cetera.

9:17Nicolet Gatewood: But the training in advertising, especially, you know, for a 12 week long internship program really can launch your career into advertising, marketing and related creative industries. But there have been there have been conversations and there's been a lot of interest from others and hosting interns from our from our network via our program.

9:36The Last Advertising Podcast Host: It makes sense, right? Like because we're seeing the the the industry of like entertainment and advertising kind of like kind of merging into each other. It kind of has to be that way. And I'm sure, you know, like in music and production and film and like there are ways I would say that the transferable skills are so clearly developed. So that does make sense as well. And then tell me about the alumni, the students, the applicants. Why, like, how are they feeling? Like when they come and they get admitted into the program, like leading up to that, what's going on internally, their emotional state to say, I need to apply to this?

10:20The Last Advertising Podcast Host: How are they feeling about the ad industry? It doesn't seem like they're giving up on it. But like, what are some of those things that you're hearing from them?

10:27Nicolet Gatewood: No, I think that's a really great question. I've really seen it evolve over. I've been at BLAC for five years. So when I was recruiting for the internship cohort of 2022, for example, we were largely explaining to creative applicants that advertising was an industry that you could work in and it could pay you and they should consider it because this industry needs you know different viewpoints and and new fresh talent emerging creative ideas right um and these days the folks who are applying to the industry would certainly get any advertising job over me for example, like they are truly overly qualified.

11:07Nicolet Gatewood: And so to be to be honest, the folks that we're seeing these days, just due to the state of the job market, they're a little when they're applying, right, they're a little beaten down. I mean, it's it is really difficult while looking for a job. Everyone knows that when you're looking for a job, it becomes your full time job. So it really is difficult just to kind of keep your head up and your confidence up. But once admitted to the program, and by the way, it's certainly becoming more and more competitive. You mentioned Zaria being a great advocate for the program. All alumni are because for most of them, it's a life-changing experience, right, that launches a career for them, a whole new career trajectory, which they're really passionate about.

11:52Nicolet Gatewood: But they speak really highly of the program and they go the less size, you're going to have to cut that out. Go into the world and they speak our praises, right? And they speak of the experience they have in the program. And so the word of mouth, we invest zero money, I think maybe$5 ,000 a year in promotion, and it's promoting largely to talent to get great applicants. But a lot of it truly is just word of mouth. So the applicant pool is just growing and growing for us. This year, we had well over a thousand applicants from all over the country for just 48 internship positions at 24 agencies across the country.

12:39Nicolet Gatewood: But I think once they get into the program, they're like, all right, like, you know, really certainly very proud of themselves as they should be because it's becoming truly very competitive. but they're just really excited and energized and to have the opportunity to work in one of our host agencies and we have some incredible indie agencies and bigger agencies in the program we've been partnering with Saatchi and Saatchi, Havas like some some really great shops Barkley OKRP, DNA and Stone, Barrett Hoffer, Cornette just so many that have been in the program year after year So they're really thrown in, treated as real staffers, and they get the benefit of not only the agency experience, but the BLAC support as well.

13:28Nicolet Gatewood: And so the program really works in tandem. We train them alongside the agencies. They have community meetings on the BLAC side. We bring in 50-plus guest speakers from the industry throughout. we provide, as I mentioned, I think earlier, discipline-specific trainings, soft skills, trainings, career navigational guidance, and facilitated course-like ways throughout the program. And then we wrap the program with a group project, but it's real. They have real, actual live briefs from our brand partners, our sponsors. So this year we worked with three brands from P &G, Procter & Gamble. Incredible experience, right, to be an intern and actually pitch to brand leaders from the world's leading advertiser.

14:16Nicolet Gatewood: And a number of interns this year got to pitch to Ego, which is a new brand partner of ours and such a fun brand to work on. All of it was really fabulous.

14:24The Last Advertising Podcast Host: What brand did you say?

14:25Nicolet Gatewood: Ego.

14:26The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Cool.

14:27Nicolet Gatewood: Which is a really fun brand. And then we wrapped the program with a career fair. So participating agencies and brands and other employers who want to connect with, creative thinkers, essentially, who've gone through a program, come and meet them over a virtual three-day long career fair. And so there's always between 40 and 60 employers at the career fair. And so it's a really invigorating 12-week experience that really opens eyes and gets folks excited about really committing themselves to this industry. And it makes it significantly easier for them post-program. It's not only the education of the program.

15:12Nicolet Gatewood: It's not only the infinite connections you make via the program, which are really, really critical in advertising, as I'm sure you've gleaned. But it is also that agency experience, having the real world work experience, having pitched to clients, having real work in your book, it makes a big difference, especially in this very competitive job market.

15:35The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Absolutely. And how does one apply? When does that open up?

15:40Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah. What's the process? Yeah. So we opened the application process for the summer of 2027 in mid-December. So it usually be around December 15th, 16th, 17th, whatever the Monday falls on that year, mid-month in December. We keep the application process open for, I believe, two months. So come around Valentine's Day, the deadline will hit. The application process is really simple. It's a very short form asking us, you know, where we ask about you just to find out where you are in life and what you want. And we ask all applicants to make a two-ish minute video responding to a prompt. Not sure what the prompt will be this year, but last year it was, tell us why the advertising industry needs you and your unique viewpoint, right?

16:28Nicolet Gatewood: And what you bring to the industry. So really short, really simple. We aim to not have it be a barrier, right, for folks to throw their name in the ring. There's a, yeah, we meet a lot of incredible folks that way.

16:44The Last Advertising Podcast Host: And then is it for folks, I'm thinking about like the, I guess you said it, you can come from like you could.

16:55Nicolet Gatewood: Any background.

16:55The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Any background. You don't need a college education necessarily, you even said. You've come from a different field. It's open application.

17:04Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah. You need to be a creative thinker, number one, but you actually, you don't need to be a creative. So we support five disciplines that make advertising run. We do art and design. Art direction slash design is a discipline that an intern can specialize in in the BLAC program. Copywriting is a discipline. Production is a discipline, as is strategy and account management. Right. I will say what I've learned is that most young people want to be creatives, but I will always and forever advocate for the other disciplines that make the creative work work, right? And so there are so many jobs in advertising.

17:48There are so many, well, there are so many types of jobs in advertising.

17:52Nicolet Gatewood: There might not be so many open jobs at the moment, but there will be again. Great distinction.

17:57The Last Advertising Podcast Host: and it's coming from a former account executive um i abdicate for that you know in another life i might have been in production who knows right i wish you know a lot of these things like i think internships are great in general for figuring out what you do and what you don't like and that's just as important of course so like i was so focused on account account account and I got into it and I liked it but like I wish I took some time if I had the opportunity I never really did uh to maybe get an internship or job shadow and production or strategy knowing I was an art director a copywriter I was very clear on that but like then you can figure out well maybe this is right for me and if you're in the agency you're just the way that agencies work but agencies you can walk around.

18:50The Last Advertising Podcast Host: You're going to see all these people doing that. They might invite you over to check something out too. So you can learn tangentially as well, which I think is interesting. My question here then is, it might be a little bit tougher, but if somebody doesn't get into this program, if somebody applies, and just at the nature of the volume of applications and limited spots, some people are not going to get in. What advice do you have for them, Knowing what you know now and all of the lessons you've heard from amazing alumni speakers, we want to help them out too. What can they do to better their chances of breaking in?

19:31Yeah.

19:32Nicolet Gatewood: So speaking specifically of applicants to the program, right? So if you don't get into BLAC, we encourage you to play again. One of my favorite stories actually comes from this year. Sebastian Gomez. shout out to you, Sebastian, applied to the program three or four years in a row and didn't get in. And the year before last, I had the opportunity to meet him during a group interview process that we facilitate before the agencies make their final selection. And I really advocated for him because he and I had developed this unique relationship with as he is an applicant, because for some reason, his computer or his IP address was just not compatible with our online application.

20:15Nicolet Gatewood: So he found my email address many moons ago, reached out to me, and I took his application that way and I put it in our system. And it happened year after year. And then we finally met him and he was amazing. And so because I had this email relationship with him, I actually watched him develop as an applicant. And I was so thrilled for him when he finally made it to the group interview process. And the agency loved him, but they were only taking an account intern that year and they offered him the position and he said, no, thank you. I'm a creative. And I respected that. And then he applied again the next year and he was, his application video was by far one of my top, top 10 I've seen in my five years of reviewing umpteen thousand application videos.

21:00Nicolet Gatewood: And he was placed at Saatchi and Saatchi via our program. And I need to check on him. I just got post-program. So apply. There might be a chance for you and a better fit for you next year. So please apply. We also provide, BLAC provides a list of resources. We're one of many programs that do this type of work in the industry. MAPE is incredible. The OneSchool is incredible. Marcus Graham. I just want to shout out a couple of programs I really, you know, admire. The Brand Lab in the Midwest does incredible work. But beyond that, for all folks, like trying to enter the industry or trying to make their way, right, in the first few years as an emerging talent.

21:41Nicolet Gatewood: I knew you were going to ask this question, Gino, because I've listened to your podcast. So I wrote a quick list of things I wanted to mention. One is that you do need agency experience. I am seeing that as a distinguishing feature. We have many alumni who had the experience, had the skills, had transferable experience in comparable industries, but were not successful at landing a gig until they actually got into BLAC. It was just that agency name on your resume that will make a difference to recruiters. So I really, I champion internship programs. There are so many incredible programs that agencies host directly.

22:22Nicolet Gatewood: So, you know, I really think if If you're struggling to land your first job, internships are a great thing. And there's no limit to how many internships you can do. And I think it's a really incredible experience for talent, as you mentioned, right, to try on different roles, to try out different environments and see what works for you. And I promise you it will make a big difference on your job hunt. So you need agency experience.

22:46The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Isn't that crazy, though?

22:47Nicolet Gatewood: I know.

22:48The Last Advertising Podcast Host: In theory, somebody has experience, whether it's building a portfolio or taking classes or real world experience in another industry, maybe you're in a customer service related field. If on paper their resume, they can do the job, they interview well, they can be an account executive at an agency, they should in theory get a job. But I'm seeing people with master's degrees that went to school specifically for master's in advertising have to do an internship after that. We have an employee, had an employee, Ross, who left a full-time job to take an internship at an ad agency. He wanted to be a creative.

23:37The Last Advertising Podcast Host: God love him. Good luck to him. But he has to intern his way after that. It's crazy. I agree. It's the job market, but I don't know if it's actually because, I don't know if you're inferring that, that is a mandatory. It's an easy way to weed people out if you have no agency experience. I'm not sure if you want to expound on that a little bit, like what you're seeing, or is it just one of those things that's a commonality?

24:04Nicolet Gatewood: I'm with you, Gino. I have many qualms with the industry and how difficult it is to break in. It is what it is. I don't control the industry.

24:14The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

24:18Nicolet Gatewood: No, I'm with you.

24:19The Last Advertising Podcast Host: It's crazy.

24:20Nicolet Gatewood: It's not one of the things I love.

24:21The Last Advertising Podcast Host: You know, and I'm just being honest.

24:24Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah.

24:24The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Like, if I graduated from a four-year, I studied advertising.

24:30Nicolet Gatewood: I went to a big school.

24:33The Last Advertising Podcast Host: And if I had to take an internship post-grad, like, I would be pissed.

24:40Nicolet Gatewood: I've seen folks. So, you know, we bring in a lot of guest speakers to BLAC. And I remember this one young woman, she was an account manager, and I knew her via the agency. And she spoke about when she landed her first job, it was after four internships. And so this goes back years, right? So this has been an issue prior to the current state of the job market. Advertising is clicky. You know, we think we're really special, smart, and creative. And we are. And we are. But I think our industry could be better if we did a better job at allowing people in who didn't have, you know, I think there are many barriers to entry in the industry.

25:26Nicolet Gatewood: Portfolio schools that cost tens of thousands of dollars for you to not earn a degree. That's one of them. It's just kind of the industry standard, right? It is just kind of the industry standard. And so I see my role and BLAC's role. Well, we have a point of view on the industry standards. It's not really within our realm of influence right now to change those. So what we do is try to work within the established structures to get new people in to open doors, to introduce agencies to talent they might not have met through their traditional venues.

26:04The Last Advertising Podcast Host: paths of finding talent. And I was going to ask you about that because the agencies that you work with, you said you meet with them biweekly. And what are you talking to them about? Like, what are those sessions like?

26:17Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah. So for agencies to want to partner with VLAC, they are open, excited, willing to learn and wanting to transform, really. They want to be introduced to new exciting talent pools that they understand that their traditional recruiting methods will not bring them to. So we do, we plan for the entire program together, myself and the agencies. It really is an investment of their time. So we recruit together, for example. So I sit in my home office in Long Island and New York, and our agencies are everywhere. And so we are making avenues inroads into communities, creative communities within And they're each individual cities, right?

27:01Nicolet Gatewood: So we have a toolkit, a whole approach to recruiting that I train them in. And they institute in their areas. We go through the review process together. We prep together. So BLAC provides agencies like a week-by-week curriculum that they can institute when their interns are an agency. Our agencies must go through a mandatory training. So everyone who's working directly with the BLAC interns must go through a mandatory training prior to the interns reaching the agency. And so there's just a lot of resource sharing in that community. It's a community. It's like it becomes like everyone's favorite call of, you know, their weeks because it's a great community.

27:44Nicolet Gatewood: There's a lot of resource sharing. There's a lot of referrals, recommendations, and just good relationships forming there.

27:52The Last Advertising Podcast Host: So I'm curious then for the listeners that might be in the agency landscape, what's one thing that you can tell them on where to find talent or one thing that you're consistently teaching every new agency you work with? What's one takeaway for the agency folks here that they can be better off to help with the mission and the vision that you're all aspiring to reach?

28:18Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, great question.

28:23Nicolet Gatewood: Agency processes, agency protocols can be taught to anyone, but I think sheer creativity and passion is not something you'll find with everyone. So I think agencies willing to look new places for talent and train them on the agency basics might be really impressed and blown away by their ROI there.

28:49The Last Advertising Podcast Host: That's incredible to hear. That's something like, you know, as a business owner now, Jack and I share this as well. It's like when we're hiring, like there are things that we can teach you. Like anybody can pick up a phone and edit a 60 second video that we make here. It's the intangibles. It's the passion about advertising. It's the love of what we're doing in the industry and the content creation. And, you know, we're willing to get your hands dirty in all different aspects of a small business. That's the intangibles first.

29:25Nicolet Gatewood: And then we can easily teach you how to edit a podcast if you don't even know how to do that.

29:30The Last Advertising Podcast Host: But really, a lot of the people that you're talking about, like in the cohorts, can do it already. They grew up on this stuff or they've taught themselves out of necessity or for their passions. They already have the skill sets to do it. So I love that take there. You can teach them the agency protocols. And you know what I say? That's screw the agency protocols too. Like if you have that, if it's too rigid, it's probably not conducive to creativity. I'm saying that, Nicolette. You're not saying that.

29:57Nicolet Gatewood: No, but I actually, that's what I love and I'm most impressed with by our alumni. A lot of people come to this program already doing this, right? They don't have the agency experience, but they're out in the world moving culture, contributing to culture. They're influencers. They're content creators. They're partnering with brands directly.

30:18The Last Advertising Podcast Host: That's the best.

30:18Nicolet Gatewood: Themselves, right? And so agencies do want to work with you. They just haven't quite figured out how to work with you. And so with essentially the facilitation of BLAC, right, we help prep the agency and the intern to be a cleaner fit in the way that agencies understand until these interns go out and start their own agency anyway and employ you and I in the future. You know, that's that's where this is going.

30:44The Last Advertising Podcast Host: And I'll be I'll be interviewing them. That's absolutely for certain. We plan to do that more in the near future. But Nicolette, thank you so much for coming on. How can people find out more if they're an agency or they want to apply? You said December 15th-ish is when the applications open up for the summer internship program. But where do people go?

31:05Nicolet Gatewood: Yeah, www.blacinternship.org. So.org. You can find me on LinkedIn, Nicolette Gatewood. I think I'm the only one. And yeah, so we want to meet you. If you're emerging talent, we want to meet you. So come December 15th. please keep your eye on BLAC's social and our website. The application form will be on our website. Two-minute video responding to our prompt. If you're an agency who wants to get involved or a brand, right, we partner with brands in really meaningful, great ways, please reach out to me. My email address is on our website. So blacinternship.org, you'll find me.

31:43The Last Advertising Podcast Host: Love it. Well, Nicolette, thank you so much for coming on the last advertising podcast. It was a wonderful treat.

31:49Nicolet Gatewood: Great to see you. Thank you, Gino. This is great.