By cdelprincipe@hubspot.com (Curt del Principe)

Whatever terrible thing you’ve pivoted a campaign around — a delayed launch, maybe customer backlash — I bet it didn’t involve a multi-hundred-thousand dollar burglary.

This week’s 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. But also for the great advice she shares about facing adversity and working with creatives.

Alicia Mickes

Senior Creative Director, Wizards of the Coast (publishing company of Magic: The Gathering)

• Fun fact: Alicia loves to collect random certifications. She’s got certs for tattooing, personal training, TRX, cake decorating, ceramic restoration, and even bloodborne pathogens training.
• Claim to fame: If you’ve seen the MOD Pizza logo, you’ve seen something Mickes has designed!

Lesson 1: Take ownership, but don’t 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.

“A bunch of cards got leaked because people started selling product before it hit stores,” Mickes recalls. “It really blew our planned marketing campaign.”

And while I couldn’t 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 isn’t to say she doesn’t 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.

“We could have gotten really mad about it. [Instead,] we tried to play into it and have fun with it.”

To illustrate her point, she shared 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 it’s 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 “accepting that you did something wrong, or that you did something people don’t love, and being okay with it. That’s just human. I want all my team members to know they have a safe place to create, and explore, and …read more