It's mid-summer, and any student who has a shred of honestly will admit that they've gotten dumber over the past three months because of a lack of stimulation. I'm unfortunately suffering from the very same syndrome, so in order to sharpen my brain, I've decided to start my advertising blog. I can't claim to be any expert, I'm just another student, trying to catch up, just like everyone else. But I figured, this is a good way to keep track of my own observations, and it's a good learning tool because it makes everything more tangible.

I want to start by talking about the changes that traditional advertising is going through. It seems to me, that every CD, every copywriter and every brand maneger I've met over the past year, has been saying the same thing. "Advertising is going interactive, anyone looking to do traditional advertising is doomed for failure."

The scary thing is, that as students, dispite the fact that we are the most online savvy generation, the first attraction towards the ad business, as a writer or art director, comes from traditional media. Everyone wants to make shiny print ads and glamourous TV spots. Moreover, standing on the outside, as a student who hasn't finished their degree, the scary thing to realize is that people may not even want to hire copywriters anymore, especially in a time of recession like this. I mean, I went to a portfolio revew night recently, and the CD practically yelled "no one needs copywriters, go home!" I almost died of disappointment.

So on that sad note, one wonders, where do we go from here? How do we adapt to the changing times?

The big solution, in my opinion, is that we need to learn to write more integrated campaigns, because a purely interactive campaign doesn't appeal to all markets. Baby boomers are still not as technologically savvy as Gen Y, and stubbornly cling to familiar things like radio, TV and newspapers.

Also, an interesting article I found, talks about how one can break through clutter to make sure that traditional campaigns bring in ROI, just as much as interactive.


http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/advertising/adcolumnist/article170166.html

In the mean time, we need to learn how to write amazing interactive ads. For example the fedEx informercail cpoofs online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIODEoEx1HU

So the hope is, people still need creatives, and creatives will learn to adapt to the new advertising trends. Also, if the recession ends soon, maybe someone can hire us too.