Advertising Degree

The field of advertising is perhaps one of the most expansive career fields available with major companies around the world, yet at the same time one of the least well known fields. Stop and think for a minute about the amount of advertising an individual is exposed to in a given day and the results may stun you. Quite literally everything a person living in an advanced society experiences in a day has been touched by advertising of one sort or another. So who are the people behind advertising and what kind of education does it require to break into the field.
At its core, advertising is the practice of communication intended to persuade individuals to purchase a product, follow an ideal, or make use of a particular service. Turning on a television, reading a newspaper/magazine, or even driving down the road will expose a person to untold amounts of advertising, most of which passes them by without a second thought from the individual exposed to it. Advertising has evolved over the years to include a wide array of branches and styles. The field of advertising can be broken down into two general areas, physical and digital advertising. The following are just a few examples of the various forms of digital and physical advertising commonly used:

• Television
• Music
• Radio
• Online
• Press Ads (magazines, newspapers, etc)
• Billboards
• Celebrity Branding

The first step toward an advertising degree is to understand what the advertising career field is like. Individuals interested in achieving an advertising degree should expect a job with long hours and low pay at first, but if they are willing to start out as an overworked, underpaid employee the rewards will increase in the future if they are successful. It is also important to take time to find out a few of the different career paths available in the advertising field before jumping into a degree program. An individual does not have to be particularly gifted in advertising to work in the field. While creating ads or working as a copywriter are the main jobs in the field, there are other positions that require less creativity including:

• Account Executive: Individuals in this field manage a team of skilled people, keeping them on task and ensuring they meet deadlines
• Media Department: Individuals with a job in the media department analyze research data and determine ad placement campaigns