Advertising overview

Since the heady days of the Eighties, blue-chip clients are still as exciting to work on now as they ever were and the industry is in embarking on a new exciting era of advertising jobs.

Understanding consumers

Advertising is the communication effort in order to sell an idea to an audience. It is mostly used as a promotional tool for businesses that want to spread the word about their product or service. Jobs in advertising are about understanding consumers, how they behave and what they like. It begins with strategic research, to see what the competitors are up to, what shape the specific industry is up to and to find out who they are talking to.

A strategic plan of the proposed message, the medium and the contrived audience is drawn up and tested before finally handing over the relevant information to the creative teams who compose the message. The proposed message is then given to the production specialists who produce the idea for the proposed mediums.

Media buyers then buy advertising space to place the ads. Post-advertising techniques to research and analyse sales records are put in place to measure the effectiveness of the ads and then the entire process begins again.

Advertising jobs are notoriously difficult to get into. The importance of a degree, loads of work experience or internships plus some administrative skills is just the beginning. Young recruits will often have to work the ground up, performing tasks such as the mail girl or office lackey before being promoted to more relevant responsibilities.

You can work for any one of the following:

• Full-service advertising agencies, who deal with the entire campaign under one roof
• Specialised agencies, such as direct marketing, media, design, creative who produce only a section of the advertising campaign
• Above-the-line (ATL) agencies who do mainstream advertising such as TV, press and radio
• Below-the-line (BTL) agencies, who produce supporting communication efforts such as sports marketing, direct mail and public relations
• Through-the-line agencies whose policies are a mixture of both above-the-line and below-the-line mediums
• Media organisations 

Reasons to get into advertising include: excellent pay (after progression from graduate stage)

• Creatives and production teams can dress down
• Lively social element - functions and awards parties
• You can see the fruits of your labour out in the public eye

Why not?

Reasons not to get into advertising:

• Very competitive and difficult to get into the top agencies
• You sometimes have to tip-toe over delicate egos in the workplace
• Make or break industry where the top performers are the only ones who succeed
• Really long hours for those working to a deadline