Whatever terrible thing youâve pivoted a campaign around â a delayed launch, maybe customer backlash â I bet it didnât involve a multi-hundred-thousand dollar burglary.
This weekâs master can put that on her bingo card. But, more importantly, her bingo card also includes working with a list of brands too long to say in one breath: Special Olympics, Coca-Cola, Nike, Google, Coors Light, Les Schwab, and the legendary Seattle radio station KEXP are just a few.
Today, she heads up the creative team behind the marketing art for the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering.
She sat down for one of my favorite interviews yet, not least because I learned that her grandpa was a Chicago bootlegger whose house was raided by Eliot Ness of The Untouchables.
|Meet the Master
Alicia Mickes
Senior Creative Director, Wizards of the Coast (publishing company of Magic: The Gathering)
Fun fact: Alicia loves to collect random certifications. Sheâs got certs for tattooing, personal training, TRX, cake decorating, ceramic restoration, and even bloodborne pathogens training.
Claim to fame: If youâve seen the MOD Pizza logo, youâve seen something Mickes has designed!
Lesson 1: Take ownership, but donât take it personally.
Mere weeks before Hasbro was set to release a version of Magic: The Gathering based on Wild West outlaws, the worst happened: Images of unreleased products hit the internet following two high-profile thefts.
âA bunch of cards got leaked because people started selling product before it hit stores,â Mickes recalls. âIt really blew our planned marketing campaign.â
And while I couldnât confirm if the thieves had old-timey waxed mustachios, Mickes relays the story with an ear-to-ear smile and a touch of mischief in her eyes.
Which isnât to say she doesnât take the situation seriously, but you get a sense that that smile is at the heart of who she is as a leader, a marketer, and a human being.
âWe could have gotten really mad about it. [Instead,] we tried to play into it and have fun with it.â
To illustrate her point, she shared with me a blog penned by their communications director that tackled a similar leak head-on with inside jokes and even a few sneak peeks of their own.
We spent time trading war stories. Product launches blown by eager fans zooming in on early marketing materials. Negative feedback strewn across the internet.
The takeaway is this: On a long enough timeline, all of us will face a marketing crisis. And whether itâs a branding misstep, a social media meltdown, or actual grand larceny, Mickes says it's important to take ownership without taking it personally.
Sometimes that means âaccepting that you did something wrong, or that you did something people donât love, and being okay with it. Thatâs just human. I want all my team members to know they have a safe place to create, and explore, and take big risks. And big risks fail sometimes.â
âIt is what it is. And so we pivot.â
Lesson 2: Collaboration starts with culture.
Mickes is a big believer that a high-performing creative team requires a supportive culture.
âWith all the testing in the world, it doesnât mean things are going to land the way you want,â she explains. âItâs important to have a group of people to talk your ideas out with, to brainstorm with, and to bounce ideas off of. And know that it may not be the idea that gets picked, but it may help contribute to the overall finished product.â
But that kind of dynamic doesnât happen by accident.
âI make it a point to create a culture of psychological safety, where everyone feels comfortable being themselves and talking about their ideas.â
Now, the topic of culture-crafting could fill the next yearâs worth of newsletters, so I asked Mickes for her number one, gotta-have, most impactful piece of advice for working with creatives.
âOne of the quickest ways to build trust is to help your team members get wins.â That might look like exploring time-management strategies with a team member who wrestles with work-life balance. Or teaching communication techniques to someone who is afraid of interpersonal comms. (Or who, like my co-worker who shall remain unnamed, but who edited this, is afraid of phones.)
âWe have check-in meetings where you share the things youâre struggling with or share your work to talk out. It takes time, and isnât necessarily part of the creative process, but it aids the creative process in the end.â
Lesson 3: Fun is not the opposite of work.
When youâre constantly focused on A/B testing, engagement rates, and driving ROI, itâs easy to forget that marketing is, at heart, creative work. And creative work should be fun.
âWeâre one of the loudest groups at work. We always get in trouble, because weâre over in the corner yelling and hooting and having a good time,â she laughs. âSome folks think weâre not working, and Iâm like, no, thatâs us getting to the answers!â
âCreatives that are having fun and feel relaxed and safe are going to make better work. Itâs not a competition. No oneâs trying to win anything. Youâre in there, together, trying to make the best thing possible.â
Itâs a simple formula. Clever minds + fun + safety = Good marketing. When something resonates with your team, thereâs a greater chance that itâs going to resonate with your audience, too.
âAnd when the whole group says, âHell yeah! Thatâs it!â thatâs when you know.â
