Rising Stars: Meet Aishika Sen of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aishika Sen.

Hi Aishika,  it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I didn’t really try in high school and didn’t have very much of a plan for after, but I thought art school would be really cool; I’ve always enjoyed being creative.

I went to Savannah College of Art and Design. When I got there, I had a lot of excitement and ideas, but my biggest thought was, “I need to make sure I’m actually going to make money after college.”

That’s how I landed on advertising. People will always need ads, right? I started studying advertising, thinking I would be a designer or an art director. Then I tried copywriting and really found my way there, which is weird because I was never much of a writer.

Turns out it’s more than writing; a majority of the time you’re coming up with ad campaign ideas and how to convey ideas in the cleverest, not-lame way possible. I really think of myself as more of an “ideas person” than a writer.

Being an advertising creative is a weird job that I don’t think a lot of people know about before they get into their careers. It’s kinda like Mad Men but also nothing like Mad Men, ya know? I think people think there’s a bunch of psychology that goes into what we do, but at least on my end, I’m just trying to tap into real-world insights and what people actually like. Believe it or not, our whole goal is to try our best to make ads not suck as much.

So now I’m five years into this field. I’ve been at a couple ad agencies and, over the past few years, have been working in-house for a bunch of brands. I’ve gotten to work on brands like Netflix, Reddit, YouTube, Spotify, and a few other cool ones. Post-COVID, post-all-the-Mad-Men-stuff, and with the current AI-everything world, advertising has lost some of its glamour. But still, I’m super lucky I get to make some fun stuff and be creative for work.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been an okay road!
It had been pretty smooth for a while til I got laid off for the first time a couple years ago. Almost everyone I know in my field has gotten laid off at some point now. I’ve been fortunate to get steady freelance work, but there are occasionally long periods of no work.

AI is definitely having a huge effect on the advertising world. I think everyone in this field is somewhat nervous about it. I’m pretty uncertain about the future, but we’re hanging in there!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I work in creative advertising as a copywriter.
I used to just say, “I’m a copywriter,” and would be met with responses like, “Oh, so you work on, like… patents and stuff?” So I’ve started saying I work in creative advertising.

As a Gen Z(Millennial cusp), I am the target audience for a lot of ad campaigns. This helps a lot when no one else in the room knows wtf to say to our generation. I call myself a Gen Z voice of reason.

Since I’ve had social media since I was in middle school, I speak a language that nobody before me does. I’m chronically online enough to translate brainrot, but hopefully not enough to be super annoying. (I fear I’m starting to fall behind though, “67” wasn’t making sense to me for a really long time.)

So, I’ve been doing social media campaigns throughout my entire ad career. It’s fun, but it’s so so so fun when I get to do real-life stuff. With how digital everything is, nothing is more satisfying than seeing your work out in the world. Most recently, I got to work on a campaign for YouTube to promote the Grammys, and we got to deck out Waymos for it. Seeing those out on the street was such a wild experience.

I think everyone in and out of advertising has gotten really into real-life brand activations. They feel a lot more personal and can mean so much more than something you swipe past on your phone. That’s my goal as of right now: to make more in real life.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Hit me upppp. Check out my work on my website aishikasen.com or email me aishikasen@hotmail.com.
I’m down for all the creative stuff.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.aishikasen.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aishika-sen-8a7a53195