The reason is this: Clients are hungry for advertising and marketing ideas that will attract customers, drive demand and build their businesses.
Each year, millions of dollars in advertising budgets change from agency X to agency Y - all because of a better idea.
Anyone can have that idea (who is within an agency. For legal reasons, agencies do not listen to ideas from outside). In other fields such as engineering or law or banking you'd need to pay dues and win seniority to get the more interesting assignments. But in advertising, big ideas talk. They've been known to come from people 21 or 31 or 71.
Is the Advertising Industry Right for You?
They could come from you. Maybe you have a knack for words or visual design, and brainstorming. Maybe your talents lie in web design, or innovating with skills such as Flash and Java. Perhaps you hunger for the Wall Street Journal's marketing news, and are fascinated by buying behavior, business strategies and marketing management. If any of these are true, then being part of an ad industry could be the perfect career outlet.Get Noticed.
The fastest entry is to develop a hot portfolio of sample ads. You can do this as part of a good advertising course curriculum. If your portfolio shows talent, and some fresh thinking that agencies haven't seen, they will snap you up. Once inside, if you sell a big idea all the way through during an important pitch, your salary can zoom. Agencies, like Hollywood, have a "Star" system.Don't get the wrong idea. Advertising is a tough field. Often dozens of campaigns are generated and shot down for every one that gets produced.
Many other types of talent team with the creative department. Other departments include Account (quarterbacking agency efforts on behalf of the client), Producer/Project Manager (shaping creation of the ad in broadcast, print or interactive), Media (planning and buying ad placement), Traffic (getting the ad to its destination) and Research or Account Planning (interviewing consumers, studying consumer reaction).
