How to break into the advertising industry

ILX,

I love advertising. Currently I work in arts administration. I have an undegraduate degree in psychology but no experience in the advertising world. But I have the right instincts for it. Does anyone here work in the field that would be willing to share some war stories?

Sincerely,
surm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgUWTquztGY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkYyUxqV83M

currently reading this which is interesting http://www.aef.com/industry/careers/career_advice/1418

and i'm going to talk to alums from my school

the only thing about this whole idea is that i'll probably have to take a sizeable paycut, and it's not like i'm rollin in it as it is

Need a pipe.

http://img.chinasmack.com/advertising/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/David-Ogilvy-The-Original-Mad-Man.jpg

Hmm. Taken from this page.

http://advertising.chinasmack.com/2011/ogilvys-20-years-in-chinas-advertising-industry.html

Long ago I did local freelance ad copy writing. I wasn't very successful at it, but I did scrape by. Outside the big media centers advertising is generally pretty small-time stuff. Laying out newspaper ads for grocery stores. Writing sales brochures for local manufacturers. Just generally writing crap to fill all those cracks and crevices of media time not filled by Fortune 500 mega corporations. I liked tech writing a lot better.

Look around you and you'll start to notice it more. Even General Mills hires somebody to write what's on cereal boxes, as y'all know but rarely think about.

where do you live, surm? NYC?

NYC. i mean, i actually do think about it, tbh. like when i'm looking at a cereal box, i think about it. and i have always loved commercials with a passion, and any sort of telemarketing.

and like this stuff

Laying out newspaper ads for grocery stores. Writing sales brochures for local manufacturers.

actually sounds fun to me

I've been a copywriter in-house for some of the biggest corporations on earth, I've written magazine ads, newspaper ads, worked on radio scripts, written billboards on the Lincoln Tunnel helix, etc. It's not very fun, from either the writing or design side. The other end of it is working for an ad agency ... I'd like to imagine it's more exciting, but I'm sure that depends on whether or not the clients want "fun". An acquaintance is a copywriter for one of the big agencies and he's had moments where he's tearing his hair out working 14 hour days, so maybe good not to get too idealistic about it (no idea if you are, really).

There's also social media, which works best as conversation rather than push-push-check-this-out. Traditional marketing/advertising/PR people are pretty dumb about it as a whole, and you could put your ILX skills to use. It's most of my bread and butter these days. This is a decent primer. It's also something you could start doing on the side (for a restaurant or other small business) while keeping your current job.

very interesting.

You could always take a portfolio building class at one of the design schools in the city. They usually have experienced agency insiders who show you the ropes. I got out of the running before social media took off, so shit's probably changed a lot. I work in e-commerce now writing catalogs for a national retailer if you're curious at all about that. Sneak preview: it's boring but it pays the bills.

yeah, i think i would definitely benefit a lot from a portfolio building class.

and i am definitely curious about what you do. what kind of writing do you do for the catalogs?

Laying out newspaper ads for grocery stores.

Did this from 1986-1992, pre-computers. It was the worst paying job I ever had, and the department boss was the most horrible human I've ever worked for. OTOH the co-workers were an interesting group and the larger workplace, a grocery wholesaler's distribution center in Tupelo, was an amazing mix of humanity.

xp You inform the consumer about the product and why it'd make their lives better, more fun, more luxurious, etc. I'm assigned to home decor and apparel so i have to write a lot of that J. Peterman-style purple prose about exotic lands and sunsets and garbage like that. Unfortunately, you can't make much money writing like a crackhead, so I do what I have to do.

damn that sounds awesome.

you have my american dream

if you feel like this is something up your alley, you just need to be able to write well for consumers... like, if you can write well, for human beings, you can learn all the in-between stuff pretty easily. agency work is more of the conceptual chin-stroking shit, but if you're creative that's fine ... a porfolio class will teach you about that stuff (at least mine did), and already being in nyc is a huge advantage since you have access to all those resources. social media's another world but it's important, too.

oh yeah, this work doesn't pay well AT ALL, unless you can break into one of the mega agencies. one of the perks is you get to work with creative weirdos, even at boring-ass corporations.

i can see myself liking both in-house work and agency work but i think i would be happier at an agency. i tend to be creative. it does seem like it's harder to get into that arena though. which work doesn't pay well exactly? you say what you're doing does pay well, right?

salaries are b/t 45k-60k. i'm in the middle since i got into it after being out of the industry for four years. benefit of working for a corporation is great benefits, light working hours, laid back working environment, and where i'm at i can probably stay here for 10 years if i want. agencies are faster paced, more demanding, more stressful, and you'll have to commit to very long working hours ... more of a tight-rope walk w/o a net. i'm still tossing around the idea of applying to some agencies, i just got back into this field recently.

oh yeah, there's direct marketing, too, but that's some shark tank boiler room shit, so if you've got the glengarry glen ross thing going on, that pays pretty well ... my brother's in that area and takes home about 70k. his office sounds like hell, and another writer in my dept. worked for a direct marketer and his experience sounded pretty similar.

so agency work is a bigger risk for a longterm payoff that might not actually pan out is basically what you're saying

i also need to think about the fact that i'm not willing to give up my time-consuming music hobby

this is all very good to chat about, i appreciate it

np, hope some of it was informative

for sure, thx. kind of excited tbh.

oh yeah, the guardian runs a yearly series about breaking into copywriting (could apply to design side if you're interested in that). here's the link i have, might be one more recent if you do a search: Routes into copywriting

u the best boo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQcljaFWP-c

i did a little of it in different facets in nyc. first gig was 100% a lucky break. internships and/or temp agencies would be my starting advice.

I guess CGR7 got bought out but they found me a couple things http://www.kellyservices.us/US/About-Us/Creative-Workforce-Solutions/

oy va voy the thought of interning

Hi I work in advertising

It sounds more glam than it is

sometimes for a laugh i still troll the craigslist writing/editing jobs and i swear to christ all there ever seems to be in this general geographic area is copy jobs for big pharma companies and i mean i wouldn't be opposed but there seems to be absolutely no way to break into this nonsense if yr background is in journalism. (esp. arts journalism.)

what do you do homo?

yea i've heard there is a lot of pharma work

What I liked least about advertising is that everyone above you in the pecking order had their opinions about what was "good" ad copy, but there was no standard you could appeal to and their opinions were almost always vague about what was "wrong" or how it ought to be improved, even while they insisted it was wrong or needed to be improved.

I was perfectly obvious that it was all a bunch of guesswork and hunches on the part of my clients, but equally obvious my hunches didn't count for shit. Very annoying as a freelance / contractor. So I got out of the field.

I was a peon working w/ ad copy for 8 years. I grew to loathe it more than anything in my life.

otoh, with tech writing there were some objective standards to meet. the information had to be complete and accurate and useable. then you could figure out if those standards had been met. this was much more to my liking. it also helped immensely that I got a position in a good company with a reasonable boss, so the deadlines were not totally impossible.

so before you did tech writing, were you working at a company or freelancing?

freelancing

were you able to make good money doing that? how much experience had you had in the field before you started freelancing?

surm do you want to be a copywriter or like a planner?

or an account manager? or a new business dude? or an art director? etc

I work at a huge agency of 600+ people, my role is pretty much how to get shit down with so many goddamn people involved. Professional problem solver and cool as a cucumber person.

But I have worked in advertising and/or marketing since I was 18.

copywriting and art direction are my main interests

but my current experience in admin would probably make be a better fit for the planning side of things while i try and build some sort of CV

I work in business to business marketing and have for over a decade, and on more than one occasion I've told my wife I'd rather just quit and risk being jobless and broke than go to work another day. I hate what I do but am approaching "too old to change careers" territory. I can't imagine anyone *wanting* to get into this work unless it was like nonprofit advertising or cause marketing or something.

Copywriters are in shorter supply, it would seem. Hard to break into though - start by doing free work, maybe check out designers who are working on their books who need copy magic. Planning is actually really pretty hard to get into, lots of people we've hired have their MBA's and shit.

Also our planners definitely tap more into the psychology aspect of you that you mentioned above.

iirc the best way to get into advertising is to trick a drunk adulterer into hiring you

definitely.

i mean, the idea of me doing this would be to get creative, so i think copywriting is what i need to explore. thanks for the tip homo

aren't there firms that provide more invasive services (like in addition to advertising, they retool a client's product line entirely, change the corporate culture and branding)? That seems like it would be more fun and bossy than having to pitch radio spots.

I guess technically this is o/t but what about arts admin isn't doing it for you? I would think that field poses a lot of interesting strategic challenges requiring creative responses.

yeah those are pretty competitive though, Philip. Like rebranding? Some agencies specialize in it.

Above the line agencies like Saatchi are always going to be the most competitive and snobby. If you can find something kind of niche and a bit less glam, you'll probably have more success.

(Also, those above the line agencies - Saatchi, Chiat/Day, etc., really think they are amazing so to "GET IN" with them means they usually work you to death for the reward of working for such an ~elite group~)

I work in a very unglamorous aspect of marketing/advertising so they realize they can't work us like slaves.

I find it weird that these cool gigs would be the sole domain of high profile ad agencies and not some kind of generalized anonymous consulting groups (like those that run local political campaigns.)

arts admin in my line of work has not been about ideas. i love the institution, but my job within it has palpable limits.

having drinks with a friend of mine from college tonight who is now a VP in the ad world. started out doing pharmacopy at saatchi. also i heard from a friend that Miami Ad School is a well-reputed certificate program in my neighborhood, so that is something i will investigate.

A credential might be a good thing, if it doesn't cost too much. It would partly depend on how the agency views the need for in-house training.

http://www.mediabistro.com/agencyspy/miami-ad-school-opens-in-new-york_b27004

read the comments

avoid for profit schools

get an internship somewhere

So you're attracted to the field because you want to do something creative, it sounds like something fun and maybe easy, and you're familiar with advertising and feel like you could be good at it. But the important thing to understand is that everybody else you will work with thinks the same thing. So more often than not rather than working with a totally blank canvas, you'll be working on ideas that the client or some other superior wants to pursue. Or if one of your ideas does make it through it will most likely be changed beyond recognition. Just be aware that if you're going into it as a personal creative outlet then you're likely to get disillusioned and frustrated very quickly.

i'm attracted to the field bc i've always been attracted to it, i've always wanted to work in commercials, and i've always had the knack for it (not that writing and filming commercials as a child will make the cut on my resume). it is not so much something i landed on bc i want to do just anything creative - i am creative in other ways - or bc it seems fun and easy. but yes, i am getting the picture of how competitive a field it is. i do think most things that inspire a lot of passion tend to be this way. for me anyway.

yeah i did a little research on miami, not sure it's for me.

that being said, though, i do wonder how attainable a position that i would actually enjoy really is. not sure how rewarding it will be for me to be in the industry if my ideas do equate to something pretty minute, especially at the expense of my other interests outside of a career. one step at a time, i guess.

I wasn't really talking about how competitive it is, but more about the fact that there are always too many cooks in the kitchen. You have to be prepared to not be in love with your ideas, because I've seen a lot of people get burnt out by having other people constantly shitting on their work and changing it for the worse, or taking credit for things they didn't do. I'm not trying to dissuade you from it, but just pointing out a factor that I think a lot of newcomers overlook. It can be hard to come to terms with the fact that it's a service industry that's ultimately less about creating the best possible work and more about pleasing the right people.

i hear that. so it seems like you are mainly talking about working at an agency that services different clients. if those negatives were at a minimum, that sort of work would be something i would be very interested in. however, i imagine there are a lot of in-house jobs that i might enjoy as well. i just saw a copywriter position at macy's, for instance. seems neat, and might lead to a fatter paycheck than what i am getting now working in a very literal service industry where i don't get to have any ideas. so ... a lotttt of factors to consider.

what do you do, if i may ask?

the only "creative" job i ever enjoyed was editor of the college paper, because i could do whatever the fuck i wanted with it. when you do work for clients it's pretty much like any other job, except you get to watch your fun ideas get shat on by 10 different people and then flushed down the toilet.

some good quotables in this thread so far

so you've never had a job in this arena where you got to feel excited and productive about your ideas?

It's pretty much slogwork. Anything cool that ever gets produced and executed will also have 50 other people's names on it, and the person at the top (group creative director) will get the majority of the credit. There are worse things out there to do, though, perhaps.

also most copywriting is writing claims and one million boring headlines

Fun story: The principal of the ad agency who last handled my company was charged by the SEC with insider trading, for trades she made after finding out one of her other clients was undergoing a merger. That's kind of fun and exciting.

sounds like i picked a really terrific industry to be fascinated by

also somebody else i was talking to said given my musical side i shd look into writing jingles (!!!....)

jingle writing seems like a very narrow and specific talent, similar to writing hooks for pop songs.

the guy i was talking to has had experience in both and said (obv) there is much more of a market in jingles. i mean, pretty much all i do currently is write hooks and slogans for myself so it's worth a look.

fuck for real if only i had written the Activia jingle

If you can write hooks and jingles, then you have a very real chance of breaking in, because your portfolio is practically made already. the biggest trick would be getting a creative director to listen to them. if they are good, it will be obvious. the only missing ingredient would be proving you can deliver the goods on a deadline.

thread of imaginary products for surm to record real jingles for

omg.

i work for a digital agency in nyc, albeit on the web development side. the way i got in was through a headhunter, of all things; i had resumes up all over the place during a period of unemployment, got cold-called about a contract position, and got offered a full-time job a few months later (fyi this is a VERY unusual route into the industry, at least as far as my company's typical hiring practices are concerned)

that said, we hire contractors all the time (especially for copywriting/content strategy stuff), mostly through staffing agencies - if you don't mind the idea of contract work, there are definitely opportunities out there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJAp0-N9rTY

i hear that. so it seems like you are mainly talking about working at an agency that services different clients. if those negatives were at a minimum, that sort of work would be something i would be very interested in. however, i imagine there are a lot of in-house jobs that i might enjoy as well. i just saw a copywriter position at macy's, for instance. seems neat, and might lead to a fatter paycheck than what i am getting now working in a very literal service industry where i don't get to have any ideas. so ... a lotttt of factors to consider.

yeah, I've never worked in an in-house position like that, but it seems like it would come with its own unique set of issues. On the one hand it seems like it would have the potential for more leisurely deadlines and more down time, but doing the same thing all of the time could get old eventually. I would also imagine that if more interesting projects do come along those would be the things that tend to get outsourced to an agency while the in-house people are stuck doing the smaller stuff. But again, I have no firsthand experience in that area.

what do you do, if i may ask?

art director at various small digital agencies, mostly working for entertainment industry clients.

art director at various small digital agencies, mostly working for entertainment industry clients.

― wk, Tuesday, January 29, 2013 2:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't lie, you are clearly both wieden and kennedy