On advertising

For mass comm/advertising students, looking for to move into the vicious jungle that is advertising, newcomers to the business – and the otherwise unemployables who make up so much of our workforce – I have a few nuggets of advice to dispense.

So you really want to be in advertising? You really really really want to be the next David Ogilvy or the next Neil French or the next Yasmin? If you’re expecting to have eight-to-nine hours a day, weekends and evenings off, holiday with your family, regular sex with your significant other; if you are used to being treated with some modicum of dignity, spoken to and interacted with as a human being, seen as an equal – a sensitive, multidimensional entitty with hopes, dreams, aspirations and opinions, the sort of qualities you’d expect of most working professionals and still want to have the glory and fun and power that the advertising industry promises - then maybe you should reconsider what you’ll be facing, and burn whatever books/persons who put this nonsense of the industry to start with. (I suggest working in the Foreign Office)

I am not kidding when I say, at least in the beginning, you have no rights, are not entitled to an opinion or a personality, and can fully expect to be treated like cattle – only less useful.

To those serious ones who know what it is they are entering, who are fully prepared, ready, willing and able, and committed to a career path like, say, Ogilvy’s – who want to be an advertising god, whatever the personal costs and personal demands – then I say this to you:

Welcome to the best damn thing you could ever do.