The Come Up: Day One’s SVP of Story, Keshvar Alikhani, on the Importance of Career Detours
- Text Jamila Jalloh
- Design Jena Salvatore
Welcome to The Come Up, Day One Perspective’s series interviewing our staff about how they got their start in advertising — and what inspires their creativity.
In this edition of The Come Up, we spoke with Keshvar Alikhani, Day One’s Senior Vice President of Story. After graduating with a degree in political science and passing the bar exam, Kesh had no idea she’d land in a career full of humor, imagination and creativity. She went on to make thousands of memes for “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” and create award-winning campaigns for movies like "Deadpool."
Read on to learn how Kesh embraced unexpected detours along her career.
Let’s rewind to 2010: You just graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science and History. What did you think was next for you?
I was going to be a lawyer. That’s what everyone who graduates with a Poli-Sci degree does. This is so embarrassing, but I studied Poli-Sci because I loved the show “The West Wing.” Then, I took the LSATs and applied to law school, and I got into University of Southern California. But a couple of months before classes started I started thinking, What am I doing? I don’t want to be a lawyer! I was afraid to take out loans for school when I wasn't sure being a lawyer was exactly what I wanted to do. I thought, Did I just do all of this because I liked a TV show? Then my next move was actually thinking about going into TV instead!
So I took an unpaid internship at a production company that was like a farm for interns to learn how to be assistants. It was a good internship because it taught us all the strict rules you have to follow to get into the industry. We learned how to do roll calls, how to handle someone's schedule and practice getting yelled at by scary people.
How did you navigate the rest of the transition from law to the TV industry?
A lot of the changes really stemmed from the nature of the TV industry. You get in wherever you can. At the time, production companies were like retail stores staffing up for the holidays, except they’d staff up for the casting season. I started working in the industry before streaming took off. Back then everything premiered in September and ended in May. I worked at ABC for a season as an assistant to the casting producer and she’d ask me to help cast upcoming Shonda Rhimes shows. Then she'd give me a list of people and I'd edit clips together for a casting reel. I fell into the role of video editing this way. Suddenly I became a video editor and was editing clips of people like Jack Nicholson!
After your TV casting days, how did you find yourself in advertising?
I was at the production company that made “Top Chef” and working on a show called “Arranged Marriage.” It was my job to find people willing to get an arranged marriage! But the show kept bouncing between networks, and midway through the process, it got killed. So one day I was suddenly laid off. It was a total surprise and my first experience being laid off. I was super young and decided to freelance next, which meant making a weekly rate and not knowing when I'd get my next job. When nothing was coming up it was really scary, so I went back to the drawing board and started applying to any job I could find. I landed in an editorial and marketing job at FabFitFun, writing their advertorials. That job gave me the experience that helped me land future jobs in advertising.
And what a mark you’ve made on the ad world! Let’s talk about you winning a Cannes Lion and a Webby award for marketing the "Deadpool" movie. What was it like working on a project like that?
Yeah! I was working on organic social media for the campaign and there was zero budget which is funny because it was a million dollar movie. And Deadpool’s marketing is very self-aware which no one had really done before. So we kind of just went rogue. One thing we did was go to Target and make a Snapchat story series from Deadpool's point of view. Deadpool was in Target buying lotions and tissues, you know, we made all the sexual innuendos. It was great because nothing we did was going too far. And then at the end of it, the marketing for the movie overall won a Cannes Lion and a Webby, and I got to be a part of that which was really cool.
What other cool projects have you worked on?
I did social media for a little show called “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” I had to watch a lot of episodes and try to find tiny clips to make into gifs. For example, we clipped the gif of Kim peeking out from behind a bush. “You’re cute jeans” was also something that we immediately knew people would repeat. I also wrote social video scripts for WWE stars. I had no clue what wrestling was before that role and by the end of it I was very into it. I was a fan of all the ladies! And I also got to work on one of my favorite shows, “Veronica Mars.” It was at the time when fan fics were everywhere and there was all this fan fiction about “Veronica Mars.” So we had the idea to have Kristen Bell and Jason Dohring act out two full scripts of fan fiction. It was so cool to watch because I loved the show so much. To be a part of that idea from start to finish and be the reason why Kristen Bell read cheesy fanfic on camera — that I handpicked — was really special.
What have been some of your favorite projects to date?
So much of what I’ve done at Day One over the last year has been really exciting. We worked e.l.f.'s sponsorship of the only female driver at the Indy 500. We built a lip oil change activation at the event and did social for it as well. It was so fun to work on something of such a large scale. Last year we also did an e.l.f. skin campaign with Megan Stalter and that was such a dream. It was so fun to write the script and see it come to life on set. It was my first big television commercial after all these years in the industry.
How did you find yourself at Day One and how have things changed over the last five years?
I joined when the company’s LA office was pretty small. There were around twelve of us. I had not really done much CPG because I came from the world of entertainment, so moving into food and CPG was exciting. But in the five years since I started, Day One has changed so much. When I joined there were only 40 employees in New York and 10 in LA. Now we have two more offices and we're triple that size.
Aside from industry achievements, you’ve also made some pretty significant personal ones. Did hiking Mount Everest give you any new perspectives on your career and creativity?
It was great because it was twelve days completely cut off from everything. I went with a couple friends and it was wonderful to have a singular focus. We were so cold and tired, but to be able to focus on one thing was so refreshing and it really helped me reset. It reminds me there's so much more out there than what's happening in your phone. And sometimes I'm so deep in my scroll that I start to feel overwhelmed by the pressure to know and connect everything to the work I'm doing. That pressure can make you disengage, but that disengaging led to fresh energy. I sometimes think like a marketer but forget to think like a human. So more than anything, hiking Mount Everest helped me remember to be a person outside of my job.
What’s your advice to young people who want a career that demands creativity but don't know where to start?
Just be willing to do anything. I came to my career so sideways and sort of found my way accidentally, so I feel very lucky to have arrived where I am. Because of that I'd say don’t be too rigid in what you expect and be OK with following a detour. And so much of being creative is about being a really good listener. Act like a sponge and soak up all the things that you hear. And then, it’s important to get away from it all sometimes and have a life of your own too.
