Advertising: probably the best graduate career in the world

Think about your walk into university. A bus passes by and it’s fully clad in advertising, as is the bus stop. You may walk past a billboard or two; pick up a newspaper or a magazine and both full of advertising pages. Then you receive a text. No, it’s not from the cute one on your course, but an advertising campaign. When you finally settle at a computer to check your e-mails, you’ll be bombarded with banners, recommendations and targeted adverts; advertising really is everywhere.

Job roles in advertising

The most common role within an advertising agency is that of the account manager. They handle the client and act as their ambassador within the agency. Their responsibilities include:

• working intimately with the client to understand their specific needs
• working closely with agency colleagues to ensure these needs are met
• briefing the creative team
• feeding back to the client at every stage

If that sounds like a lot of running around then, well, it is. But as an account manager you know the buck stops with you, and your importance to the agency is beyond any doubt.

An account planner has to see through the eyes of both the consumer and the client. Their jobs include:

• researching the market and looking at what has worked well in the past
• presenting findings to the client
• choosing and planning the appropriate media for a campaign

With new technologies developing all the time, choosing the appropriate platform is increasingly important, not to mention mind-boggling. As a planner, you need to know your stuff.

However the roles that will appeal to an arty student are those of the creative department.

• pushing themselves to come up with bigger, better, more imaginative ideas
• understanding user behaviour and how people will react
• drawing on different trends within popular culture

Who thought that putting ‘hello boys’ under a picture of Eva Herzigova would cause so many traffic jams? Who would have thought that meerkats would be the perfect vehicle for insurance comparison? Creative roles can be a lot of fun, but they are at the bottom of the pyramid.

Moulding our future

Advertising permeates our lives at every level, and affects the way we live our lives. It can affect what clothes you buy, what films you see, what charity you donate to and what job you apply for. As such, it’s an industry that must always be cutting-edge, constantly looking towards the future: a great challenge for anyone in their first job.