So you wanna be an ad guy/girl
There are people who get into this industry because they ‘really wanna get into advertising’.
My question - whyyyyy.
Why do people want to get into advertising? Is it the glamour? Is it because you want to write taglines that will forever be remembered like David Ogilvy once did? Do you want to be a well known designer? Help your client’s company succeed? Save lives, and maybe some baby seals in the process??
Well, guess what. Advertising is none of those. I’d love to hear someone tell me that they’re interested in getting into advertising so that they can write taglines or create really cool campaigns. Dream on. What’s more likely is that you’ll be writing search engine copy, where you’re restricted to 3 lines of 35 characters or less for some depression medication.
I once went into an interview (this is after I’d been in the industry for a couple of years), and was having a conversation with an HR person. Actually, wait. If it were a conversation, then she would’ve responded to what I had said in response to the questions she had written down on her interview_questions.doc document. No. She was more interested in getting through her list and writing down her appropriate notes. Question #4 out of 5 was ‘Why do you want to work at XYZ Agency?’. Give me a fuckin break! And I told her this - I don’t give a fuck how famous the guy who founded this company is, or how prestigious you think it is to work here. What’s important is the people you’re working with, the account that you’re on, and the role that you’re playing. I’ve worked at a shitty company before but had a phenomenal boss and got great experience. I also know that no matter how amazing you think your company is, there’s tons of dead wood, and any one of them can make my life a living hell. Obviously this person was one of them.
So why did I get into it? I got into it by default because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Do I regret the time I spent in it? No. As a matter of fact, I’m trying to leverage my experience into a side gig, which I’m working on during down time, and hope to have as a full-time job one day.
Why am I still doing it? Because it’s easy to me, it’s a paycheck and there are some cool people in it that I’ve come to be friends with over the years.