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Hi, everyone. I'm Al and I work in an advertising agency called Panorama as a senior funder, underfunding direct.

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I'm simultaneously very prepared and totally unprepared because I give a talk every year.

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Westminster school called Why not to work in advertising. I love my job.

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There's a reason and but it's more relevant.

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So those boys,

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because they are generally very arrogant public school boys who make sweeping statements about how much money they're going to earn in business.

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And so the reason I talk to them, this is sort of try and pull apart some of the things that they think is going to happen in their lives.

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And I don't know whether anybody here is interested in working in business at all.

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And I'm the only person representing business today. So I have a degree of responsibility to talk about business based jobs.

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Can I just ask, is it. Is everybody here?

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Definitely didn't go into jobs like in your minds right now or raise hands if you're interested in maybe having a business job.

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OK. So it was really interesting actually here in the introductory speech,

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because I think that's the bit that carries who don't usually include the fact that when you choose your job, you're actually choosing your life.

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And actually, that only starts coming into play when you get to being about twenty five.

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Well, between 25 and 30. I turned 28 this year.

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And it's interesting because I've got friends who got completely stuck and didn't know what they were going to do and

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took many jobs and have only just found what they're going to do now and everything sort of kind of falling into place.

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I've got other friends who've gone to work in business and always know exactly what they wanted to do.

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Often they decided that they wanted to basically sell the good years of their 20s in order to make a lot of money and now eventually retire early.

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But that's like when you're 40. That's early. So that's quite a big compromise, I suppose.

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And my my sister at the moment, he's a English graduate.

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She's a bit stuck. She doesn't really know what she's going to do. So what I thought I would do is tell you a little bit about my life right now.

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Tell me a little bit about my job. Tell you how I got into it.

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And then I'll tell you why not to work in advertising, because the thing that takes longest is finding out what you don't want to do.

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And all of these graduate programmes, I also don't believe that graduate programmes are the right entry path for advertising.

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If you if you've got definitely got an Oxbridge degree.

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But also, there are so many other ways to get into it. Talk about that as well.

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But yeah, basically finding out what you don't want to do takes the longest.

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So if I can dissuade anyone from applying to advertising, then that is probably the most helpful thing that I can do today.

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So a little bit about my life. I am turning 28 this year.

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I know stuff. About five minutes, depending on what you like.

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I've just bought a house. It's been a proper struggle. I don't.

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I probably own maybe a third of what my friends who work in banking on. But I've done very well in a short period of time.

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So yeah, I've just bought a house in the future. Working in advertising will give me the ability to quite easily work a four day week.

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So if I would like to have a baby, then I could do that.

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I'm not having a baby right now, but something that I think it's important to recognise as well as doing my day job.

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I also write a lifestyle blog, which I don't put any paid support behind.

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So it just gets organic reach. But that has a readership of about 10000 people a month.

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It's called Flow. And Al, I wrote it with my sister and I. I do that because it's completely inane writing a lifestyle blog.

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It's this space where you just write about like what you had for lunch, but with a little bit more interest around it.

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And it's it's really good to find your writing style.

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So I do it because I like to write regularly and if I start writing properly or if I start writing.

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I also started writing a play last year that didn't.

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But when you when you do that kind of writing that you don't really have to think about what you're saying,

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then it allows you to find your writing voice. So that's something that's important to me.

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And I just about have time to do that. And then the other thing that has happened this year that I've I think I've probably been

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working towards without really realising it from the beginning of working in advertising,

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is that my company has just signed off to pay for a Web site, which I proposed to them,

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which is called Fair Pay to Have, which will be a not for profit organisation to help push the pay gap.

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And the only one. Well, I thought yeah, the only one in the UK that isn't an activist feminist Web site.

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So I would describe myself as an activist feminist.

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But this Web site basically encourages men and women to tell stories, and the stories get submitted anonymously.

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They're about things in the workplace.

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It might be a guy telling a story about a colleague who had a baby and came back and works some flexitime and got information that he wanted.

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And then the women, a woman who works in flexitime talking about how she actually works around the clock.

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She feels guilty about her flexitime and those two stories would be matched.

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And the idea of that is that I think that the pay gap is normative.

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It's based on things that are inherent within the way that women and men talk about money,

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the way that women and men interact, the way that families make decisions. And nothing recognises that.

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All of the websites that I've seen basically act like there's a big male top down conspiracy to keep the women out.

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That's not true. So they just funded this Web site, which is going gonna be sort of a creative exercise.

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The reason that I'm telling you this is because I believe that advertising has the has the capability to move people in interesting ways.

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I actually wrote my thesis about academia's inability to acknowledge art or.

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He made money and to discuss them seriously because of that postboxes hangover's.

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And I also write a lot about printed ephemera in my first year.

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So it was always very much what drove me. It was anthropology, the way in which visual and images can move people and can create behaviours.

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And that's what advertising does.

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Back in the 50s, it was evil because it used to make housewives buy lots of products that they couldn't necessarily afford.

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And it was truly manipulative in a different way from is from the way it is now.

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But now I think it has the ability to add value to people's lives day to day,

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because the reality of our lives is that we are surrounded by friends in the West.

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And so if those brands can add a little bit of happiness or I guess play into your individual mythologies, then that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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It's just the reality of how we live now. So I guess the way that I describe this in a job interview, which I didn't get,

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was that I thought that to be an advertiser was to be a parasite on the capitalist vehicle, hunting it down.

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Well, we just had a big argument with me about capitalism at that point.

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But, yeah, so I, I do all of these things outside of work.

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I also do work probably between 10 and 14 hour days,

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but I get recompensed for it satisfyingly and I like my life and I think that I have the flexibility to do what I want with it in the future,

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whether that is to go more into not for profit and sort of feminist stuff and pay gap stuff,

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because I want to feed into what the government's doing or whether it's to just stay in what I do to end up being the head of my department.

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So that's my life. My job is to be an advertising planner.

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What that means is very different from media planning. People often think it's the same as media planning.

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What that means is that businesses come to an advertising agency and they explain what that what they think their problem is.

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So it might be something along the lines of Sainsbury's has a distribution problem

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and people aren't going to big grosses anymore and test case has overtaken them.

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What we need to do is to make people feel much more woman fluffy about Sainsbury's than about Tesco.

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And then I'll look at the data and I'll look at cultural trends. So some of it's quite scientific,

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but some of it is totally non-scientific and it's just sort of things like hypotheses

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about the way that people are moving or the way that people are feeling about something.

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And I'll go back to them.

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And it's my responsibility to be like the intelligent client facing person as the person who's like, hey, hey, let's go for drinks.

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And I'm the one who's like, yes, I agree with you. This is your problem.

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Or actually, I think that your problem is that if and this is the famous Sainsbury's case study.

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If people put one extra thing in their basket every time they went shopping, then you would be fine and you'd be able to compete with Tesco.

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So that was the every little helps campaign.

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And it was also the one that they did with Jamie all about why he basically was like, hey,

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your food's boring if you put chilli and then it's great if you put some cheese on top, then it's great.

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And so people were just picking up cherries and cheese where they weren't before, and that uplifted their profits by a certain amount of money.

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And it also meant that people were eating nicer food. So it did a good thing as well.

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It's not evil. So I have that conversation where I say, yes, I agree with you.

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No, I don't agree with you. And I present them the strategy.

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So based on what the business needs to achieve and then therefore what I think we need to do,

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what kind of behaviour we need to effect, and then we have that discussion.

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And then I take it back into the agency and I write what's called a creative proposition and a creative brief,

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which has varied greatly from things like radio.

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One needs to help young people break the rules because they feel like they're constrained by rules or Red Bull

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needs to act a little bit like laughing gas does on the human body and on the whole way up and down people's legs.

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And then the creative teams go away and they start thinking about stuff.

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It's got some more like it's got some more behavioural stuff in it, that brief.

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But it also has this big sweeping creative proposition. And then they come in, they have work in progress meetings with me.

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And I need to make sure that somehow that I'm saying the answer is to blow a massive

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balloon and float it across the whole world onto Fellman and for that to be the TV ad.

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But also we'll do like amazing land drops of glitter.

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I need to make sure that that's going to work to move the business problem. And then I need to measure it once it's life.

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And if it doesn't work, it's pretty much my fault. So that's that's what advertising planning is.

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The other roles in advertising are much more relationship based and administrative.

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They don't just take people out for drinks. It's nothing like madmen. We don't drink whisky in the office every day.

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We do sometimes. And then there's also the creative side of things.

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But the other thing that nobody tells anybody is that if you want to be an advertising creative,

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you basically have to go to a design school or to an art school and put together a portfolio with another person and then

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go to one of these shows where you show your work as a path so nobody can just go into advertising and be creative now.

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So that's my life and my job and how I got that.

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I was actually freelancing as an advertising planner in the holidays off from second year.

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So I've been doing this now for about seven years. And I was really lucky to have realised that that's what I wanted to do.

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I run a small I guess I ran a small advertising agency style thing when I was here.

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The strap line was against Pace's flies and paper wasters and it basically generated advertising through teaching people about advertising techniques.

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So I'd run a workshop on PR, a workshop on writing, a press release,

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a workshop on doing a experiential marketing strategy workshop, poems or poster design or even Photoshop.

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Either me or like getting other people who knew how to do that stuff in the room.

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And it was across Oxford and Oxford bricks.

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And then during those sessions, we would generate the Work for Life brief for something like the Oxford Playhouse or or like a charity.

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So basically, people got free little bits of advertising education that they could go off to

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interview with and talk about and maybe even a Post-it that they could take with them.

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And these people would get their marketing done for them for free.

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The way that that came about was actually that I went and did a Y did an internship, which was expenses paid but unpaid at the ACA.

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And I was there for three, two months in one summer.

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That was the summer of first year when I went there.

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It was a really amazing experience. It was really amazing to feel like you were part of this artistic institution.

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But I realised one really fundamental thing that meant that working within the gallery press office wouldn't be right for me.

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And that was that. When you've got an exhibition to get people to come to it, which is sort of the interesting thing that you're trying to do,

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you can't really do anything interesting with the creative idea because that's already that it's the artwork.

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So. Well, you can really do is say this artist is really great.

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He's up and coming and often talk about how valuable his work might be in the future, what it sold for last year,

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or you can say, come, there is champagne and that's how it gets written about by Tantalus.

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And. And so it's basically your work is based on the merit of your little black book, which it is also NPR.

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But within Galla, within the gallery. Well, it's very much about making that network of contacts within the small world.

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That is London and that is the London art journalist scene.

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And having been somebody who was very interested in behavioural, I guess, behavioural economics, like how when you do something, behaviours change.

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And also to have come here to do my undergraduate, I had to realise, I think,

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one of the hardest things I've ever realised in my life, which was that I wasn't going to be a fine artist.

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I always thought I was going to be a fine artist. I grew up saying I was going to be a fine artist.

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And I dropped out of art school before I came here. It was really difficult.

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And then I managed a pub for a little bit, thought about not going to university because I was out hunting right here.

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That would have been ridiculous. Fix it one way, take it to Peru, lost my passport and all my money.

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Got stranded next door with no shoes for three months, my career.

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And so in that moment at the ICAO, I was like, I don't feel that there's anything creative that I'm doing here.

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I, I feel like I'm quite good at writing press releases. I'm quite good at selling stuff.

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I know that. But what I'd like to do is to work with people and to work with their behaviour a little bit more and to work,

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I guess, with me media vehicles by say that in its broadest sense.

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Because I was very interested in like the printing revolution as and I'm very interested now in the digital

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revolution and the way that I go into my career was kind of three or understanding digital stuff a lot more.

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So at the ICAO, I thought to myself, right. I don't think I want to advertise art or market art because R is a fixed creative entity.

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Well, I'd like to do is build brands and build commercial mythologies that I think add value to the world.

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I mean, that's a bigger discussion, but that's what I decided that I wanted to do.

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And so I didn't apply to any graduate schemes. What I did was I sent my CV to.

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A Google search result of small advertising agencies in London, and that came up on a A to Z list.

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And I sent my CV of two A's one day and I got a call the next day.

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Say hi. We're a really small financial advertising agency. We called Alphabet and we've got an email account manager.

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We were only fifteen people. We've got pitch next week. Come to our office, please.

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I want to interview you. So I went to the office and he asked me why I wanted to work in advertising and I gave him a very philosophical response.

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And then he said, What are your favourite ads? And I said, I know because I was completely unprepared for that interview.

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I knew what I. I knew I was there from a personal level. I think that's the thing that people are often missing.

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Often people know much more about what they're going for.

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So that you do that kind of superficial research so that you can talk about stuff, because that's what we do in our essays, is what we're good at.

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We're good at sort of regurgitate tainting information in an interesting way.

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But having both of those things, knowing why you that inside you and knowing a bit about what you're talking about and what you like,

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those two things are absolutely necessary.

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So when somebody over in an interview, because everybody goes and regurgitates injured in formation in an interesting way.

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Very few people can give the personal responses to why they're in the room.

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But he was desperate. So he hired me anyway. And I did two weeks of work experience for him, which he paid expenses for.

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And we won the pitch. And then he turned around and said, right, okay.

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Well, I think that you're a planner. I think that was an awful interview.

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Never do that again.

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And he asked me to come back the next summer and to work under a freelance planner because they couldn't afford to have a full time planners,

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because planners of the most expensive people in the agency and when it comes to flight rate cuts.

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So I went back and worked for him twice. He's now sold his company and is actually in VCP, which is one of the biggest networks is doing amazingly.

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By the time, you know, he was just the head of a tiny financial advertising agency. I call him my ad daddy.

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I ask him any time to make a decision now. And he's always that helping me out.

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So after university, I did apply to a grad school and had a really awful situation, which is why I don't think the grad schemes are the right way.

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I'm basically having now got to where I've got in an agency, in a senior position looking at the way that graduates are treated.

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They're brought in usually between 16 and 18 grand.

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And then the agency does everything it can to keep them there and to kind of buff them away when they ask for a pay rise,

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because what they manage to do is create this really hierarchical structure.

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If you come in as a grad, then you're part of that hierarchical structure.

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The reality of advertising is that it's not hierarchical and there shouldn't be that

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kind of structure in place and you should be as valuable as the value you can add. And usually it's the grads who had the most value.

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So what I would say is don't apply to a graduate scheme.

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My my experience was absolutely horrific. But that's a whole other thing.

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It's not worth sharing that with you. Horror stories on helpful. But, yeah, it's definitely worth going into a smaller agency.

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And I'd say that that's true with a lot of things.

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It's I think it's also true with management consultancy, even though it does mean that you don't get one of those big shiny entry level pay packets.

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It's like forty five K, which are advertised everywhere on all of these Big Bang Web sites.

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In reality, only two people get those anyway.

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And so when you look at retail consultancy jobs that are smaller, it's definitely worth just not thinking about the money when you initially go in.

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But yes. So that's why I don't think she work as a graduate.

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And then I went into a digital agency, got very, very specialised within digital, went through a couple of those, actually.

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And then I applied, applied, applied for things that didn't sign, I mean, just as a digital person.

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So I've not made a single TV ad up until last year.

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I was very, very specialised. I was quite senior, quite specialised, very difficult to hire, basically,

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because I didn't want to take a pay cut and I wanted to go into an agency that would allow me to do digital advertising,

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but also do TV advertising and to pull all of that together. And finally, it happened.

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And so now I'm in my role and I've been in my role for nearly a year.

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I think my advice is giving small specialise and then go broad because you'll end up getting senior faster and getting paid more,

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but also getting more out of it because it means you have something that you really

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know to bring to the table so you can be confident when you're talking about stuff.

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So then why not to work in advertising quite quickly? Well,

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I have to talk a little bit about the difference between advertising and

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management consultancy and about how I get paid less than my friends in banking.

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But I don't know if it's not widely known why that is so basic.

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Advertising isn't a profession, and most business jobs are a profession, a profession is defined as a job that requires continuous learning.

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So it's basically like being a lawyer, being an accountant based mr.

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If you look at what a sin, what an accountant does to a client's bank balance,

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they basically tell them how much money they have and how much money they have spent.

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And they get paid so much more than the advertisers who make them money.

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So that's completely counterintuitive advice because our job doesn't require continuous learning.

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Whereas in accountancy, you're getting better every single year.

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So it's not profession and therefore it doesn't pay as well, and therefore it's not as hierarchically structured.

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And you are in it on your own. Fighting for every single promotion you get, every single pay rise that you get.

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That's why I'm making my website, because I think that what I've seen women not ask for pay rise this properly.

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I made the decision very early on that I was just going to. This is horrible.

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It's a horrible phrase, but I was just going to act like a man.

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And I basically sort of looked at this guy was like next me was like right now I said, hey, every time he asks for a pay rise.

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And I only did that for a little bit. After a while, it became completely natural. I don't know how asking for a pay rise is going to go.

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Next time I ask because obviously I've now got a pay rise web. So my boss is looking at me like that.

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Yes. It's all just ahead because they want a raise. Yeah.

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So if you if you feel like you can sort of swim with the fishes up current and that you can do that for yourself,

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then I think advertising is a great place to be. But if you would rather go into something and if you'd rather choose business because it offers the

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kind of security and the kind of hierarchy and the kind of guaranteed ladder climbing that it does,

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then I think advertising isn't the right thing. The other thing is that there is no shame in any of this.

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There is no shame in wanting to have your name in lights. There's no shame in wanting money.

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There's no shame in wanting actually to work for five years and then just have a family life.

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It's all completely fine. And I think we have all of these weird, idealistic views of what isn't fine and what is fine when we leave university.

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And also this view that if you work hard and if you do the same thing that everyone else does,

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then you'll all be okay, because that's what school teaches you. But that's not really true.

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The truth is really empowering once you embrace it. You can do whatever you want to do.

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I was just talking to a group of students who I was interviewing for a new one,

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which is how I made it OK to come here to kill two birds with one stone.

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But this guy was like, well, what I really want to do is, you know,

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spend time with horses and have lots of free time, but also probably have, like an empowering business job.

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And and that's just, you know, that doesn't exist, doesn't know lechery that exist.

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My friend does that. She's about five years more senior than me in the same job as me.

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And she now is gone freelance, which means that she can be very flexible with her time and that she can get paid

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enough money in the time that she does work to spend half the year in South America.

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Horse whispering I mean, you know, each their own. But it is absolutely possible.

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And choosing something which you can have flexible working within, which you can freelance within,

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gives you the ability to wake up aged 27, which she did, and think that's what I need to do.

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And that's an amazing thing to do. Also, career changes happen.

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And that's something that I think we forget when we start choosing what our job is going to be and who we are going to be.

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But lots of people absolutely shop and change.

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The other thing about working in advertising that people often think that they want to work in advertising because of that is a creative job,

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is a creative job, if you like, creative thinking.

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But if you like of pure creativity, then advertising literally kills it because you've come up with an amazing idea and your client says,

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yeah, can you make the logo bigger? And also, it would be really great if you could put like the terms and conditions really beg in the middle of it.

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And so for people who have gone into advertising because it's creative,

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because they love creativity and they want to see it flourish, it can often be quite disillusioning.

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I don't find it disillusioning, but it can be. And I've seen people become disillusioned by it comparatively to other jobs.

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It's not that well-paid and it takes a while to get well-paid. And do you have less autonomy than a management consultant as well?

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Because management consultancy allows you to go into a business and to be the business partner immediately.

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Whereas as appetisers we want to be the business partners. We believe we can be the business partners.

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But I think the client is always going to see you as a little bit more fluffy.

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So if you want to sort of go into something and be very business focussed and always get yourself a miniature MBA,

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then management consultancy is much better than other.

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And the other thing is that if you're interested in marketing as a whole than being a client is much easier.

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And it's often much better paid. So to go to be a marketer within Cadbury's, for example, where you basically are the boss of the agency.

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You have much more input with the business side of every single brief.

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And you also get to choose what creative you like. That's an easier job at shorter hours.

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It is better paid, but it's, I think, much less interesting.

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So that's a lot about me and it's about why not.