CALEY VANULAR
“Almost every person I know who has their ‘dream career’ has been working on it for a long time. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to make your passion your career”
Caley Vanular
Content Creator, Vancouver, Canada
If you follow Caley on social media, you’ll instantly be transfixed by what seems a never-ending journey of amazing experiences. Beach trips to El Salvador, a sailing trip in Norway, split boarding in BC, driving a van from Mexico to Canada - it can all look a pretty unreal existence. What 99% of people don’t see, is what Caley is doing away from the camera.
Working, hustling, creating. On the majority of these trips, she’s either working for someone documenting through a travel lens, or creating imagery of a product for a brand, all while project managing the whole thing herself. It’s that ability to multitask across a wide variety of platforms with multiple brand partners that has meant she’s been able to carve out a unique position for herself in the market. She’s the very epitome of the word ‘creator,’ which gets used way too often now. She’s inspiring, always delivers and has fun whilst doing it.
Jonathan: Hey Caley, can you explain what you do now?
Caley: Currently, I operate a marketing agency that specializes in brand strategy, content and community integration alongside launching my new brand FORAH. On top of that, I work as a photographer, snowboarder, consultant, marketer and sports model/commercial actor.
Ha ha, I like to do it all.
I’m intrigued by how you got into this field of work. Did you go to university for this?
Short answer: no. I am self taught. Long answer: My entire youth was spent dedicated to snowboarding. During a competition I fell and tore my ACL & MCL. That injury required surgery and about 10 months off-snow. So with some newly found time on my hands and slight depression I enrolled in the communication design program at Emily Carr. I spent that year rehabilitating my knee while immersing myself in painting, drawing, screen-printing and woodworking classes. When I was healthy again, I realized I could snowboard and continue to go to school by switching from an arts to a business degree. With some finesse, I attended university one full 12 hour day of back-to-back classes a week and spent the remainder of my time working remote for various clients... all while still snowboarding. I did this for about six years on and off. I ended up dropping out of university with six credits to go when I was headhunted to lead a global campaign for Destination Canada. I always intended on going back, but never did. I honestly didn’t learn much that applied to my work from university. What I did gain from university were the diverse viewpoints from my classmates, space to ask more questions and of course I found a way that I could make the system work in my favour (i.e. grants, benefits and a student season pass, which basically made my university free).
What were your first two or three jobs?
The first way I ever made money was crocheting. I started a little company called CALICO when I was 12 years old with my friend Julie. She and I would make and sell toques (also known as beanies) and headbands. This is how I started learning how to code HTML and market online as I would alter my Myspace to be a shop and sell online from that social platform. My first job working for someone else was working for an eBay Powerseller called VQA Vintage. The town I am from had a decreasing population of youth, so they rented out half our vacant high school rooms to small businesses like VQA Vintage. I would just go straight from school to work. My job was to take bulk t-shirts and wash, measure, photograph, write descriptions and publish them to eBay. I quit VQA Vintage when I moved to Whistler to pursue snowboarding.
Unlucky for me, my first year in Whistler I injured myself. Luckily my team manager at Capita, Mikey Scott also ran a marketing agency on the side and hired me to run social media for one of his clients. A few years into working together, Mikey convinced Herschel Supply they needed marketing and got hired as the first ever marketing director for the brand. He brought me along as the marketing manager, I was employee number six. Together we built the entire marketing, ecommerce and communications program for the brand. It was a quickly growing start-up and while Mikey focused on the large scale marketing strategy I was given the reins to work on brand campaigns and create/launch all of the digital marketing: social, email marketing and ecommerce. Working for Herschel was a really great experience alongside a really amazing group of people. It was a hard decision to leave the brand after being so invested but working for myself was always the path for me.
What one or two things would you tell your teenage self ?
Not to rush it. The work you are doing now matters. If you focus on your passions and adapt, you will find your dream career, life isn’t a straight line. Listen to your gut.
What would you suggest for people who want to do what you do?
The best advice I can give to someone is to sit with yourself and think about what it is at your core that you are interested in. It doesn’t have to be specific, just some general guidelines. For me, it was always marketing, design, and entrepreneur- ship. Sports were an integral part of my life so with that as
an underlying passion it was easy for me to find my niche (Sports/Lifestyle). At a young age, I decided to continue to work within these general guidelines. Instead of working as a waitress, I worked in retail. I made less money, but I learnt a good amount about product, consumers and sales, which in turn helped me build skills towards my future career. If a job isn’t teaching you skills you can use towards your dream career, get a new one. There is no point in working a job that doesn’t serve you and it will only lead you farther away from your goals. Work in the industry you want to be in or as close to it as you can get. If you are forced to stay in a job due to finances, moonlight in the industry you want to be in until you are comfortable enough to make the switch.
Almost every person I know who has their ‘dream career’ has been working on it for a lifetime. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years to make your passion your career and the best way to be successful is to not quit. Keep going, keep working, keep trying. If you fail, learn from it and try again. If you want to follow my footsteps all you have to do is put in the work, be consistent, be reliable, be adaptable and be unique. If you do that and don’t give up, you will land yourself a dream career you maybe never dreamed of.
What were you curious/passionate about as a kid?
I was born the same year as the internet. Little did I know my gaming and excessive computer time would contribute as a valuable skill in the future. The same goes for selling things, I was the only kid on the block allowed to bike to the corner store. So I would come back with a bag full of stuff, set up a table and sell popsicles for double the price. I sold bracelets, lemonade and hats. You name it. This entrepreneurial drive and hustle is an integral part of how I got to where I am today.
What have been some of the most memorable campaigns you’ve worked on?
I’ve worked with numerous brands throughout the past 15 years on a wide array of campaigns. Launching Herschel was
a highlight. Another highlight would be a two-year millenni- al marketing campaign I lead for Destination Canada. Most recently, the work I have been doing for Nike for the past three years has been incredible. I was brought in on a whim as a solution to the common problems with big business. I was given a goal, budget and a quick due date. I worked with their global team to test markets, creative direct unique content and explore new avenues for Nike Women to connect with their customers. What was so fulfilling about this project was the ability to use all my skills and past experience at once, taking advantage of small teams and flexibility that typically get stifled by the hierarchy and approval that comes with big brands like Nike. We travelled to the USA, Canada and Mexico, engaging with powerful women and capturing unique video and photo content from a female gaze. The campaigns were incredible and spoke to the audience on a more authentic and relatable level.
What’s the biggest drawback to combining traveling and working?
The hardest thing about traveling and working is where to draw the line. Defining ‘what is work and what isn’t work’ can become blurred and unhealthy. You have to maintain a clear work/life balance which can get hard with on-going projects and endless travel. To get to where I am today, I have had to sit out on many dinners, go in early or miss events to get my work done while I am on ‘vacation.’
Sometimes I admire careers that you can just switch off when you’re done with work for the day. My brain never switches off, I am always reminded or thinking about work – learning from my surroundings, gathering inspiration, absorbing culture or scouting locations for future pro- jects. When you love what you do it doesn’t feel like work so it’s easy to never stop working. Al- though, it is really important to step back, switch off and be present with friends and family. It’s what I love so much about surfing or being in the backcountry – enjoying a forced slow down; a disconnect. Burn out can happen to the best of us and when it hits, it usually hits you hard.
Do you ever get those moments when you’re like ‘holy shit, this is what I do for a job?’
I rarely get a moment during a project to reflect. Everything is often moving so quickly and you’re so deep in it that it is hard to take a second to appreciate the moment. But when you find those moments (and you do find them) they are as wonderful as you would think. For me, it’s often on a project after you call ‘wrap’ for the day. Or when you hand in the final assets and the job is complete. Sometimes work brings me to mountaintops in faraway lands and the wind will hit me in the face, making me instantly pause and reflect on everything I have done to get to where I am mentally and physically in that moment. The ride is so quick, sometimes you forget how amazing it all is. Don’t forget to take it all in. Take photos. Fill journals. It goes by quicker than you can ever imagine.
