Advertising doesn’t have to be a blood sport
The ad industry relies on a regular supply of new blood. Often. Are the industry demands risking that supply? Many young ad people think so, writes Unthink’s John Halpin.
Let’s be honest. The money at the lower levels of advertising has never been great. Late nights and weekends are ingrained in advertising culture. Pitching that requires people to do additional work after hours on top of their normal workload is effectively unpaid labour. The remuneration has never matched the effort.
But no one used to speak up, because the supply of cheap, young talent was always greater than demand. It’s what economists call Tournament Theory, and it works really well in professional sports where you have a large ‘workforce’ trying to get a small number of well paid positions. Advertising use to be able to treat people like dirt because there was always another idiot (like me) around the corner trying to get in.
But times change.
AI, predictive analysis, machine learning —I’m calling this the era of Industrial Persuation. If you value your sanity you’ll stay away.