By Jeff McClellan, Marx McClellan Thrun, www.mmtadv.com
Billboards call us by name. Mass collaboration and crowd sourcing are creating heartburn in traditional agencies. We get ads on our Facebook pages that target our likes. And text messages tell us about specials on craft cocktails at hipster bars. Yikes. Is the future of advertising one giant ball of mass technology confusion?
I’ll accept that digital technologies, social media and do-it-yourselfer Flip® Cam videographers are re-shaping marketing communications activities. And that the incessant creations from Geek Land have put at our fingertips a wide array of new tools to reach customers. However, the true future of advertising is somewhere else. It’s in a classroom at Marquette University, or UW-Milwaukee, or UW-Whitewater, or MIAD or any other college advertising class for that matter.
I believe the future of advertising is the 21-year old student who still believes in the power and passion of a creative idea.
As an adjunct professor at Marquette, I’ve observed that these young men and women don’t pursue a career in advertising because they want to work on Facebook pages or Tweet for clients. The good ones look at advertising as a way to make a difference.
Every day there are articles and blogs about the end of advertising as we know it. Will the copywriter/art director team be relevant five years from now, or even five months from now? Does print have a future? Is the voice of the consumer the voice of God? It doesn’t matter.
For over 100 years, the best advertising has been about ideas and storytelling, impeccably executed in a way that’s right for the medium. That model isn’t broken. The advertising professionals of the future, today’s college students, still get excited about great ideas with a purpose. They see ads like the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty that inspires them to make ads. They care about music and movies. They’re drinking wine, and it ain’t Boones Farm. They’ll spend big bucks on high-end audio equipment and eat ramen noodles for breakfast. And they want to create work that they’re passionate about, rather than just work.
Of course, the millenials who are getting into the business haven’t been jaded yet by awards lust or the siren call of the ad agency lifestyle. They’ve yet to face the stone-cold reality of client budgets.
I tell students that it doesn’t matter that jobs in advertising are about as scarce as a Harley rider in January. This is a great time for them to be in advertising. At no other time in history have there been so many places for them to tell their stories. Never before have there been so many ways to deliver creativity. Let’s invest in the future of advertising. Let’s keep that passion to make a difference alive.
