Advertising Careers

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...