Advertising manager: features of the profession, qualifications and job responsibilities
Today, an advertising manager is one of the fastest growing and most sought-after professions. Such specialists work almost everywhere: in small and large enterprises, in the business sphere, with individual entrepreneurs.
What is the profession of an advertising manager? What are the advantages and disadvantages of it? What job duties does the employee perform? What career prospects await knowledgeable professionals? We will talk more about this in our article.
What is this profession?
An advertising manager (or as he is also called - a marketing manager) is one of the most popular and in-demand professions in the labor market. The description of this profession is quite multifaceted and extensive.
So, in In general, an advertising manager is engaged in promoting the company in which he works in the market. He attracts audiences and buyers, tells the public about the products and services that the firm offers. Such an employee develops marketing campaigns, studies the market, participates in the development and production of in-demand products. It is thanks to the work of this specialist that the company's products remain popular among buyers.
Today advertising managers are divided into several subtypes: some of them are engaged in contextual advertising on social networks, others are specialists in outdoor advertising (posters, banners, etc.). Often such specialists are employees of the public relations department.
An advertising manager can work independently as an individual entrepreneur, be a hired employee, or work in a large-scale marketing agency.
Advantages and disadvantages
It should be immediately noted that even though the work of an advertising manager itself is quite popular and widespread, not everyone likes it. And for the most part it depends on the career preferences of a particular specialist. One way or another, it is important to consider all the features of the profession of an advertising manager (both positive and negative).
Let's start with the benefits. So, the profession of an advertising manager is characterized by the following positive features:
- a large number of personal communications with a wide variety of people (clients, business partners, company employees from other departments, etc.);
- organization and participation in entertainment events;
- creative focus of work;
- lack of hard work;
- worthy material reward;
- fast career growth.
However, for specialists in this field, there are also disadvantages:
- psychological stress;
- a large amount of paperwork (for example, writing reports);
- a significant part of the working day is spent working at the computer;
- high competition among job seekers;
- great responsibility;
- work for the result.
In this regard, before studying in a specialty or starting to work as an advertising manager, you need to evaluate all aspects of the profession and understand whether you are ready to do it.
Required qualifications
In order to become a professional and qualified advertising manager, a person must have a broad outlook and be competent in many areas. At the same time, depending on the specific employer, as well as on the place of work, certain requirements may differ, therefore, before submitting your resume, it is important to carefully study the specific field of activity.
Anyway, but to become an advertising manager you need to have the appropriate education, as well as possess certain professional skills and abilities.
Education
The issue of advertising manager training is considered quite controversial. So, some employers are willing to cooperate only with those specialists who managed to get specialized higher education.
At the same time, today there is a huge number of universities that train such specialists. This list includes both large and prestigious metropolitan universities and provincial institutions. In order to work in the field of advertising, it is worth choosing such areas of training as marketing, public relations, advertising itself. For admission, you need to take subjects such as Russian, mathematics, social studies, English and literature.
At the same time, it should be noted that in some cases it is not necessary to enroll in a specialized institution of higher education. Many employers hire people who have completed relevant courses, trainings or master classes.
Skills
While a college degree is often not a requirement in itself, you must have certain skills and abilities to be successful as an advertising manager.
So, among them, the following are most often distinguished:
- creativity and creativity;
- sociability;
- experience and ability to negotiate;
- design skills;
- knowledge of foreign languages (at least one, but better than several);
- the ability to distribute the budget;
- stress tolerance;
- teamwork skills;
- attention to detail;
- knowledge of the basics of brand building;
- journalist skills (e.g. copywriting, video production).
At the same time, it is important to note the fact that if you work in a small company or are an independent expert, then you will have to possess all the above skills, since without them it is very difficult to work in advertising... On the other hand, in a large company with separate advertising departments, each of the working specialists is well versed in only one or several areas.
Personal qualities
As you know, when hiring, the employer pays attention not only to the professional skills and abilities of the applicant (although this is the basis), but also to the personal qualities and character of the candidate. You can find a similar section describing individual characteristics in each resume.
Among the valuable qualities that are useful to every advertising manager are the following:
- friendly attitude towards people;
- customer focus;
- sociability;
- active life position;
- persistence in achieving results;
- creative streak;
- leadership skills.
An advertising manager is a person who must combine a wide variety of qualities. So, on the one hand, it is important for a specialist to approach his work in a non-standard and creative way, to find unique and original solutions. At the same time, an employee of the advertising department must be an analyst, pragmatist and strategist who calculates his actions several steps ahead.
Functional responsibilities
In the course of his professional career, an advertising manager performs a variety of functions. Among them:
- thinking through specific advertising campaigns and advertising tactics of the company as a whole;
- determination of a strategy for promoting a specific product, product or service;
- study of the statistical indicators of the advertising campaign, as well as the enterprise as a whole;
- analysis of competitors;
- market research;
- drawing attention to a specific firm;
- increasing sales and profits of the organization;
- search for clients;
- work with graphic editors;
- placement of advertisements;
- business correspondence.
However, this list of functional responsibilities is not exhaustive. The thing is that in the course of his work, the advertising manager is engaged in other, smaller matters (for example, holding meetings, managing a team). In addition, depending on the specific company and the area in which it operates, the advertising manager performs other work as well.
So, for example, if a specialist works in a high-tech enterprise or in industry, then before engaging in advertising, he needs to carefully study the product that he is going to advertise.
Job description
As mentioned above, the specific functional responsibilities and job description of an advertising specialist directly depend on his place of work. However, there are several universal responsibilities of an advertising manager.
- Accompanying the general director of the company, heads of structural divisions and other employees during the implementation of the advertising campaign... First of all, it includes full and detailed informing of all involved persons about the details of a specific advertising campaign, its timing, estimated profit, the number of customers that will be attracted.
- Organization of advertising campaigns and internal processes. This means that the advertising manager not only thinks over the general advertising idea, but also deals with its specific study, develops an action plan. This can include tasks such as budgeting, selection of specific advertising sites.
- Every marketing professional should be aware of the legal side of their business. He must know what laws, bylaws and other legal documents regulate advertising activities, not to violate them.
- Often in enterprises, an advertising manager also partially performs design work.... So, for example, such a specialist can develop layouts, create brochures and advertising banners.
- Coordination of activities with all divisions of the company. Such work requires strong organizational and leadership skills.
When signing a contract for employment, it is very important to ask the employer to show you the job description. Thus, you will be able to assess how qualified you are.
Career prospects
An advertising manager with no work experience can only qualify for lower-ranking starting positions. Moreover, his salary will be rather low - about 20,000 rubles. However, do not despair, because with the proper level of effort and effort, he will be able to quickly move up the career ladder, increase his status and material reward.
For example, a top-level advertising manager earns about 100,000 rubles. However, it should be borne in mind that he also receives many more functions and also bears serious responsibility.
In general, a marketing manager's career can develop in several ways. He can move up the career ladder within the enterprise, and also has a chance to get such a position as the head of the public relations department.
In addition, there is an option self-development advertising manager... He can act as an individual entrepreneur and simultaneously serve several companies, organizations, institutions. In this case, a specialist can work in a free schedule, choose his employers himself and control the level of income.
Another option is the position of a company consultant. Such specialists are in demand in situations where the advertising managers of organizations themselves are not able to cope with a particular task. However, it should be borne in mind that in this case, the advertising manager must have an advanced level of knowledge and have an impressive work experience.
If desired, an experienced and professional advertising manager can organize his own advertising agency, hire employees to perform all routine tasks, and he himself can only deal with the work he is interested in, or even perform managerial functions.
Due to the fact that this profession is developing quite rapidly and is relatively new, experienced and knowledgeable specialists are often attracted as teachers in higher educational institutions. They can also independently develop refresher courses, trainings, master classes, individual programs.
Thus, we were able to make sure that the advertising manager is a demanded and interesting profession that is very popular in the labor market.
It should be borne in mind that a specialist must constantly learn, improve his level of knowledge, master new skills and competencies - only in this case it will be able to remain competitive and relevant.
An interesting article, informative. But this option is not suitable for everyone. Personally, I prefer to put in less effort and get better results.
I agree, I also think that the usefulness and necessity of the profession is greatly inflated!)
I liked the site very much, everything is short and clear, and most importantly - it is reliable. Thanks!
I think advertising manager is a very underrated profession.
An advertising manager is the job of a person who is often underreported, a loser. So Ogilvy wrote. So it is: no one will thank the advertiser at the enterprise, such is the profile of the work. The same applies to PR people. But they can pay well. Therefore, they write in the article about responsibility and stress resistance. The point is that advertising, like marketing, is not always immediately measurable. Its action should be constant, and not after the completion of any one-time action ... And only smart and young managers of companies understand this, and directors from the 90s lag behind in this. Tested on our own experience. Think about whether you are ready to defend your opinion and point of view. This will have to be done all the time.
A good and detailed article, I learned a lot of useful things for myself: who is an advertising manager, his duties and work tasks, where you can learn this profession and what income you can count on. Thanks.