Americans are bombarded by thousands of commercial messages everyday in the form of bouncy jingles, television commercials, and even printed advertisements hanging on bathroom stalls. Advertising agencies have launched a commercial war, using outrageously clever ideas and exhaustive market analysis to captivate the attention of a consumer for a mere sixty seconds. In a sense, working in advertising is like throwing a message in a bottle out into the ocean, hoping that it will reach the right destination. It is quite an enigma then why anyone would want to work in such a challenging, finger crossing, and stressful industry. For those inside the industry, the answer is simple: advertisements shape the way people act, think, and dream.

Producing an advertising campaign is an extremely elaborate process. Advertising agencies are responsible for understanding the objectives of a company, transforming that into an idea that will persuade consumers to buy the product, and then finally choosing the appropriate media to communicate that message, a three step process described as strategy, concept, and execution. Due to the complexity of this process, advertising professionals assume very specialized roles that fall into two very broad categories: creative and business. In the creative service department there are copy writers, graphic artists, photographers, and film makers who work together to conceptualize, plan, and produce an ad. Production is a great department to work in for creatives looking for entry-level positions that will allow for a good amount of networking that could lead to other careers in advertising.

The other advertising career tracks involved in the business aspect of advertising are account management, media, and account planning. At the entry-level, account managers are referred to as account coordinators, administrative assistants, or assistant account executives. Their duty is to ensure that ads move through the three step process in a smooth and timely manner. At times, these employees are called upon to perform marketing research or travel to assist at client meetings or ad shoots. Account executives act as liaisons between the client and creative departments to ensure that expectations are met and ideas are communicated accurately. From there, the ladder rungs follow as such: account manager, account supervisor, management supervisor, vice president, and eventually director. In the media department, most start off as assistant media planners, a primarily clerical position that involves researching consumer habits and plotting target audiences. Assistant media buyers purchase and monitor airtime and advertising space. From these positions, employees move on to become a media planner or buyer, senior media planner or buyer, media supervisor, vice president, and director. Finally, account planners conduct insightful focus and research groups in an attempt to qualify and quantify consumer buying habits.

Despite this highly efficient, organized, and specialized structure, nearly half of all advertising professionals worked more than forty hours a week, spending many extra nights and weekends in the office or on business trips. Insiders say the long hours are balanced by a fun, hip, and exciting work environment that allows employees to wear jeans on a normal day, bring their dogs into the office, and even play foosball to spark inspiration. It’s not hard to see then why the advertising industry is so popular amongst college graduates. Unfortunately, the market is extremely competitive and employers seek those that are creative, self-motivated, detail-oriented, great with people, culturally aware, resilient to stress, and analytical-and those are just the personality traits. Applicants are also expected to be experienced teamplayers, knowledgeable in marketing strategies and research, aware of rising technology, and accustomed to handling multiple projects and deadlines at the same time. Advertising training can be acquired through a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts, preferably advertising, journalism, public relations, literature, sociology, philosophy, or psychology, with coursework in marketing, statistics, economics, accounting, mathematics, and creative design. Obtaining an internship in the field will provide you a distinct market advantage and some in-agency experience. Although creatives are hired on the basis of their talent, most jobs require at least a two year degree from an art or design school, demonstrated communication skills, and a portfolio of mock advertisements. For midcareer professionals looking to enter the business, expect to start from square one and, in general, be prepared to jump from agency to agency in order to advance.

The upside is this: advertising budgets are on the rebound as more companies begin to feel the strain of advancing global competition. It is projected that the advertising industry will increase faster than the average until 2012. This is good news considering that if you play your cards right, getting into the industry will not be as daunting as it once was. However, be prepared for less than encouraging paychecks. Most advertising professionals start off at around $30,000, but quickly move up with the success of their campaigns. The average advertising manager in the industry makes around $70,000 a year and the top ten percent make over $145,000. Look forward to a lot of upward mobility and a far from monotonous advertising career.

peter radford asked:






History: Part 1

When radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920s, the programs were, to say the least, “explosive.” Such a colourful debut was due to the fact that the first radio stations were funded by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who made the programs available solely in order to sell more radios to the listeners of their programmes.

Consequently, many non-profit organisations followed suit by setting up their own radio stations building on the success of these early programmes. Such organisations included schools, clubs and civic groups.

As the advent of sponsoring programs became ever more popular, individual radio programs would normally be sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief mention of the business’ name at the beginning and end of the sponsored shows.

Since the success of these ventures seemed boundless, radio station owners quickly realised that they could earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses throughout their radio station’s broadcasts, than selling such rights to single businesses on a per-show basis.

The concept of sponsorship was carried over to television by the late 1940s and early 1950s.

As the appeal of radio sponsorship became more widespread, the part played by radio became a contentious issue. There were those who wanted to extend the commercial opportunities offered by sponsorship. On the other hand, there was a vociferous faction who argued that radio should be available to everyone. They felt that it should be used only non-commercially and for the public good.

In the case of the United Kingdom, they introduced public funding for the BBC, or British Broadcasting Corporation. Although it was originally a private company, it later became incorporated as a public body by Royal Charter in 1927. In Canada, there was a lively group who was able to persuade the federal government to adopt a public funding model akin to that adopted in the UK.

However, in the United States, there was no such appetite for a publicly funded body. Instead, a commercially orientated model was adopted with the passage of the 1934 Communications Act. However, in order to appease those who felt that radio should be for the public good, the U.S. Congress stipulated that commercial broadcasters should operate in the “public interest, convenience, and necessity.” Notwithstanding this, public radio does indeed exist in the US.

The up-and-coming trend of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors was originated, in the early 1950s, by the Dumont television network. Previous attempts were less than successful, with Dumont having trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs. So much so, that they had to resort to selling smaller blocks of advertising time to a variety of businesses.

The sale of advertising time to multiple sponsors eventually became the industry standard for commercial television in the United States. On the other hand, it was still a common place to have single sponsor shows, such as the U.S. Steel Hour. In these cases, it was not unusual for the sponsor to exercise a great deal of control over the content of the show. In fact, it could even go as far as having the advertising agency actually writing the script for the show.

Today, however, the single sponsor model is more the exception rather than the rule. A notable exception is the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Advertising – How To Succeed



Peter Radford writes Articles with Websites on a wide range of subjects. Advertising Articles cover Background, History, Types, Alternative Forms, Today’s Methods, Effects, Regulation, Trends.

Website has many more.

View his Website at: advertising-how-to-succeed.com

View his Blog at: advertising-how-to-succeed.blogspot.com

 



Kansieo.com

Geetika Jain asked:


A career in Public Relation is in huge demand these days with the growing role of public perception in the success or failure of a product, service or even a celebrity. Young graduates are taking up professional training through PR courses to make a career in this field. There are many career options that one can opt for in the field of Public Relation.

With certain personality traits and a degree or diploma in PR, one can look forward to making a successful career in this line. Many institutes and colleges across India offer courses in PR.

 

For a youngster who is good at communication skills, has an outgoing personality and is willing to do something exciting in life in terms of meeting new people, a PR job is tailor made. The main responsibility of a PR professional is to create a positive image and goodwill of the company with all internal and external clients. The responsibilities of a PR person include monitoring and evaluating public attitudes. Since it is a management function, it involves maintaining and managing mutual relations and understanding between an organization and with all its stakeholders and the outside public. Here, public refers to shareholders, government, consumers, employees and the media. So, the basic function is to get along with people we constantly have to work with and get in touch with.

 

A PR Officer will ensure that there is an internal consistency and clear channel of communication in the company between the management and employees so that there is no ambiguity in the vital understanding. The PR professional would also need to think of new and creative ways of communication and keeping up a two-way flow of information and understanding. On a day to day basis, the PR profession requires making press releases for the public consumption of any announcement that the company wants to make. Also, creating leaflets, oral communications, managing the media image, devising strategies around a crisis and ensuring that the image of the company is not hurt in any way and if there is bad news floating around, then how to deal with that to do damage control are part of the day-to-day chores of a PR professional.

 

The qualifications required to be a PR professional are generally a diploma or post graduate diploma course on public relations. These are conducted by various institutions, both public and private. Those youngsters who are already graduates and are preferably with a background of social sciences or humanities go for these courses. This does not mean that students from other streams cannot join PR courses. Even students from Science and Commerce streams are also increasingly taking up PR courses to pursue a career in this exciting field. Apart from the diploma courses, there are also short term certificate courses that one can take up in this field. There are not many institutes that offer a two year master degree course in public relations. Generally, there are diploma courses only. Also, most courses on advertisement also include the study of public relations and have an additional paper on this.

 

Some institutes conduct entrance tests while others intake students on the basis of merit only. Usually, the duration of a PR course is of one year. Apart from this there are also short term certificate courses. Most training programmes in Advertising also include Public Relations. Some institutes have entrance exams while others prefer admission on merit basis. A Public Relations course would train the students on principles and techniques of public relations, administration and management of public relations, including organizational development, writing, creating news releases, annual reports, scripts, proposals, speeches, and other such related items, visual communications, including desktop publishing and computer graphics, and research. The most prominent courses in Public Relations are Course In Advertising & Public Relations, Course In Basic Public Relations, Course In Basic Image Management, Degree Course In Public Relations, Diploma In Public Relations, Diploma In Communication, Journalism and Public Relations, Master’s Degree In Journalism And Public Relations, Post Graduate Diploma In Journalism, Public Relations And Advertising, Post Graduate Diploma In Public Relations, Post Graduate Diploma In Public Relations And Advertising and Programme In Image Management. One can choose a course as per one’s interest.

 

Since Public Relations officials are in high demand, these courses are also in high demand. Armed with a good qualification and the requisite personality traits, one can look forward to a successful PR career not just in India but also abroad through international PR firms.



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