A Primer on Careers in Advertising -Shivani Chander

Advertising is all around us: at home, on the TV, on the Internet, radio, newspapers, magazines, and even when you step out into the open, you are bombarded with advertisements on hoardings, buses, hand held signages…it does seem that there is no escaping them! We may discard some of them right away without even a second glance but some stay with us for a long time. Who can forget the smart and money-wise house wife Lalitaji urging us to switch to Surf? Or, the very contemporary Thanda Matlab Coca Cola?

Advertising has become an intrinsic part of our every day life and diminishing product and service level differentiation has only added to the increasing importance of advertising over the last decade. The evidence of this can be gauged by the growing advertising budgets of companies. Although advertising is not an end in itself, and more of a means to build a relationship between the product and the end consumer, it is the main arm of marketing which helps to create demand, promote the marketing system and  in turn boost overall financial prosperity.

So how does one claim a piece of the advertising pie? How can an MBA find a foothold in the advertising industry? Let’s find out:

Functions of an advertising agency can be broadly divided into three: the creative aspect, the strategy aspect and the operational aspect of the agency.

The creative side broadly covers the art, copy, films, studio and production side of advertising and calls for professionals with qualification in fine arts and mass communication – in short people who have a creative bent of mind.

An MBA would fit into the operational and strategy functions of an advertising agency. One must remember that the glitz and glamour of advertising masks the hard work and long hours required to succeed in this field.  As Himanshu Saxena, Group Business Director, McCann Erickson, rightly puts it “MBAs generally tend to get attracted to the advertising field for the wrong reasons like glamour, fun etc. But the reality is that of hard work, frequent late working hours, chaos at the working place and they need to understand these realities before they make that decision.” Hence it could turn out to be an ideal vocational choice for a creative individual who can handle high-stress work environment.

The operational aspect of advertising is popularly known as client servicing and the strategic function as account planning. Let us look at what both of these entail.

Client servicing
Also known as account management, client servicing is the key link between the agency and the client. Fresh management graduates usually enter the agency through this function. At the entry level, one joins as an account executive and is responsible for one or two brands. Depending on performance and opportunities, one can advance to the position of a group account manager or an account director within a period of 4 to 6 years.

Primary responsibilities of an account executive include routine brand related activities like executions of television commercials (TVCs), press advertisements, point of sale material and regular monitoring of client billings.

Client servicing requires a thorough understanding of the category that one is working on, e.g. if one is handling the soap brand Pears, then one needs to understand the entire personal hygiene industry. Hence, one needs to not only understand the brand one is working on but also the competition, market trends and consumer behaviour; this helps to arrive at the effective creative brief (a written description of the product/brand message which needs to be translated into an advertising campaign) and instruct or advise the creative teams. An account executive would require tremendous interpersonal skills as he must communicate effectively with the client as well as with the creative department within the agency.

The client servicing team is also responsible for ensuring timely and quality delivery of materials like TVCs, radio spots, press ads, point of sale material, audio visuals for launches etc. and monitoring the revenue of the business through efficient coordination with the finance function.

Shashank Lanjekar, Brand Services Director, McCann Erickson, aptly sums up this function: “It’s essentially an operational profile with intermittent ideation and strategic business inputs required to be contributed regularly. The only fuel you run on is a passion for ideas and the fun of conversations with creative people in your agency. That’s what keeps you going.”

Account Planning
Also known as Brand Planning or Communication Planning or Strategic Planning, this function plays an important part in the development of brand communication. This entails a strategic input to the communication development process and hence requires considerable understanding of the communication process in addition to specific communication planning skills. An entry level position in account planning would require at least 2-3 years experience in various relevant functions like Client servicing, Brand Management or Market research. Planners can advance to the position of Planning Director in a period of 5-8 years depending on performance.

Primary responsibilities of planners include arriving at campaign briefs, monitoring and analyzing socio-cultural trends in conjunction with business realities in different product categories and recommending next steps for brand campaigns periodically.
Speaking on the skill sets required for planning, Mr. Lanjekar says “This requires a keen eye for analyzing a given market situation or socio cultural trends in the consumer’s life and making it relevant for a given brand. Planning also requires a knack for mining insights from regular information sources such
as research presentations, consumer research reports
etc. Planners need to express their points of view creatively since their output is a
platform for creative people
to take a leap from and generate communication
ideas.”
But how exactly do MBAs fit into all of this? Mr. Govind Pandey, President McCann Erickson, India, captures the essence when he says “MBA as an educational program is methodical and systems driven; whereas advertising is all about ideas to communicate. Hence MBAs need to be naturally inclined towards creativity and evaluation of ideas to be able to do well in this field.”
 

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