Is a career in advertising the path for you?

Advertising is a field that identifies and gives preference to talent, no matter what one’s educational qualification. There used to be no basic eligibility to enter into this field. However, some advertising agencies prefer students from reputed schools.

Ad agencies provide services to products, services or brands. Each ad agency works on the basis of the requirements of clients. The agencies create ad films as well as campaigns for the clients. The different departments in an ad agency are client servicing, creative, production, studio and film departments. The goal of an agency is to ensure that the message reaches the target audience.

The client servicing team interacts with the clients. The main aim of an agency is to convey the benefits of a brand to the consumers.

The agency also has to ensure that the ad is created within the specified budget. In some ad agencies, both the client servicing and creative teams attend the client meetings to understand the requirements of the client. The teams obviously do a lot of research about the brand.

Internet is a medium like television. But this medium has become more popular than anything else. Internet advertising is the digital arm of advertising. This industry has a lot of potential and is only poised to grow.

Maturity and resilience is essential to work in this field. The person has to work amidst a lot of pressure while constantly taking the onus to deliver something unique and different. The first step to starting a career in advertising is to get an internship with an ad agency.

Internships will help a student, like in any other field. It is not easy to get an internship in an ad agency in the creative department, unless the student has genuine interest in the subject. On-the-job training and creating their own portfolio in an ad agency will help them to land a job.

Some agencies prefer management students for client servicing jobs. But marketing is something that you cannot teach in institutes. The schools will teach you only about what has already been done in the field, while marketing is mainly about doing something new.
One’s success in advertising depends on how fast one is able to adapt to the environment. It will take a minimum of three years to establish themselves in the career. Though, there are very smart people who have succeeded in establishing their careers in a shorter time. It would take roughly about six to eight years to reach a senior position in an ad agency – if you are good, that is.

There are many reputed ad schools in the country. A course in visual communication might also be helpful for the students.  Coming from an art school is definitely an advantage for the art function in the creative department.
 
Karthik Iyer and Praveen Das, co-directors and founders of Happy Ad Agency