Content Creator Jamar Rogers and Pod Host Jamie Falkowski share their One Creator Lab experience

POV: You’re scrolling on TikTok, you see an ad to apply for One Creator Lab’s spring 2025 semester, and you need to learn more.

Lucky for you, I have captured both the student and instructor sides of this program. If you’re interested in applying to take the course, OCL grad and Tulsa-based content creator Jamar Rogers is your guy. And if you’re an agency thinking about sharing your expertise, OCL instructor and founder of Day One Agency Jamie Falkowski will tell you all about it.

Jamar fell into content after his successful stint on NBC’s The Voice in 2012. The Voice gave Jamar a career in music and One Creator Lab led him to Jamie who gave him a solid career in creating content for Day One Agency.

Jamar and Jamie share their experience as a student and a pod host, respectively.

Jamar, how did OCL pop up on your radar?

Jamar Rogers: I worked as a recruiter last summer while making content for various gigs on the side, but I wanted to be a full-time creative. I thought I could make real money if I did this full-time, but all my friends talked me out of pursuing it.

Then a One Creator Lab ad popped up on TikTok. It appeared to be a bridge between creators and brands, so I was like, oh yeah, sign me up. I sent in my audition video and didn’t think much about it. So when I got accepted, I was super flattered.

And after I learned what we would be doing I almost quit – half the class almost quit – we were all thinking, “what the hell did we sign up for?” I hate advertising. I hate everything about ads. There’s no way I ever want to work in advertising.

But after we met with Day One Agency, I understood we would be learning about ideation and strategy so I got excited.

I’ve never been interested in these things, but I ended up falling in love with the process. I ended up falling in love with advertising. It is hilarious because I still hate ads. But now I’m reading Ad Age and I’m into it.

Jamie, why did you want to get involved with OCL and host a Pod?

Jamie Falkowski: Over the years Day One Agency has gotten to know the team at The One Club and their work to evolve and bring new thinking to the marketing and creative industry – it is an organization committed to pushing what we’re all capable of and how we work.

The One Creator Lab was a perfect opportunity for us because we’ve been experimenting with our own Creator network — both as full-time hires and as part of a freelance collective we call D1C (Day One Creators).

The agency employees of the future are going to look very different than the ones we hire today. With so many young graduates and makers aspiring to be full-time creators (57% at last glance) the talent pool will be less singularly focused on strategy, copy, art, film, or even production. We’re seeing more and more of the next-gen leaders having a range of skills and needing new pathways to growth in the agency environment.

With our success in building creative strategies and approaches on TikTok – starting way back when we launched Chipotle’s account in 2018 – we’ve seen the need for talent who understands this platform and can balance that with a creative services mindset. In 2021 we started to hire in-house creators to help us ideate and produce their ideas. OCL gave us an opportunity to potentially identify additional talent and to crystallize our learnings in a format that could help transfer experience into their own experimentation.

“With so many young graduates and makers aspiring to be full-time creators (57% at last glance) the talent pool will be less singularly focused on strategy, copy, art, film, or even production.”

Jamar, can you share a few key lessons you learned during the labs that have resonated with you?

Jamar: I had never done a presentation, so learning how to put together a pitch deck was a big deal for me. By the end of it, I was crushing my presentations. I love the research. I love the ideating phase. I love it when ideas come to me.

Learning about all the legal stuff behind content and ads, and realizing you don’t know how much goes into it. The things you can’t say, the music you can’t use. On the surface, it creates a lot of restrictions. But it actually makes me more creative to think of ways around it. So I enjoyed that.

After a presentation, Jamie told me, “Wow, you know how to pitch.” And I didn’t, I just have a personality. I learned the art of selling something with exuberance, positivity, and humor to get your point across.

I learned the spirit of collaboration because we worked with new people and new teammates every week. There was not one teammate I did not enjoy working with. Every person brought a new strength. Before this, I had done everything solo, so I truly enjoyed the collaborative spirit of creativity.

“There was not one teammate I did not enjoy working with. Every person brought a new strength. Before this, I had done everything solo, so I truly enjoyed the collaborative spirit of creativity.”

Jamie, what did you learn while hosting an OCL Pod?

Jamie: The first thing I learned is that D1A has so much knowledge inside the brains of our teams—from best practices to approaches for leading our Writing Room sessions, to how best to work with, brief, and amplify stellar creative voices—but none of it had been written down. We pulled together two amazing leaders at the agency, a VP of Story and a Creative Director for Video to lead the program. They built a multi-week learning agenda that balanced sharing with action and sample briefs to reflect the asks we get from partners regularly.

The first lesson we shared was Story School—a truncated version of our in-house, multi-week program to help creatives get from brief to breakthrough. Foundationally, the story is everything. We followed that up by sharing how we run our Writer’s Room and finally, what was probably most valuable to this group—packaging and pitching creative concepts.

Beyond defining the ways of working, we also began to better understand what qualities make for a great in-house creator and what type of creator might be better served as a one-off partner or someone to consider for our D1C network. The pace and range of working at an agency is very different than a creator building their own brand and channel. Adapting to a variety of needs and shifting style, tone, and output isn’t easy. Some creators took to it well and you could begin to see how the right talent could complement our larger creative teams.

“The pace and range of working at an agency is very different than a creator building their own brand and channel.”

Jamar, what have you been up to?

Jamar: Everything. I’m technically freelance, but I am signed on to Day One Agency in LA. I did a couple of national Amazon campaigns for them. Some Chipotle work for them. They keep me pretty busy. I’m also helping some local businesses with strategy and ideation.

I’m also a full-time musician, and just recently signed to a new record label. I’ve been using everything I learned from OCL to help pitch my music.

And I’m doing commercial work with some great companies that use music for commercials.

Jamie, as an agency owner, why would you recommend a fellow agency owner/friend to host a Pod? And what are the advantages for the content creators?

Jamie: There are so many reasons to participate in programs like this. It helps leaders communicate their jobs in new and different ways, exposes us all to seeing creativity from new angles, and accelerates our own change. Coming out of OCL we officially launched D1C with a cohort of six creators to help us scale and create more range in our short-form video work. The pilot had been on the back burner for a while but leading this Pod gave us the push to get it live.

For the creators, I think the value to learn from multiple agencies in a short burst is almost like stacking internships. You get a sense of which culture and approach might work for you, and a chance to decide if an agency is the right path to start or pivot to in your career.

Jamar, how does your contract with D1A work?

Jamar: It’s non-exclusive. I get paid by brief. I’m getting about three briefs from them per month, giving me time to do other things as well. Recently they called me up and asked me to film myself pretending to respond to a voicemail for Chipoltle. It took me literally 10 minutes to film and edit that.

Jamie, what persuaded you to hire Jamar as a content creator for D1A?

Jamie: Jamar was a stand-out almost right away. It helped that he had some agency experience but it was the blend of his enthusiasm and originality that made him great for the first D1C class. We spent weeks getting to know him and didn’t need to go through the standard interview process to evaluate his potential. As part of our D1C team Jamar contributes as an ideator—pitching back against real-time client briefs, and as an executor—shooting and producing responses when those ideas are greenlit. Having Jamar as part of the extended team provides more range in our creative thinking and a variety of voices/styles to collaborate with outside of the standard creator commissions. We can collaborate quickly and now he knows us, how we work, and the best way to get his ideas client-ready.

IG: @THEJAMARROGERS

D1A.COM

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