Recently a friend of mine asked me to provide some answers & advice to her niece who is an undergrad considering a career in advertising.
I said “Sure!” of course, and shortly thereafter I received a nice email from “The Niece”. Apparently, The Niece is a sophomore in college currently and she is studying journalism as a fast track pathway to a career in advertising. She seems to have it all quite a bit more figured out than I did when I was a sophomore in college. In fact, The Niece already has some career related options lined up for this summer that she is debating …either intern for an agency in London OR go on a class field trip to Cannes Festival.
At this point my “summer options” jealousy has kicked in and I am pretty sure that I hate The Niece …also I developed a working theory that she is mixed up in some sort of hush-hush co-ed scandal.
After getting over the internship envy and dismissing her alleged co-ed scandal, I looked over The Niece’s list of questions and prepared an email response and hoped that it will be helpful to her.
As I looked over my response before I hit SEND I realized that some of this information would be helpful to anyone who is thinking about pursuing a career in Advertising.
Here is what I wrote:
Hello ["The Niece"],
First, congratulations on your difficult summer options. Between Cannes or London …those are both excellent work experience options. I would need to know more about the London option in order to truly compare it against Cannes and make a recommendation. Assuming your London option is to work as an intern at a quality agency/ shop >> my gut tells me that this would be the most helpful experience to your future. The Cannes thing will be an excellent opportunity to network and make contacts, but you will work your butt off and learn as an intern dropped into the mix of the normal agency operations.
Now, to answer your list of questions:
How did I get started in Advertising? By accident. I got out of college (undergrad) with a lot of ambition, but no clue about what I really wanted to do for a career. I graduated right in the middle of all the dot.Com craziness and worked at a startup. At this startup I was in sort of a hybrid sales & marketing role, and I quickly discovered that I loved two things; The Internet and Marketing/ Advertising. After that startup flopped along with most of the dot.coms of that time I worked and held leadership positions at a couple different smaller agencies (web design agencies) for several years before joining a large digital agency in Dallas. During this time I also went to grad school and earned an MBA which has been helpful in my career advancement. After a couple years at the large digital agency I left and joined my current agency, The Martin Agency (traditional agency), and am helping them build their digital capabilities & integrating digital better into their work for clients.
What do I enjoy about The Martin Agency? The people & the brands. I have an opportunity to work with some of the biggest brands out there, and do so while standing side-by-side with some of the most talented and humble people in the advertising industry. There are several really great ad agencies out there today (Goodby, Crispin, R/GA, W+K…to name just a few) but The Martin Agency is a little different than all of them. Maybe it is because they are all based in the big cities of NYC, LA, SF and we are in Richmond, VA, but the culture here is quite a bit different than many of the agencies out there today. People come here because we are one of the best agencies forsure, but unlike everywhere else where the tenure shelf life is like 2 years …most people here at Martin stay for 7 – 10 years or even (gasp) longer.
My advice for you as you enter this industry. I am not sure which part of advertising you are pursuing a career in …copywriter, art director/ creative, producer, or account person …so there are definitely tweaks on my advice to be appropriate for each. That said, I would advise that you follow the guidelines that I have listed below (no particular order):
- Understand Digital & Social for Advertising: Do not, I repeat do not try and come into advertising with only print or TV skills. You will be lucky to find a job and if you do you will be asked to do digital work anyway and will get fired if you cannot hang. So, while I do think you need to understand print, TV, outdoor, etc as part of your base of marketing understanding ….if you would like to start off on in this industry on the right foot then you should position yourself closer to the digital side. By position, I mean know it inside and out as a marketer & also as a consumer/ user of digital media and social media. For today, and for how things will be in the future this is probably my most important point to you.
- Go to Grad School or Advanced Degree: Depending on which (creative, account, etc) applies to you I would advise that you get a graduate or advanced degree at some point in your career. My personal opinion is that you are better off going to work at an agency straight out of undergrad, then going back before you are 30 to get a grad degree …but I know that some advertising-specific advanced programs piggyback right ontop of undergrad so if you have that option I would take it then. Either way, a graduate degree will set you apart from 95% of the rest of your peers that stop after undergrad.
- Experience a Nice Mix of Big & Small Agencies: People who have only worked at big agencies grow up in their career cacooned in their own silo area (creative, account) and clueless about most everything else. On the flipside, people who only work at small agencies never know what it is like to deal with the good and bad of large agency operations, nor do they ever gain adequate experience with major brands and multi-department clients. My advice is to not be afraid to spend a nice mix of small and big agency in your career ultimately ending up in the setting that fits you best. Either way, you will better off if you get experience from both vantage points.
- Try on Different Hats: This sort of goes with the Big Agency vs Small Agency thing. Most people who only work in big shops get blinders on with their specific role. Bad idea to have blinders. Find out what other people on your teams do …understand their role & the knowledge they have to have. Occasionally you should work on some projects where you take on a role that is a bit outside your skillet so you can learn it and be more rounded.
- Join Local Advertising Networks/ Groups: It will pay off to know people outside of your own company & personal connections. Find a couple things related to advertising that you are REALLY passionate about (social media, word-of-mouth advertising, ad club, whatever) and look for local networks, clubs, and/ or groups that meet regularly. Join a couple of these and be active in it. Don’t just go, but be active and sit on the board and be on committees, etc. You will find entirely new opportunities and paths that you would have missed this way.
None of this advice is earth shattering new information, but I think it is solid direction for anyone who is thinking about starting a career in Advertising today so I thought I would share it.
I would love to hear from anyone who follows this blog about what you think about my list of advice for Ad Newbies …make comments on my recommendations, disagree with me and tell me why, add some recommendations of your own.
As for The Niece, …I expect to hear from her in about 10 years when she is kicking ass and taking names in what will undoubtedly be a VERY different Advertising industry (proof that a nasty college scandal can be overcome).
