Monday, October 29, 2001		Article

Computer-proficient ad professionals
Sumesh Raizada

IN today’s competitive market, it has become extremely necessary for the manufacturers as well as sellers to create awareness about their product or services among consumers. Advertising is thus an important tool available to the manufacturing and service industry. Advertising has become an integral part of marketing throughout the world to access the customer, whoever or wherever they may be. Advertisers today are targeting customers of all profiles and in all age groups. There are several media vehicles for advertising a product and services. These are print media like newspapers, magazines, pamphlets etc. or electronic like TV and radio, or cinema halls, hoardings, etc. and most recently, the Internet.

The IT-based technologies have now become an essential component in all these media and it is almost impossible to create an advertisement or a commercial without the aid of computers. Hence, there exists a sizeable career prospect for IT professionals in advertising or for marketing professionals in the computer-based advertising techniques.

The advertising basically consists of functions like — sales promotion targeting and persuading potential customers to buy a product, image building of a brand or an organisation to influence audience indirectly to buy a particular product and finally to create social awareness on a welfare or development projects.

Most of the advertising jobs are undertaken by specialised agencies that are well equipped with resources and professionals to create advertisement for various media and wide range of product or services. However, some of the government-agencies have their own public relations department that looks after advertising and interaction with the media. In many public sector and private enterprises also, there are separate advertising department or marketing department with additional function of advertising. Thus there are wide job prospects in different organisations.

Professionals also have career openings in the advertising section of a newspaper, magazines or a publishing house, commercial section of a television company or radio. In market research firms, computer-proficient advertising professionals are in considerable demand. They create dummy or virtual advertisement campaign and then consumer behaviour is analysed prior to the launch of the product, thus saving costs and time. Quite often, they arrange for teleconferencing facility with the long distance client or consumer group.

There are several positions available in an advertising agency and a person can work according to his area of interest and qualification. Most common among them are copywriter, accounts executive, art director, media executive and market researcher. Copywriters work in the creative department and are responsible for conceptualising and designing advertisement, whether it is slogan, text, script for a film or a song. They work according to the requirement of client, target audience, available media and space or time allocation. Market researcher on the other hand collect information on consumer behaviour, market trends and competition. The job involves planning of a project, designing questionnaires and collecting information. Later on, compilation of data, interpretation and analysis is done as per the scope of project. This is an area where computers are put to maximum utilisation by advertising professional.

In several companies, computer professionals are specifically hired for designing and analysing the information. They are also involved in designing Web-based questionnaires and online surveys that can be answered through e-mail or Web directly. Media executive are responsible for the positioning of advertisement in media, identifying and procuring the suitable the most optimum space and time for the advertisement. An Account Executive is responsible for interacting between the client and the agency is also involved in planning, scheduling and executing the assignment.

Advertising agency or advertisement section of a company usually comprise of various operational departments like client servicing, creative, media, production and research departments. Nature of the job performed by advertising professionals in each department is different. A person working in the creative department needs to be original and creative and has the ability to create campaign suitable to the requirement. Similarly those in client servicing department should be adept in negotiating and therefore must have excellent communication and logical skills. However proficiency in computers remain an essential qualification for all these professionals in order to succeed in the field.

A copywriter or a producer must be able to conceive the advertisement before it is actually prepared and that can be done simply through specialised computer software, animation and simulation techniques. Similarly, client servicing department or an account executive, while negotiating with the client, must be ready with the presentation of their virtual advertisement or previous advertisement campaigns. These are done through slide presentation or through computer-aided projectors or even on a desktop.

With Web-based services like e-mail, complete project presentation can be sent to distant client even without meeting him and the advertisement deal can be finalised. Similarly, advertisement targeted especially for Web and Web-based services can also be prepared by IT-proficient advertising professionals. In advertising section of newspaper or publishing companies, advertising professionals create graphics and computer-generated images to make the advertisement more attractive and appealing to the potential customers.

Though there are no qualification criteria for getting into advertising field yet the basic qualities like creativity, artistic bend of mind, flair for writing or ability to translate ideas into a visual format helps considerably. Besides proficiency in specialised computer software and multimedia techniques has become an essential requirement in most of the advertising agencies. Those qualified in marketing management, fine arts, designing, multimedia, mass communication, photography, computer-animation and graphic designing have openings in the field of advertising.

Some institutions conduct specialised courses in advertising, linked with mass communication, sales and marketing or public relations. However with the increasing demand for IT-enabled advertising professionals, institute like C-DAC is conducting Diploma in Advanced Computer Arts. This course is conducted through various C-DAC Authorised Training Centres throughout the country. Some of these centres are located at Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Delhi. Similarly, Arena Multimedia carries out a specialised course designed for prospective media and advertising professionals. For advertising job in print media, a person needs to be experienced in DTP and graphic designing while for TV and cinema hall advertising, they should be aware of computer animation and simulation techniques. As the Internet is becoming an important medium for advertising, Web-designers having exposure to languages like Java are in great demand among advertising and media companies. The basic qualification required for most of the advertising careers are degree in advertising, mass communication or marketing with proficiency in computers.

The remuneration earned by advertising professionals has no limits. While they might start with a pay package of Rs.1 lakh per annum, the same may go up to 3 to 4 lakh within a year. With growing competition in the market and increase in number of TV channels or other media alternatives, demand for advertising professionals is also growing exponentially. In such a scenario, those having proficiency in multimedia, DTP and computer graphics stand to gain maximum advantage over the conventional ones.