Career options in advertising agency…

Careers in Advertising Advertising agencies handle a broad range of marketing tasks requiring people with experience and ability in overall management and specialized skills. In all agencies, the jobs usually fall into six categories:

• Account Management The responsibility of the account manager is to be the client’s representative at the agency, and the agency’s representative at the client’s organization. It is his or her job to get the best possible work from the agency for the client-but at a profitable return for the agency.
• Account Planning is still relatively new among agencies, and is not used at all agencies yet. Essentially, account planners make sure the consumer’s perspective is fully considered when advertising is developed. The account planner works to continually focus and re-focus the agency’s strategic and creative thinking on the consumer, helping the team—particularly the creatives—understand what “turns the consumer on”.
• Creative The creative department of an advertising agency is responsible for developing the ideas, images, and words that make up commercials and ads. While many people in the agency contribute to the process, the invention and production of advertising is mainly the responsibility of copywriters and art directors.
• Market Research The basic role of the market research department in an advertising agency is to understand the wants, desires, thoughts, concerns, motivating forces, and ideals of the consumer. By researching secondary information, conducting focus groups or one-on-one interviews, testing people’s reactions to new advertising copy, tracking sales volume or studying buying trends, the advertising agency researcher becomes an expert on consumer behavior.
• Interactive Marketing This is a brand new area in the field of advertising and marketing which is quickly evolving. If you have ever visited a company’s web site, you have been part of how interactive marketing is changing the relationship between advertiser and the audience. An important point to understand is to realize that with traditional marketing vehicles, companies had to find you to get your attention. In the world of interactive marketing, the consumer seeks out the company’s web site and decides how long they will stay. They can tailor the experience to their own needs. This is why interactive marketing is the fastest growing phenomena in the media and marketing world.
• Media The media department of an advertising agency is responsible for placing advertising where it will reach the right people at the right time and in the right place…and do so in a cost-effective way. Planning and buying media at an advertising agency is exciting and challenging because ways of communicating are constantly changing and becoming more complex.