From billboards to TV commercials, advertisements are omnipresent. It is a timeless field with unlimited opportunities. Advertising which was once limited to Print, Tv and Radio now in the digital era have assumed a new avatar. Owning to this change, opportunities in advertising are growing manifold.
Let’s dwell a little deep to understand how exactly it looks like to work in advertising and what it takes to become a successful advertiser.

What is advertising?

In simplest words, advertising is the way of connecting to a large audience in order to influence them to purchase the product or service. It is a paid form of communication aimed at 3 objectives – Inform, persuade and remind the customers of your product or service.

Where do advertisers work?

Generally businesses outsource advertising to the specialized agencies. Advertisers can work with these agencies on different accounts of corporate clients across industries. With advent of digital media platforms, internal online advertising teams are being established in companies for better control and cost effectiveness, creating more opportunities in online advertising than in traditional advertising field.

Essential skills to become advertiser

Although creativity is a key to create good advertisements, building a career in advertising demands
variety of skills. Some of which includes,

• Research skills to understand consumer needs, the cultural context, current trends in media and entertainment
• Time and Stress management since advertising is known for its long working hours in high pressure environment
• Strong communication skills – Persuasion, negotiation and presentation are integral parts of advertising industry

Jobs in advertising with Job Descriptions

Some key roles in advertising are,

• Account Manager – Acts as a link between client and ad agency
• Creative Executive/associate/manager – Undertakes concept and initial draft creation for ads
• Production Executive/Manager – Takes care of production activity of the final version of the ad
• (mainly in audio-visual ads)
• Media department – Acts as a distribution of ads to different media platforms and channels
• Copy writer – Writes advertisement copies, scripts for audio-video ads

Online Advertising – Types and Tools of online advertisements

As discussed earlier, advertising is changing to fit into the paradigm of digital age. Online advertisements or digital ads have made advertising simple, cheaper and more effective.

Types of Online advertising:
1. Pay Per Click Ads (PPC) and Cost Per Impression Ads (CPM)
2. Display ads
3. Search ads
4. Native ads
5. Social media ads – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram ads
6. Video ads – Youtube ads, Vimeo ads
7. Pop-up ads
8. Banner ads

Tools : Retargeting tools (Adroll, Retargetter) , Social media analytics and schedulers (Sproutsocial, hootsuite), Website analytics and testing tools (Unbounce, oracle, google analytics) , Email marketing tools (Mailchimp), Content creation and editing tools (Canva, Visual.ly) etc. are the specialized software and apps that are designed specially to cater the needs of online advertisement industry.
The working knowledge of these tools is a must for any digital advertiser.

Jobs in online advertising

• Content writer
• Digital Ad copywriter
• Digital marketer
• SEO, SEM Specialist
• Social media manager and analyst

Online advertising is totally different that traditional advertising. Format of digital ads and their distribution mechanism, methods of calculating performance (KPIs) is distinct. Acquiring these skills becomes critical to excel in online advertising.

How to start a career in advertising?

As per Statista, Global digital ad spend will reach $389 billion in 2021.More than half of budget of marketing is now being diverted to online advertising. In order to build a sustainable career in advertising you must get a hang of new age advertising.
A post graduate course with the blend of academic knowledge of mass media and practical training in the digital marketing tools will give you a head start in advertising career. Here is the list of institutions offering courses in advertising:

Welingkar Institute of Management – Welingkar PGP in Media and Entertainment
MICA- MICA Advertising Management and Public Relations
Xavier’s Institute of Communication – XIC PG Diploma in PR and Corporate Communications

Decision making is a painful task, especially when the decision is about your career. In case you find yourself in need for guidance, call us at 1800-123-500041 for one-to-one mentoring to resolve all your doubts about career in advertising!