Vendor Client relations in a nutshell

VALLTEL!

This week, I renewed my interest in a college website that brought me a lot of laughs.

Homestar was silly, irreverent and full of wit. The emails from Strongbad were classic.

Why do I bring this up? Well, it looks like Verizon Wireless is going to purchase Alltel Wireless--the account I work on. I think the new name should be Valltel! This was brainstormed with some co-workers of mine. The inspiration came from none other that Trogdor the Burnanator.

Burnanating the countryside, burnanating the peasants. Trogdor!

VALLTEL! Scary.

Dove Hypocrisy

like.no.other

want to be an ad major? a tutorial.

As far as Communications for a major, I really enjoyed it because I was exposed to working on marketing solutions for real clients. The BYU Adlab provided all kinds of opportunities to put our book knowledge of advertising and marketing to the test. Not all majors can promise the same type of real world experience.

The reason why I would highly recommend a BA in Communications and a Minor in Business Management, is three-fold.

First and foremost, the credit hours need to complete a Comms degree is 42 or so. Translation: Its a very fast major. This is a big plus because the majority of jobs in Marketing or Advertising are more concerned with real world experience rather than a complex degree. The main requirement is a Bachelors, nothing more. You do not need a Master's to work in Advertising. Your professors will recommend as many as 3 internships. These are vital at making the necessary connections to get into a career path. If you are curious how I made the leap from student to career, I can can go into more detail about my journey post-graduation experience at a later time.

Secondly, you aren't limited to working in an Ad Agency if you get a Comms degree. I had a senior capstone in which our class was broken up into 8 different groups of 8-10 students. Out of my group of 8, only 2 of us are working for an Ad Agency. The other 6 are scattered into all different types of marketing and sales positions. (i.e. sports marketing, Google, marketing for a small technology company etc. etc.). In the industry we call working for an Ad Agency the "agency-side" and working for a marketing department at any other company the "client side".

Third, it is a broad enough degree to do just about anything you want in a related field. Virtually every successful company has a marketing department. That being said, you could apply your marketing knowledge (and your business minor will help with this as well), to any, and I mean ANY industry you are interested in.

Pay is a bummer when starting @ an Ad Agency (wah-wah). It is an industry that is extremely difficult to crack, and dues must be paid, but the rewards are tremendous if you stick it out. (I am currently in the paying of my dues phase). Once you have worked at an Ad Agency for a few years (in my case, I am planning on about 10-15) you can jump back and forth between agency and client work. It does not work in reverse. Translation: You can't really work in a marketing department on the client-side for a few years, and expect that experience to translate over to an Ad Agency. Client-side does usually pay more right out of school (about 5k+ more), but you do limit your opportunities down the road, in my opinion.

I hope this helps...and more importantly makes sense.

Good Luck in your search for a major!

What advertising is all about