Death of an Ad Man?

Children are often asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Now those words should be directed at the 20-somethings that are increasingly filling college classes. For them, the question is no longer, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Those words should be rephrased to, “What do you want to be in a few years, at least until your career choice is declared obsolete, and the money you spent was not even worth the general education classes you were forced to take?”

I don’t mean to sound spiteful. In fact, I am optimistic that my degree will take me places my parents could not go. While spending nearly six years working toward being an art director for an advertising agency has definitely taken its toll, it’s been a goal well-worth the hardships.

At first, I encountered nothing but positive signs while looking for a little confirmation that my choice in a career path was a good one. Creative jobs were on the rise. Advertising was a mecca for creative minds. But this was of course before the economy took a down turn, and many lost faith in corporate America yet again.

As the economy begins to recover, it is assumed that the advertising job market will recover, but this does not seem to be the case. According to iMedia Communication, ad agencies worldwide are in decline. Clients are jumping ship and heading to the Web and digital forms of media for new marketing strategies. This can be attributed to research that shows people are spending less time with traditional media, such as TV and newspapers, and more time on the Web. The problem with this research and new push toward digital forms of media is that consumers still spend time with traditional media. Therefore, a solution that involves eliminating long-standing and successful forms of reaching the masses is a flawed solution. However, many clients are very short sighted; they see dollars dropping in one area while increasing in another and decide that it is time to drop the axe.

Common sense dictates that the decreasing amount of time spent in front of traditional media is directly related to the increase in Web usage, but advertising’s lack of effective results is perhaps related to the lack of cohesive traditional and digital campaigns.

Some of the most successful advertising campaigns have employed a well-rounded approach. A couple of these campaigns include MTV and Axe Fusion’s Game Killers and Coca-Cola Co.’s Coke vs. Coke Zero. Both campaigns employed strategies that hit their target audiences on multiple fronts and left no one out. They met their audiences with witty and fun entertainment that directed to them to the Web sites. This caused the audiences to absorb the messages that the companies were trying to get through and invited audiences to be part of the advertising process.

There are dangers in the advertising world, and missteps and lost opportunities can send the ad world down the same direction as the dot-coms of the late ’90s. However, this could be seen less as an impending doom and more as an opportunity for the ad world to reinvent itself. The old model is becoming obsolete, and it is time to breathe new life into the dying ad men (and women) of the world.

- Brian Randle