Clark Chamberlin Submitted photo

Auburn native Clark Chamberlin was recognized earlier this year as one of Adweek’s 2021 Creative 100, billed as “an annual celebration of today’s most fascinating creative professionals.”

We asked about his career path and for a behind-the-scenes peek. He shared the creative process, the occasional wee-hours-of-the-morning hours and what it’s like to see your work out in the wild.

Name: Clark Chamberlin

Age: 29

Lives: San Francisco

What career path led you to copywriting? I went to Babson College outside of Boston. That’s a school where the only major is business, so when I graduated with a bachelor’s in management, the one advertising job I qualified for was in client relations. And that’s what I did. I started as an account executive at Mullen, helping manage clients on greeting card brands and banks. I was pretty mediocre at it, but that first job helped me discover that I’d love to be a copywriter: the person who comes up with ideas for ads.

Once I decided I should make the switch, I spent about six months building a copywriting portfolio. I’d write fake ads for all kinds of brands and mock up my best ones so they looked real. I eventually used those fake ads to land a job as a copywriter at Arnold. They’re the Boston agency that invented Flo, so there I spent two years helping come up with ads for Progressive Insurance among other large national brands.

Then, I got a call from Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the San Francisco agency behind “Got Milk” and many iconic Super Bowl commercials. I spent almost three years at GS&P, working on big game ads for Doritos and Pepsi, an Oscar’s campaign for Adobe, and I even made an ad with David Hasselhoff. It was awesome. Goodby and Silverstein (who are both in their 70s now) creative-directed many of my projects, and I learned a ton from them.

In October, I’m headed to work for Erich & Kallman, a new, 25-person agency in San Francisco run by the guy who wrote “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.” You know, the Old Spice commercial with the handsome man on a horse? I’m pretty excited about it. And that means I’ll be in the Bay Area a bit longer, which I’m excited about, too.

Can you walk us through the process of how an ad comes to life? It’s actually pretty fast. From ideation to production, the whole process takes about three months.

First, the client comes to us with a problem or a business challenge. I spend about two weeks coming up with ad campaigns that might help solve it and then pitch my ideas and solutions to creative directors. After we’re feeling good about a few directions, I write about 20 scripts, we present five to our clients, and they eventually choose one winner.

Sometimes we test the winning script with focus groups, sometimes we don’t, but once we have the final green light, we find a director, hire actors and then film the commercial. It’s usually cheaper to shoot internationally, so we might go somewhere like Mexico City or Kyiv, Ukraine. Kyiv is actually super popular right now.

During COVID times, we’ve been filming commercials remotely, so we just send the director to our shoot location and then watch along on Zoom. Ukraine’s daytime is pretty far off from California’s (it’s a 10-hour difference), so most of my recent shoots have involved lots of coffee.

When filming is done, we put the commercial together with an editor, pick music and sound effects with a sound designer, add visual effects with an animation studio and then grade it with a colorist. Normally, I’m in a different location for each of those steps (usually LA or NY) but again, COVID restrictions have required us to do that part remotely, too.

And then the commercial is finished. The client approves, and we put it on air.

I hear you’ll have an ad in the Super Bowl next year? Is it your first? I’ve worked on Super Bowl campaigns before, but this one (if it gets made) will be really great. I can’t talk about any of the details, but I’d be proud to have my name on it.

What’s it feel like when you’re watching TV and it’s suddenly, “Hey! I worked on that.”? When I first started, seeing my ads out in the world was an amazing feeling. Now, it feels a bit more normal. In fact, when I see something I wrote on TV, I often find myself nitpicking it. I should stop doing that, haha.

It must give you a keen eye in spotting details in other ads most people might miss, like unexpected green screen use or unusual edits? Yeah, for sure. One thing I notice a lot is actors. There are like 200 people in LA who star in pretty much every commercial. You see them in most of your casting sessions, so you start to notice them in other commercials, too. I swear I’ve seen the same guy in like six different ads this week. Good for him.

You’ve also been involved in pro bono work? Pro bono work is something I’m really passionate about. I’m constantly coming up with ideas to help social issues and then pitching them to relevant charities. So far, I’ve done campaigns for gun safety, COVID-19, home fire awareness and I’m currently pitching ideas for Pride 2022.

I loved this line in your bio: “When I’m not making ads, I’m probably making music, skiing, or riding my motorcycle around the Bay Area. Please don’t tell my mom.” Let’s pretend your mom isn’t reading. Should any reader find themselves in the Bay Area, on a bike, what stretch do they need to check out? The Bay Area is an amazing place to have a motorcycle. You’ve got fun hills to ride downtown, ocean roads along the Pacific Coast Highway and mountains right next to the Golden Gate Bridge. But honestly, the reason I have a bike is for the parking. It’s hard to find car spaces in downtown SF, but motorcycle parking is always a breeze. Luckily, my new job has a parking garage.