Career Launcher Advertising and Public Relations CL_Advertising_F.indd i 5/21/10 4:02:23 PM Career Launcher series Advertising and Public Relations Computers and Programming Education Energy Fashion Film Finance Food Services Health Care Management Health Care Providers Hospitality Internet Law Law Enforcement and Public Safety Manufacturing Nonprofi t Organizations Performing Arts Professional Sports Organizations Real Estate Recording Industry Television Video Games CL_Advertising_F.indd ii 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM Career Launcher Advertising and Public Relations Stan Tymorek CL_Advertising_F.indd iii 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM Career Launcher: Advertising and Public Relations Copyright © 2010 by Infobase Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information contact: Ferguson An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tymorek, Stan. Advertising and public relations / by Stan Tymorek. p. cm. — (Career launcher) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-8160-7961-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8160-7961-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-1-4381-3204-4 (e-book) 1. Advertising—Vocationa l guidance. 2. Public relations—Vocational guidance. I. Title. HF5828.4.T96 2009 659.023—dc22 2009024196 Ferguson books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Ferguson on the World Wide Web at http://www.fergpubco.com Produced by Print Matters, Inc. Text design by A Good Thing, Inc. Cover design by Takeshi Takahashi Cover printed by Art Print Company, Taylor, PA Book printed and bound by Maple Press, York, PA Date printed: May 2010 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Foreword / vii Acknowledgments / xi Introduction / xiii 1 Industry History / 1 2 State of the Industry / 28 3 On the Job / 57 4 Tips for Success / 85 5 Talk Like a Pro / 109 6 Resources / 134 Index / 151 v CL_Advertising_F.indd v 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM CL_Advertising_F.indd vi 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM Foreword Why does advertising matter? Advertising matters for any number of reasons. For one thing, it helps keep our economy moving forward by fueling consumption. This “fueling of consumption” is also what makes advertising controversial, too. Many believe that advertising causes us to buy more “stuff” than we need. That may be true, but I tend to believe we’d buy a lot of that stuff anyway—what advertis- ing does is point us toward certain brands and types of products. We were probably going to buy a car whether we saw advertising or not (what’s the alternative, hitchhiking?). But the ads infl uence our choice of one car over another. They help us make sense of all the consumer choices before us— and not necessarily in a purely logical way. Ads can help to create an emotional, slightly irrational bond with a brand. The ad—its tone, its style, its subtext—signals to us, “this is the brand for me.” This is not such a bad thing, because it brings some clarity to what would oth- erwise be a chaotic experience of trying to decide among so many similar products and choices. Without advertising, we’d probably have to fl ip a coin to decide what to spend that coin on. Advertising also matters because it’s a mirror of the culture in which we live. In fact, Marshall McLuhan once described advertise- ments as “the richest and most faithful daily refl ections that any society ever made of its entire range of activities.” This means we can learn a lot about ourselves by studying advertising. Advertis- ing is often accused of telling us what to think, manipulating atti- tudes and behavior—which it sometimes does. But more often, it tries to refl ect and reinforce attitudes and behavioral trends that have already begun to take hold in the culture. During boom years, ads tend to show us living the high life; during recessionary times, the ads become more sober and serious. If historians doing research on any particular time period wish to know what people at that time were doing—what they were dreaming, lusting after, worrying about, arguing over—those historians could learn an awful lot just by studying the ads of that period. For those getting into the business now, it is a very different ad world than it was 10 years ago. Back then, the Internet was still new and most ad creators only needed to know how to do two things— make a TV commercial or create a print ad. (Okay, once in a while vii CL_Advertising_F.indd vii 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM viii Foreword they might get stuck doing a radio ad or a billboard too). Today, ad creators must be versatile enough to work in countless media formats—everything from the short Web fi lm to guerrilla advertis- ing that might take the form of something stenciled on the side- walk. This can be seen as both scary and exhilarating; scary because there’s so much to be learned every day, and exhilarating for the same reason. One thing is certain: There has never been a better time to be young in advertising. In a way, young people rule advertising now to an extent they never have before. The business is being completely reinvented with an emphasis on new media and fresh approaches. If you’re new to the ad business, this is good news for you. Change is your friend, while it is the enemy of old, grizzled veterans. You’re not weighed down by the old conventions; you’re freer to experi- ment and make up the rules as you go. That said, you should prob- ably make sure you have a very good understanding and knowledge of the old rules before setting out to break them. Even as everything in the business seems to be changing, there are certain constants. The value of a good story has not dimin- ished. The ability to tell a story well—whether it is humorous or heartbreaking—is still what separates the heroes from the hacks. A few other things that will never go out of style: Empathy. Original- ity. And maybe most important, resiliency. Advertising is a busi- ness where ideas get killed every day. Some of those will be your ideas. You will love them and swear they are brilliant. They will get killed anyway, sometimes with good reason and sometimes not. It doesn’t matter—all that matters is that you sit down and come up with another idea that is even better. The people who can do that tend to do well in advertising. Here’s another tip: Don’t spend too much time trying to emu- late or imitate other people’s award-winning ads. What will tend to make you stand out as an ad person is your unique view of the world, your own slightly skewed perspective. Great ad people do an interesting balancing act: They always tell the story of a brand, but at the same time they’re somehow telling a little bit of their own stories as people, too. Don’t be afraid of making ads that are too weird or idiosyncratic. Those are the best kinds of ads, because they reveal the quirkiness of the individual. I refer to strange ads as “oddvertising.” And it’s the kind of advertising I most enjoy watching, because you never know what’s going to happen next. CL_Advertising_F.indd viii 5/21/10 4:02:24 PM Foreword ix The world is at a place now where we have to do a lot of reinvent- ing and rebuilding; we need to clean up a lot of the messes that have been created in recent years. I believe advertising can be part of the rebuilding process (just as it was part of creating the mess). It can spread optimistic messages. It can tell inspiring stories that are going on all around us. It can rally public support behind worthy efforts and programs and innovations. But it can only do this if the ads are created with a sense of honesty, authenticity, and imagination. We don’t need more propaganda; we don’t need a lot of empty, insin- cere hype. We need people who can communicate the dreams and aspirations of entrepreneurs, of product designers, of the people who make and build. At its best, this is what advertising does—it tells us the story behind a company or a brand or a group of people who make things. It puts a human face on commerce. —Warren Berger JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR CL_Advertising_F.indd ix 5/21/10 4:02:25 PM CL_Advertising_F.indd x 5/21/10 4:02:25 PM Acknowledgments The author wishes to thank: At Print Matters, Richard Rothschild for the assignment and David Andrews for his encouragement, astute editing, and suggestions; Warren Berger for his Foreword’s refresh- ing perspective on the industry; and Barry Biederman, Jon Steel, and Penelope Trunk for their insightful answers to my interview questions. Since the advertising and public relations industries are being transformed by the Internet, it makes sense that two online resources were especially useful: the Web site http://www.ihaveanidea.com, and Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist blog (http://blog.penelo- petrunk.com).