<p>Would a mastrs in advertising be worth it if ya a five year BA/Masters program? Also do advertising firms look for business school grads or journalism/communication school grads?</p>
<p>D has worked at 2 large adver firms; both paid internships; fromUG Newhouse…neither had masters kids…</p>
<p>Apparently, alot of MBA’s in marketing go on the client side of advertising…she is told…</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but I would think that advertising firms would value relevant internships and work experience much more than a master’s degree.</p>
<p>FWIW my brother got his Masters in Advertising from Northwestern way back in the 1990’s, and it hasn’t helped him much in his career. Its a tough business.</p>
<p>Lots of people in advertising didn’t even study advertising as an undergrad. What counts in advertising is not your major, or your degree, but your portfolio (and lots of luck.)</p>
<p>Is it really that hard of an industry to get a good job?</p>
<p>Portfolio is relevant for the creative side; account management does not need a portfolio but rather relevant work experience, with the emphasis on digital experience as of late…</p>
<p>and, yes, it is not a walk in the park to “get a good job”</p>
<p>I would be on the account side. Is it harder than getting a job in most other fields?</p>
<p>I will let you know in the next few months…D has amazing experience; impressive resume; has been getting interviews…we will see…</p>
<p>Don’t know how you would measure difficulty of getting a job with other fields unless you asked others…what would be defined as difficult??..kind of subjective…</p>
<p>It’s not like certain engineering jobs where the recruiters are banging down the doors…</p>
<p>I don’t know. I like the account side of advertising because it seems like it is exciting, every day is different, yet it’s practical and you can make a good living in it. Are you saying these things aren’t necessarily true?</p>
<p>“every day is different, yet it’s practical and you can make a good living in it”</p>
<p>Yes, these things aren’t necessarily true.</p>
<p>Why? Is it not practical?</p>
<p>Uniman, you’ve posted before and have a history of not listening to the advice you get. But one more time- do not get a Master’s degree in advertising. I have worked at large global ad agencies, equally large global consumer products companies. A Master’s in advertising is close to irrelevant for roles on the account servicing track.</p>
<p>Get a BA in European history or French Literature or geology; get an internship as a “gofer” at MTV or Oglivy and Mather; read interesting books and have something interesting to say to your colleagues.</p>
<p>Few people in ad agencies want to hire people who study advertising. And nobody in the media industry or the companies which buy advertising is going to value the degree.</p>
<p>[AAF-The</a> Unifying Voice for Advertising](<a href=“http://www.aaf.org/]AAF-The”>http://www.aaf.org/)</p>
<p>Advertising Federation might be a good place to start. Have you considered finding advertising or public relations professionals in your area and setting up an informational interview with them to ask these questions?</p>
<p>“Few people in ad agencies want to hire people who study advertising.”…</p>
<p>Not sure where you get this from…</p>
<p>tell that to my daughter who literally has multiple interviews lined up…totally disagree; everyone she has met in the process graduated with degrees in advertising:</p>
<p>Newhouse, UMiami, UFlorida, UTex/Austin…etc</p>
<p>the others graduated with english, other comm degrees…</p>
<p>Unless you graduate from Harvard with a degree in French LIterature, you will not even get your foot in the door; and even with that, you will need to network…the business is ALL about who you know</p>
<p>I may be going to mizzou journalism school and get a degree with emphasis in strat comm. I asked is advertising a practical career path in the account side. Nobody has answered that yet</p>
<p>Define “practical”</p>
<p>-- if you mean does it guarantee you a job when you graduate? No</p>
<p>-- if you mean a job that’s stable? No</p>
<p>-- if you mean a job in which you can count on promotions and growth? No</p>
<p>And having worked in advertising, and seen it from the account side, I can tell you that most of the young people who go into it out of college study business and finance.</p>
<p>Ok so would public relations be a more practical career?</p>
<p>Wow! I decided I would do a search on the advertising/pr field since it looks like my daughter is planning on going this route and was surprised by the negativity. Can those of you that think an advertising degree isn’t wise please expand on that? Do you feel the advertising field is something that should be avoided altogether or just the specific degree itself? Are you also against degrees in PR or communications? I’d be really curious what the thinking is regarding this so I can relay the info to my daughter. Thanks!</p>
<p>Advertising is a very tough field, fickle, highly competitive, and currently in a bit of a tailspin. The usual venues for advertising are rapidly changing - between the not-so-slow decline of newspapers and magazines, to the fracturing of the TV audience, and the virtual disappearance of national radio. Obviously the internet and social media are the new frontier, but that’s a whole new world that’s alien (and probably not terribly receptive to) traditional forms of advertising. And advertising - a bit like publishing - is more of a 19th/20th century construct trying to find its way in 21st. </p>
<p>I worked in the creative department of a large, in-house advertising agency at a major corporation. Most of the people on the ‘account’ side were business majors, trained to analyze the market, trends, strategies, promotions and effectiveness of campaigns. The ‘creative’ staff came from all over the board: we had English majors, history majors, journalism majors, and a couple of film/TV production majors who’d done their stints in TV news and commercial production. No one I met studied advertising per se. Advertising was usually a part, not the focus, of their studies, if at all. </p>
<p>As to PR, most were people who did the business/journalism route or a combination of both. Keep in mind that PR staffs are usually small, and those positions can be hard to get. In the Fortune 100 company I worked in recently, with over 40,000 employees worldwide, there was a full-time staff of maybe a dozen PR people. The starting salary, for those just out of college, was below $40K, and there was constant turnover. A lot of the PR business was also outsourced to smaller PR companies on a contract basis. We kept changing those contract companies on a regular basis as well. </p>
<p>So no, uniman123: PR does not a practical career make. This is something we discussed in the several other threads you posted a few months ago. (I only responded for the benefit of wakeup13.) Uniman, if you want to be practical, go into nursing or accounting. This isn’t to say that people can’t “make it” in advertising or in PR. It’s to say that these are tough fields, with lots of competition. Gumption, assertiveness, skills – and lots of luck are required.</p>