The Importance of Advertising Education

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The Importance of Advertising Education

• Mike Longhurst
• Senior VP, McCann-Erickson Europe

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The age old statements

• Advertising is an art not a science
• You cant teach advertising
• It is a creative business isnt it?
• Consumers change all the time, so why bother?
• It is a young peoples game
• Its just about personal flair
• We dont want others to know how to do it

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The Truth

• It IS a young peoples game
• Most older hands are lost before they can plough
  back what they know
• Teaching on the job loses at least 50 of all
  knowledge
• If knowledge is not created, distilled and
  packaged in universities for handing on to the
  next generation, much of it is lost

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So what about Advertising education?
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In UK universities we are low-profile
Courses offered
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The reality

• Only 12 / 96 recognised universities offer a
  degree course which contains Advertising
• Total courses offered is 53, of which none is
  solus Advertising
• Only one of those is ranked in the top 20
  universities
• Only 2 are in the top 60
• 13 are from universities that are unranked

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UK Graduate intake

• 53 from top 10 Unis
• 92 from top 20
• 13 Studied Advertising-related subject
• Very few decided early that Advertising is what
  they wanted to do

IPA Stage 1 course graduate survey 2001
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Implications

• Graduates have a vastly better chance of being
  taken on by an agency graduate trainee scheme if
  they
• a) went to a top Uni
• b) studied an academic subject, not Advertising
• Training courses like IPA try to fill the
  knowledge gap, but can only be partly successful
• Grads historically dont want structured
  post-grad qualifications

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So are the blind leading the blind?
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We complain about our diminished role with clients

• Terms of business now little more than ½ what
  they were
• Edged out of boardrooms by management
  consultancies
• Regarded as the delivery end of the process,
  not the intellectual end
• Our services bought in auctions, by purchasing
  departments

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The pressure is on us to be more effective

• Clients face stiffer competition
• They demand ever greater accountability
• They are less trusting of thematic broadcast
  advertising
• Are they right to be?

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How effective are wereally?

• MM, Euro Effies, IPA and other awards celebrate
  the achievements of the minority, not the
  majority
• Most campaigns struggle to demonstrate
  effectiveness
• For every brand that succeeds because of
  advertising, there might be another that fails
  because of advertising
• And many that succeed despite advertising!

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How rigorously are the awards cases studied?

• Just reading, collating and publishing achieves
  little
• Where can the lessons be aggregated, analysed and
  disseminated, if not through universities?

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New Initiatives

• UKs Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
  has a long history of running great courses
• They have now announced a welcome return to
  Post-grad qualifications after 20 years
• Foundation Certificate level
• Check and supplement agency induction processes
• Multiple choice questions
• Online learning modules
• Diploma level
• Multi choice modules on theory and practice
• And an MBA at Leeds University

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EACA has attacked the under-graduate problem

• EACA initiative with University of Navarra
• Aim to create a European curriculum
• Educational Summit in Barcelona June 2003
• Aim to create a profession
• Invited all educational institutions
• Form Association and publish Journal

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I see problems for both

• Post-grad is traditionally unpopular with grads
• Will agency managements demand it?
• University courses traditionally suffer from poor
  teaching
• Will we be able to change that?

But we need both!
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The vicious circle we must break
We are in a commodity business
Our terms of business decline
We are no longer in clients boardrooms
Agencies wont hire Grads with degrees in
Advertising
There is ignorance and mythology
Top unis wont offer good advertising courses
The image of advertising remains low
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We have to win the battle here
We are in a commodity business
Our terms of business decline
We are no longer in clients boardrooms
Agencies wont place emphasis on real education
There is ignorance and mythology
Top unis wont offer good advertising courses
The image of advertising remains low
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The conundrum
Universities wont offer good courses, because
agencies wont employ the graduates
Agencies wont employ the graduates because
universities dont offer good courses
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Meanwhile we live in challenging times for brands
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As the public face of brands, advertising has
also become a target

• Advertising a scapegoat, panacea, cheap shot
• Demands for more laws, codes, regulations

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The search for cheap easy solutions focuses on
advertising

• Consumption
• Deprivation
• Inequality
• Young drinking
• Obesity

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What they say about advertising

• Exploits children
• Damages the environment
• Creates waste
• Promotes sexism
• Encourages greed and envy
• Destroys indigenous lifestyles
• Destroys Southern industries
• Creates visual pollution.

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So?

• Advertising is seen as part of every problem, not
  part of every solution
• Advertising is seen as a disposable element, not
  essential to economic wellbeing
• This is even more so amongst the young, who we
  depend on for new blood

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So?

• A lot of people want to stop what we do
• The best dont want to join us and assist what we
  do

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Most of what is said about advertising is
wrongwhy?

• We have tolerated or even fostered mythology
• We have ignored proper education in our business
• Both within advertising practitioners and outside

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Conspiracy theories that were destroyed many
years ago have re-surfaced as new

• Vance Packards Hidden Persuaders comes back as
  regularly as Who killed Kennedy or Marilyn
  Monroe? theories
• The same thinking is being applied to new media

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Advertising is seen as the irresistible force The
consumer is the defenceless victim
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Why cant we simply prove them wrong?

• Because we often arent clear on the answers
  ourselves
• And we are working against low knowledge and high
  scepticism of advertising outside the business
• Yet everyone experiences advertising and everyone
  has an opinion

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Conclusions

• In many respects we arent impressing anyone as
  much as we think
• Recruits
• Clients
• Opinion-leaders
• Legislators

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Conclusions

• The traditional idea that You cant teach
  Advertising is false
• Our business needs the academic influence and
  disciplines
• It will not kill creativity

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Conclusions

• The advertising business needs to achieve a
  better balance between Art and Science
• It needs to build the Art onto the Science, not
  add a bit of Science to the Art

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Education is our only way forward.

• Thank You