Today we’d like to introduce you to Maggie Dodson.
Hi Maggie, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve always been drawn to stories and creativity, since I was a kid. My parents are creative people, my siblings are too, and growing up in the woods in Maine in the 90’s required a certain amount self-entertainment that often resulted in writing plays together, creating homemade movies, or spending hours in the woods building “forts” (…none of us are actually that adept with our hands, lol).
That inner draw towards creativity followed me throughout college and beyond, where writing and making little movies took center stage in my life, in addition to finding a career path in advertising and communications. I spent seven formative years in New York, two excellent years in Chicago learning advertising tools of the trade, and now I’ve been in LA for the past six years expanding my creative director expertise into arenas like consumer goods, entertainment marketing, video content, commercial work, and finance. A weird mix, but it works!
Outside of work, creativity is an ever-present part of my day-to-day: I’m an avid yoga doer, soon-to-be first-time mom, amateur painter, and script writer with a deep love of nature, cooking, camping, and reading.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think life is a smooth road – it is much more of a twisty, turn-y experience that takes you to unexpected places, no matter what plans you think you had in store for yourself. I’ve experienced a range of ups and downs in my 20s and 30s, dead-end career routes, and even a loss of my sense of self that resulted in my first bout of depression (props to Zoloft and dance class!). But, through it all, I think what’s kept me moving forward and always looking on the bright side / feeling hopeful, has been the sense that things will work out. Life shows up in truly unexpected ways and we never know what’s waiting around the corner, and I believe it’s important to leap, follow your gut, and try new things even if you change your mind along the way.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a creative director who’s worked in advertising and communications agencies, for in-house brands, and for herself for the past 17 years. I’ve worked in really hustle-driven environments (ahem, NYC and Chicago), at cut-throat start-ups, and on scrappy small teams of freelancers. I’ve also touched on many types of creative work streams and industries including entertainment, healthcare, non-profit, finance, consumer goods, food and beverage, real estate, and tech. It’s enough to make my head spin sometimes, but it’s also a great range of experience that I feel has allowed me to distill and hone in on what really matters to audiences (emotion, relevancy, and top-notch strategy) and clients (breaking through the din, share of voice, ROI). I also feel my range of experience has helped me develop a style of my own that I bring to every project, team, or idea I work on.
I love the strategic process of creating work and I truly love leading teams. I’m a people-person, often mistaken for a therapist (lol / #eldestdaughtersyndrome), and love to nurture those I manage by helping them become stronger, more creative and confident, and more well-rounded as human beings. I bring a passion for life, literature, film, and culture, as well as a sense of calm, and clear decision-making skills to everything I do. I really enjoy speaking my mind. I’m a triple air-sign. And I tend to approach life and work without an ego.
I’m really proud of a number of projects I’ve lead, but more importantly, I’m proud of the people I’ve worked with and what we’ve done together. In my spare time, I write screenplays and paint. Creativity isn’t just for work, it is innate to being human.
In terms of your work and the industry, what are some of the changes you are expecting to see over the next five to ten years?
Oh boy, this is a good question. I think the industry is due for a shakeup overall, and will land in a really interesting place over the next decade (maybe less). There’s the obvious AI-elephant in the room and the range of skillsets when it comes to using it and using it well. I see a lot of people leaning on it as a crutch, vs. a tool and I think that will both be good for the industry in that it will weed out people who don’t really understand how to do their job with it, but the downside is, it will replace jobs that could have been instrumental in someone’s development right out of college. As someone who loves reading, writing, and overall tapping into the innate process of being a creative human, I balk at the idea of having a LLM create for me. I’d rather have it write my grocery lists and come up with basic social post copy that no one’s going to read on the endless doom-scroll that is social media, than pen my potential novel or screenplay or campaign idea. That said, I’m pro-learning to use AI and implementing it in ways that help vs. hinder the process.
I also think in the realm of agencies / creative industries, the big, bloated campaigns and million-dollar creative ideas are perhaps a thing of the past. It’s beyond rare to get a client who wants to spend big bucks just for fun, without the assurance of guaranteed ROI, and without the assurance that an audience will care what they have to say. I think a lot of this comes down to not having a solid strategy and invested creative approach to new channels, new audiences, and working with culture down the rabbit holes it’s headed – and I hope I see more clients take big risks even on a small scale. I also think my industry will see more time spent on original ideas done in creatively scrappy and small ways that speak to audiences where they are vs. where we want to drive them. In some ways, I love this prediction, because I think it really taps into the essence of what makes a great creative person: what magic can you make on a small scale? (hint: a whole lot).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maggiedodson.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/margaretsdodson/
- Other: https://substack.com/@maggiedodson
