Advertising Today

In school I learned all about the creative revolution of the 1960's and how it changed the face of advertising. Currently the industry is undergoing an equally revolutionary change. I graduated in 2007 and my degree was obsolete almost before the ink was dry on my diploma. Advertising degrees are actually a relatively new institution when you consider how old advertising is (I had a professor who joked that advertising was the worlds second oldest profession). It used to be that if you wanted to get into advertising you majored in art or history or art history or writing or some other liberal arts degree that today aren't worth the paper they're printed on. It seems like the modern advertising degree is following in those footsteps, going the way of the dinosaur. Ever since the commencement of the .com age advertisers have been trying to find a way to successfully institute the Internet as an advertising medium. Banner ads, email blasts and pop-up ads were a bust inspiring such programs as pop-up blockers and spam filters (though banner ads are currently making a comeback). And it seemed for a while that the Internet was advertising proof. Recently however with the new advertising methods such as Guerrilla Marketing* and Buzz Marketing** creativity has lept off the pages of magazines and bombarded us in the streets. No longer was it the job of the advertiser to get the attention of the public but it became their job to trick the public into enjoying the ads without realizing they were ads. Advertising became a funny email to a friend where you inserted their picture into a dancing elf head, or a website where you could make Santa do whatever you wanted him to do, or a viral video from Youtube sent to you by a friend, and you never even realized that the media you thought was entertainment was actually advertising. Advertising moved beyond the funny superbowl TV spot to the funny webpage, video or article virtually overnight. All of a sudden ad agencies were wanting their creatives to be versed in Flash, Dreamweaver and HTML while Photoshop and Illustrator practically became tools of a bygone era. What happened? Well, put aside the fact that humanity has become so technologically advanced that breakthroughs are made daily and look at the economy. When the Great Recession began to gain speed there came a frenzy in corporate America. A frenzy to start jettisoning the unnecessary lest the boat begin to sink. The most unnecessary, as viewed by CFO's all over the country was advertising. I could argue that until I'm blue in the face but the most eloquent (and brief) way that I believe it could be stated is as quoted by Henry Ford: "A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time". So the advertising industry had to adapt, overnight, to a country that viewed it as expendable. What sprang from this are some of the most creative works that the industry has ever seen. The lesson in all this is that advertising is not going to be dealt a mortal blow by this or any other recession. It adapts. And if you want to survive in the industry, you must as well. It is for this reason that I am looking into learning Flash, Dreamweaver and HTML as well as trying to immerse myself in the newest ad fad, namely social media. Look out ad world, I'm not beaten yet.

* Guerrilla Marketing - http://weburbanist.com/2009/05/31/13-more-extremely-effective-guerrilla-marketing-stunts/

** Buzz Marketing - http://www.contenus-en-ligne.com/en/e-marketing/26-bons-exemples-de-buzz-marketing

Unemployed

So the baby is sleeping right now, that is the one good thing about unemployment, I get to spend lots of time with Isabella. She is cutting two bottom teeth right now and also fighting off an ear infection and therefore very grumpy! So I was grateful when she finally nodded off. I'm in the process right now of posting my old campaigns. As I'm still under a non-compete agreement with my former employer I don't think it would be prudent to post any of my work samples from there but if you would like to see some just shoot me an email or give me a call to request them. I may post some of my ads from my internship with Capital City Sports Report or some of my freelance work I've done and in the meantime I hope to get some new stuff up here from work I'm currently doing. Hope everyone is enjoying all that sunshine!