Advertising Is the Best Industry for Content Creators to Develop Their Craft
The evolution of advertising agencies and why they now produce creative content en masse.
The advertising industry has born some of the most brilliant creative minds and technologically savvy individuals worldwide. Within a digital agency, you might have built websites fifteen years ago, created banner ads, email campaigns, and social content for Facebook only. Now advertising agencies need to build large content ecosystems with complex technology stacks and products that serve their corporate clients through unimaginable ways to stay in business.
The rise of the Creator Economy has now intersected with the rapid acceleration of digital transformation projects that businesses have been forced to adapt faster due to the pandemic.
“. . .Because in my own portfolio of over 35 companies I look at my #1 growth expense in the last 18 months, and it has been hiring artists, writers, videographers, animators; all of the people that have digitized the websites of all of these different companies.
And they used to be dirt cheap.
There are no starving artists anymore. They’re not starving, they’re getting salaries of over 250K+ a year if they’re any good because they can tell the story and digitize the service or product online and entice customer acquisition.”
— Kevin O’Leary, Venture Capital Investor, Author, Politician & TV Personality
Creators are now in high demand.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:1. The lean startup movement has gone mainstream
> Advertising used to be focused on ads only
> Ad agencies still create great works of art
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2. Why ad agencies are great for content creators
> Advertising agencies are typically egalitarian
> 6 Digital ad agency roles suited for creators
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3. The content alchemist
> How different industries stack up
> Marketing roles at corporate companies are restrictive
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4. Big data is relative but not a necessity
> Behavioural insights you can glean
> Focus on your Tribe
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5. Products have become life partners
> Evolution of products
> Content that last for a moment in time
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6. Become an expert within a year
> Products, platforms and courses to consider
> Experience over knowledge
> The grandfather of contentFinal Thought
1. The lean startup movement has gone mainstream
Advertising used to be focused on ads only
Startups are full of excitement, fun and can create impact. Some even change the world.
But ask one of your closest friends, colleagues, or even family members, and they are most likely invested in a startup, want to launch their own startup, work at a startup, or all three!
Small businesses, new enterprises, and technology-led startups have adapted the ‘lean startup model’ because the foundation of business models and how they operate today have completely changed. So most new companies today are, in fact, startups.
“As much as possible, avoid hiring MBAs. MBA programs don’t teach people how to create companies.”
— Elon Musk
You can interpret Elon Musk’s quote in regards to MBAs in different ways. Still, it is also grounded in the fact that most MBAs have an outdated curriculum that supports old business models and has not evolved to consider the new environment where companies can have exponential growth. So a linear forecast for a business may, in fact, stifle its potential to achieve the right rewards through innovation and customer-centricity.
Advertising agencies use to create ads only. Now they integrate complex customer relationship management (CRM) programs through products like the Adobe suite, Salesforce for content marketing at scale, and e-commerce solutions supported by multiple technology products to help run a client’s ecosystem for businesses to support customer satisfaction. And much more.
Most advertising agencies have pivoted just like a startup and now are creative technology businesses that barely resemble an advertising agency in the ’90s that only create ads.
Think about it.
Over a short time, the advertising industry has had to adapt more than any other industry to stay afloat because, without clients, advertising agencies have no revenue hence no business.
Almost every single business in the last 20 years has needed a digital campaign, product, or service. In my experience, most often than not, it's all three. The change in advertising revenue from traditional media to online has been a steady flow. In 2019 digital advertising revenue took over traditional media for the first time and is estimated to account for two-thirds of the entire ad spend in the U.S. by 2023.
This huge and great shift in advertising has led agencies that see the value of innovation to adapt their services to clients’ online businesses. Agencies like Sir Martin Sorell’s S4 Capital Group of companies, including MediaMonks, combine technology and creativity to focus on great content.
Advertising agencies still create great works of art
The advertising industry has been given a bad rap in recent history. If you consider the adoption and ability to evolve with the digital landscape at a rapid pace, then cynicism becomes unfounded. Advertising agencies do much more today and, without a doubt, still, create great art.
“..the overwhelming majority of “big agency, big client” ads suffer a poverty of content, form and branding. . They confine themselves to a narrow, culture-specific cliches and tales, and dress in stale — often sullen — nonspecific and unbranded generalities. . And their creators often have such a lack of self-awareness as to refer to their own creations as “emotional”!
— Constantine Frantzeskos, The F Rant
Don’t believe that agencies still create great content?
CHE Proximity in Australia has launched a TVC campaign for a plain vanilla brand with no customer love and is more boring than the socks your grandmother has given you for your last 6 birthdays in a row.
Flybuys is a loyalty scheme for a chain of Australian supermarkets.
Since the advent of social media platforms, it’s no wonder that businesses have been quick to hire agencies for their content strategies, production, and tactical executions.
2. Why ad agencies are great for content creators
Advertising agencies are typically egalitarian, so you wear many hats
As a tight-knit group of 13, 23, or 60+ individuals within an ad agency, an agency will have a similar framework as a startup. You might have a direct report in an ad agency as a corporate environment. But leadership in an ad agency drives a culture where you are encouraged to grab opportunities and make a creative project your own.
Ten years ago, you might have had the opportunity to create a content strategy, a timeline, and put together the imagery and copy for content. As the digital landscape has matured, you have content teams at larger ad agencies with people that can focus on one discipline because of the flow of content creation on mass poured in from clients.
Small or large ad agencies give people who want to be creators the opportunity to:
- Collaborate with different departments and disciplines daily.
- Work seamlessly in cross-functional teams on various content projects.
- Hone in on a content niche and become the expert.
- Be inspired by innovative design and creativity driven by leaders.
- Learn how to run your own business because your job is to service the client in one way or another.
6 Digital ad agency roles suited for creators
Since the advent of social media platforms, businesses have been quick to hire agencies for their content creation. This can be as small as a two-week project for an influencer strategy to a large ongoing content ecosystem for a Fortune 500 company that lasts over a year.
- Content marketing is the first stepping stone to become a creator.
- Strategy and planning will open the universe up for you.
Agencies give creators exposure to all the disciples across content creation. Better yet, you have the capability to learn from highly talented creative, strategic, and operational individuals who have been in the business for decades.
- 1. Content Marketer or Social Manager -
Roles revolved around the creation of social content, website content (including blogs), or ad campaigns focused on emails, banner ads, and landing pages. Large businesses will need all services, even e-commerce solutions. A great entry for a creator novice will need to integrate brand, strategy, and a holistic approach to all the content they create.
- 2. Digital or Content Producer -
In some ad agencies, this includes the creation of content. Large ad agencies need producers to manage incoming projects from the client, resources, budgets and act as the quality gatekeeper of all content delivered to the client.
- 3. Creative Director or Art Director
Copywriters can be underappreciated. The art in storytelling starts with words. Words for one client absolutely don’t work for another. A great copywriter loves to delve into the human psyche to learn what makes them tick. The best copywriters become Art Directors, and some take reign as Executive Creative Directors.
- 4. Account or Business Manager
Business and Account Managers will work with everyone and present content in a digestible way and understood at a high level. Both roles require you to know as much about the content created before its delivered to the client, whether that is SEO-led website blog content or a social post.
- 5. UI/ UX Designer
Every single line, dot, font, landing page, app screen, email, or banner ad needs to consider an audience and their preferred design aesthetics before anything is even created. Design is a dream role for anyone who loves to create beautiful experiences for people.
- 6. Content Strategist
Strategists need to understand the basics of all content disciples. Their primary role is to unearth the business opportunities for clients and offer a sound solution by creating digital assets. Content Strategists will pull together team members to unpack problems and articulate a well-presented story on how businesses can serve a community or customer best.
There are many other roles that touch on content including but not limited to: Product Manager, Data Analyst, CRM Planner, Brand Strategist, Copywriter, Social Manager, Platform Manager, Editorial Lead, Integrated Producer, Account Executive, Product Designer, and Solution Architects.
3. The content alchemist
How different industries stack up
From institution banks to brands like Coca-Cola, businesses have been in-housing their advertising needs to new or existing marketing departments. There are obvious needs from a data privacy point to have internal marketing departments in a bank and cost-efficient reasons for internal resources embedded within a business. Still, companies need to outsource the massive amounts of content they require to create digital content. Ad agencies are their number one solution.
Exposure to different industry verticles can reveal a lot about what you don’t know about people’s content preferences. As a director for a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) brand on a project partnered with Facebook, the analytics of 60,000+ people showed that they preferred unpolished creative that costs less to produce than high-end photography and videography, which we spent US$30,000+ to develop. This was a surprise to the whole team as people preferred content that mirrored user-generated social posts.
Marketing roles at large corporate companies are restrictive
Big brands like Nike, LG, Coca-Cola, and Playstion have guardrails that they are set on. This can be a dream for people who have an affinity for a brand, but many creatives prefer to work across brands to have diversity and creative freedom. Creative processes blended from one brand and brought to another can be magic.
The advantages of content creation within a creative department, whether in an ad agency, animation company, or game development business, outweigh corporate environments because of the restrictions on what a brand can and cannot do. To influence change or creative direction can be difficult, take months, and in some cases require you to make a case to culturally different regions of the world. It is a mission.
Collaboration with large creative teams on various businesses can provide a creative with more insight into the dynamics of content and art. The differences can be stark in comparison. Would you prefer someone who comes to you and asks for a synopsis, mood board, and story for a new game to create, or someone who needs to sell more Coca-Cola through a new packaged design?
Creative teams with freedom breed innovation in technology, art that creates impact and limitless personal development to work your magic.
4. Big data is relative but not a necessity
Behavioral consumer insights you can glean
People’s behavioral data on platforms, products, and content is a treasure chest of valuable insight into their preferences for content consumption. Big data has been a hot topic over the past decade, but if you can’t unpack it to tell the right story, it can hinder creativity. Facebook is a classic example of a company that requires you to spend at least US$150 to promote a post for its algorithm to purposely find other individuals who are similar and will appreciate the content also.
But this data will not tell you if your content has worked or not. Has it reached your core audience or people that like your creativity? The core value for any business works on different scales also. Is it the businesses marketing purpose to change its brand perception, sell products, build an email list or serve the community value through creative content?
You don’t need big data to optimize content.
You need big data to optimize spend and costs to the business.
Focus on your tribe
There is no better advice given about content creation. To cast the net wide and believe that everyone will be influenced by content for a specific business or brand is nonsense. Understand the value you can give to a community or set few, then cater for them only.
Find your tribe.
One of my favorite books, Tribes by Seth Godin, more relative and important today, in a world of distraction, than when it was written.
5. Products have become life partners
Evolution of products
Products like businesses have long-term strategies, the opposite of an ad campaign. Ad campaigns are short-sighted by their very nature and tend to last a day, week, or month. The best content gives long-lasting value to audiences and should be a work of art. There is no better evidence than the products created for streaming businesses, social media platforms, and native iOS or Android applications for companies like Airbnb.
Agencies don’t just create ads anymore.
Product lifecycles are endless, and any great application on your phone will have a new design, feature, or complete brand overhaul at one point or another. Ad agencies create product applications, large content hubs, and e-commerce sites for businesses that delve deep into the behavioral sciences, human design aesthetics, and development architecture of online platforms, all relative to content creation.
Content that lasts for a moment in time
Value can be difficult to measure, but here are facts that put the value of content in a different perspective; relative to the time it takes to create a post vs. the time it lasts.
- A professional photographer may take half a day to coordinate, capture, edit and upload an image to Instagram.
- A professional YouTube video researched, filmed, edited, transcoded, and uploaded may take a creator two days.
- Instagram posts last for about 1 day vs. a YouTube post of 20+ days.
It’s no surprise that hundreds of professional photographers now run their own YouTube channel, especially since Instagram has become saturated with ads and sponsored content.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. … All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.”
— Roy Batty from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner
Content creation should be a long-term game. Websites, YouTube, blog platforms can provide 100x more value than Facebook.
MATH OF TIME CONTENT LASTS Facebook = 5 hours
YouTube = 20 days or 480 hours
5hrs / 480hrs = 1% Hence YouTube content can provide 100x the value. YouTube is also the second largest search engine after Google in the world, so it can be well over 100x.
Yes, context matters. A post on Facebook may make sense, but only after you put money into its machine.
Twitter is conversational, real-time, and meant to be impermanent. As a creator, if you spend more time than 18 minutes on a Tweet, you have missed the point of the platform.
6. Become an expert within a year
Products, platforms, and courses to consider
There are unknown universes out there that tell some of the most captivating creative stories through animation, film, and games. However, content creators who want to run their own business and learn how will have more exposure across the disciples needed to build their business in an ad agency than in a large production company where you are a cog in a wheel and a part of a well-developed ecosystem.
People who love to create content have been successful as freelancers or small production businesses of two people, but to run a business requires the skillset to build your own client list as a creator. A lot of creatives within agency environments are freelancers. You would have read at least a dozen stories about creating digital products, whether an online course or digital assets, so no need for me to go there, but it is a great way to sharpen your business skills.
Well-produced and executed digital products have more value than Bitcoin. As a creator, you develop your skill. As a customer, you gain value, and as a business, you have scalable revenue.
Creative platforms like Deviant Art or Behance can inspire creativity or help you find your tribe.
Online courses are invaluable, cheap, and can provide great insight into just about anything from creativity to the disciplines of UI\UX design.
Udemy 130,000 video courses starting from $12 and can be done in a day.
Coursera Wide-ranging courses through collaboration with 200+ leading universities and companies.
Experience over knowledge
Experience is invaluable in any industry. If you have downloaded a course on writing, social media, videography, SEO, or how to code, then you know exactly what I mean and how valuable it is to get your hands dirty once you implement your learnings.
The future is accelerating at such a rapid pace that another 10 years from now will be indistinguishable from today’s world. University courses can’t keep up with their curriculum because of new social platforms like Tik Tok, technologies like AR/VR, and Amazon or Shopify, which continue to innovate and provide creators with e-commerce solutions.
It is easy to be in the thick of it all if you’re required to look at all possible creative and technology solutions for your clients in an ad agency. Advertising agencies are ripe with learnings in content strategy, creativity & production.
The grandfather of content
“Your job is to make art.”
— Seth Godin
Seth Godin has written 18 valuable books on content marketing and is a creator himself. His blog provides daily insights.
Anyone who runs a business as a content creator has most likely read one of Seth’s books, taken at least 3 online courses, and created a website for themselves or a client. Time is irrelevant. The question you should ask yourself is whether you want to create content or consume it.
The future belongs to creators.
The world economy and how people create value are in constant change. More so than in any time in history as technology adds fuel to the pace and rate of change. Technology helps us carve out the menial tasks we once spent time on, so we can better spend our time in other areas of our lives. To be immersed in an advertising agency even as an intern for a few months can open the world up for someone who wants to be a creator in this technological utopia.
When you’re at an advertising agency or startup, at times, you might feel like you’re in a small wooden-clad boat filled with more people than it is built to hold. But there is solitude because the sails are set to one destination shared by every individual. Cramped, tired, and hungry for success, the breathable space between each of you is filled with anxiety which manifests into challenges, and once overcome, joyful moments of celebration.
If there were a college for creators, it would mirror how a great advertising agency is run.
🧠 📚 Want insights and strategic tools on how to turn your side hustle into a successful business? Read my book on Amazon → Content Titans: How To Create 6 Figures in The Digital Economy.
Thank you for reading,
Rick Govic
