Reassessing Advertising in Recession

Can the recession be beneficial to young talent in the advertising world? Where can your degree take you?

With the constant reminder that we’re deep in a recession and watching news coverage of redundancy in all different industries, it’s sent fear round the grounds of many universities. Students are graduating with over a crippling £17,500 debt according to a 2008 annual poll survey. This is leaving graduates feeling disheartened by the money they’ve spent that seemingly offers nothing in return and discouraging college students to want to carry on with higher education.

Yes there may be less money out there to give inexperienced hopefuls that are trying to start a career, but there are opportunities out there, you just have to show that you are hungry for it.

Two university graduates with a degree in advertising, talk me through the opportunities that have opened up for them through the past year. They have done work experience in top ad agencies such as Leo Burnett and EHS Brann.

EHS Brann (who invented the Tesco Club card) has recently been praised for their employment of young hopefuls like these two graduates Tom Harvey and Dan Hooper, who were given paid work experience with the agency even before leaving the comfort of university.

“Work experience gave us more valuable insight in to advertising and how we can improve our work,” says Tom Harvey, the art director of the group. “At EHS Brann the creative director gave us feedback, we carried on working on it and it got shown to the client, which was amazing.”

From Tom and Dan being part of the industry, it has shown them how hard the competition is to get a good job. “There are quite high levels of competition between creatives in the same agency, let alone the same industry.” Dan said, quite bewildered by the levels of rivalry between people on the same team.

This experience has made them both see the incredibly high level of work that they have to submit to make it in this tough industry. Some good advice was given to them by creative directors as Leo Burnett, Tony Malcolm and Guy Moore: “Through our course we’ve been making ad’s for big brands like O2 and FCUK, but they already have award winning work, which we’re trying to compete against,” said Tom. “We’ve been given advice by Tony and Guy to concentrate our portfolio on smaller brands like our local bistro or brands that aren’t globally recognised.”

Tony Malcolm who has produced timeless adverts such as ‘Park Life’ for Nike and ‘Just Passing By’ for McDonalds talks about the benefits of asking graduates to come in for work experience. “The advertising industry is finding ways to advertise through new media, which graduates seem to understand.” Tony also sees the recession as a advantage to the industry because if the economy is down, they need all forms of media and advertising to persuade people to consume more. “It should be a very exciting time for graduates, everything is changing and they are the ones who are going to change the way people think.”

According to Campaign magazine the creative industry is what is going to pull us out of the recession rather than the financial sector. This statement makes the future for graduates studying in the media field look positive. “The government wants more people to spend money. So brands need advertisers to create the need for their products,” says Tom. “Put enough spin, pretty bells and whistles on something can drag someone’s mind away from money.” “It’s a whole mental thing of ‘I deserve that’ message that needs to be in peoples heads,” replies Dan.

Though according to Caroline Lovell a journalist for Campaign magazine, the advertising industry is also going to benefit students from a variety of different degrees. Lovell believes “hiring people from different industries, is that you end up with a fresh perspective on advertising.” So not only is the advertising industry benefiting the economy, young creatives, but also lawyers, police, gardeners, accountants and many others.

“I think it’s an amazing approach because they’re going to get experienced individuals from a wide variety of sectors and they’re all going to think more creatively,” said Tom. “It might not be necessarily great for advertising students, as they study to be creative rather than focusing on being an expert in a certain subject,” said Dan.

Tom harvey and Dan Hooper Advertising graduates

Elliott Abdo, a criminology student from Southampton Solent University has never considered going down a creative career path before. “If they’re willing to have me I would love it. I love to think imaginatively and I guess it would be a good career move.”


Amelia Hooper a product design student from London Southbank University said, “a lot of what I do in my degree I can relate to advertising. The money is good. Why not?”


Caroline Fairbrother a graduate from Nottingham University said, “if you studied journalism there is nothing to stop you from becoming a fashion designer or a teacher. It just depends on you and what you want to do with your life, not your degree.”