Advertising Degree. Anybody With Information Care To Talk About It?!

[Larry Gene David]

Hi everybody. I am looking for information on what a career in advertising would entail. I've been looking at prospective Universities(Colleges) but the information on the courses haven't been very substantial.

If any experienced people could give me a rundown on what type of things they usually do, what options are available for work, where advertising could lead, day to day work etc. and any other interesting things I haven't thought of I would really appreciate that!

Thanks.

Donald: You know what you are? You're a self-loathing Jew.

Larry David: Hey, I may loathe myself, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm Jewish.

[MikeN]

I'm in advertising, but I didn't go to school. I work for a major music magazine, and I'm an ad sales assistant. There are only two advertising positions in the company: assistant and rep. I'm an assistant, but I couldn't move up to the next step yet...I'm 22 and all the reps are in their 40s. So I could move to the marketing or research department or something like that. Actually I could probably move anywhere in the company if I really wanted to.

[Proletariat]

do you want to be on the business side or the creative side?

http://www.arevolt.com

[bk]

I'm in school for advertising right now. In terms of agencies most of the jobs that involve advertising are in media, creative and account management. Obviously creative comes up with the ads and executes them. If you want a creative job in one of the major agencies you pretty much have to go to a portfolio school either instead of or after regular college. This is basically two years of hell as far as I have gathered. Media plans and buys where the ads are actually going to be. Media is a lot of times just reading numbers and figuring out where the ads are going to be most efficient, but it also takes creativity. The account side is dealing with the clients, researching the industry they are in etc... It's where most of the money is, but it's also probably the least fun.

Like Neuman said, there is also advertising sales which are for newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television stations. I'm not really familiar with how it all works.

Working for an agency is a lot of hours. If you are on the creative side the hours are spent messing around a lot bouncing ideas around. Some of the agencies in NYC have entire floors where creatives basically just fuck around on an adult playground of sorts.

From what I have gathered, advertising can lead just about anywhere. Running agencies or departments. Even going to work for a client in larger roles.

Personally, I went to school wanting to be a creative, changed to wanting to do media, to now not even knowing if I want to work in an agency at all.

Some of what I said might be off base, so if it is, somebody correct me.

[baskew]

I've worked as a Art Director in a few agencys, if you have anything specific you want to ask I can answer them.

Keep in mind, Advertising is a heartless industry. If you've got any personal views, and believe in human rights, the ability for mankind to further himself, and that consumers should get what they pay for in products. Then this industry isn't for you.

http://www.baskew.com

[HEWSINATOR]

There is a lot of marketing though outside of advertising that may be of interest to you too. Just worth while to second that the "creatives" and the other people involved are very different individuals.

[iohan]

Quote:

I've worked as a Art Director in a few agencys, if you have anything specific you want to ask I can answer them.

Keep in mind, Advertising is a heartless industry. If you've got any personal views, and believe in human rights, the ability for mankind to further himself, and that consumers should get what they pay for in products. Then this industry isn't for you.

--- Original message by baskew on Mar 26, 2006 11:54 AM

Though i would not say that this spoken of heartlessness is entierly true.

You have the big boys like McCann and such. But also smaller places with more of a niche (say with focus on fashion, music, etc) do exist, and they commonly has a closer relationship with moral and ethics. It's all about your purpose i would say. If you want money then turn to the moneymakers, but then as you say count on shithigh formality, hierarchy in a pure backstab-paradise.

Or, if you are the creative type (as in; a designer, typographer, etc) with a straigh mind, you could turn to the smaller companys, wich might not make loads of money, but has a greater potential in beeing a workplace you love spending time in.

Love your work and never work again.

One thing you could do if you are into this more creative part would be taking a BA in graphic design. I have no clue about good schools in the states, but i think they have high quality in close to all the bigger city's. Parsons in NY is one.

[mlproject]

bk broke it down nicely.

i went into school wanting to do advertising, but had the wrong idea about how to do it. i initially went into marketing - why i went to IU (top 5 business school). i ended up with a BFA in graphic design, but wish i would have sought out a program in the beginning that would give me more than just design.

if you want to do well on the creative side, go to school for art direction and take some design classes to back that up or a school that has a design program with a heavy copywriting/conecptual basis to their cirriculum. being able to design/write spots on your own when conecpting will make you come off that much stronger. your portfolio is what will get you a job in advertising. its not grades or recommendations, its all who you know and how good you are. bk mentioned portfolio schools, but if your focus in undergrad is sufficient, you should have a good enough body of work to present. porfolio center/miami ad school/etc are very intensive, but will definitely get you to where you need to go.

if you want the business side, look for account management, but coming from a designer/AD i would highly suggest you get some training in design and/or art direction so you can effectively sell the design/concept to the client. some of the account managers at my work have transitioned over from PR or a non creative background and fall flat on their face in trying to present visual ideas and their background.

i've met with some large agencies in NYC while looking for positions and the lines between art direction and design are well-defined, if you get smaller those lines will dissappear and the agency will start to draw on everyone's talent. throughout school, get internships at different sizes and types of agencies to get a real taste of what its like. in some cases, mine helped me figure out what i didn't want to do so i didn't make that mistake when i graduated.

Edited by mlproject on Mar 26, 2006 at 01:28 PM