Creative Industries: An Introduction
Assessment Task 2

There are a number of different types of employment available in the advertising and public relations sector of the creative industries.
When working within the advertisement section of a company, there is the possibility of working within account management. They have a key role in the development of the advertising campaign and are the people who are in charge of the relationship with the client. Strategic planning is another section. The role of the strategic planners is to represent the consumer within the agency. They are responsible for developing the key strategic insight which lies behind the advertising idea. Media planning and media buying are another two popular avenues in which employment is available within advertising. The job of a media planner is to map how to connect the consumer to the creative idea and take a brief from the client that highlights the message that they want to communicate to the consumer, while media buyers buy the “connections” between the consumer and the creative idea. The creative section of an agency is where the planning for an advertisement campaign happens. This is where the copywriters and art directors work. Creative services and production is where art and creativity meet commerce and reality and is where the advertisement campaigns are made and get paid for.

The responsibilities that you would have as a strategic planner would of course be to represent the consumer within the advertising agency. A strategic planner is in charge of developing the key strategic insight which lies behind the entire advertising idea. They need to get under the skin of the consumer and understand as much as possible about them. To achieve this they have to work closely with the client to research the market, use and commission quantitative data as well as more touchy-feely qualitative forms of research in response to the client’s brief. The final role of them would be to use the insights and information that they have gathered to write and present a strategy for the advertiser that takes the customer’s hopes, fears and behaviours into consideration. Key characteristics of strategic planners are curiosity, tenacity, lateral thinking, creativity, intellect, articulateness and numeracy.

In terms of public relations, there are two main ways of working within it. You can work for an in-house public relations department, whose job is to work exclusively for just one organisation, originating and implementing a public relations programme geared to that organisation’s management’s requirements. If you work in-house you will need to acquire an in-depth knowledge of your company and the market it operates in. The other way of working within is to work for a public relations consultancy. A consultancy is to provide a completely independent service to a number of different clients. If you work for a consultancy, you will need to be able to consider different accounts and learn quickly about a large number of companies and their markets.

Another way of becoming a part of the advertisement and public relations sector of the creative industries is to be self-employed. Self-employment is not for everybody though, as it comes with a number of major responsibilities. To even begin to consider self-employment, you have to have a number of, if not all of, these traits: self-starter, initiative, risk taker, accept uncertainty, disciplined, committed, diligent, energetic, creative, opportunity aware, realist, organised, multi-skilled. The benefits of being self-employed would be that you are the sole trader for the company so can be as co-operative as you want and there is no need to majorly rely on others.