Getting into one of those special areas requires the same basic tools that you need to get into any other area: a portfolio of ads for products and services in your special area of interest (if you want to get into the creative department), a college degree and an intense interest in media, account service, or research if you want to get into one of those areas. No matter which department you want to get into, you'll find agencies that specialize in your favorite theater of advertising.
Why don't the same people who do car advertising do advertising for agricultural equipment, too? Some do, but most specialize in either one area or the other. Even in the case of a large agency which may handle both kinds of accounts, one group within that agency works on consumer accounts, another group works on the other special areas. That's primarily because it takes people with a definite interest in tractors to do ads which sell them. It takes someone with an understanding of the people who use agricultural equipment to persuade them to further investigate a certain company's line; not because other people can't learn what that equipment has to offer or what motivates farmers, but because if you don't have an inherent interest in the subject, you'd probably be bored to death going through everything you'd need to learn to do the job effectively. The same goes for industrial, medical and pharmaceutical, and retail advertising, too.
Where does that interest come from? Maybe you grew up on a farm, or maybe you spent summers on the farm of a friend or relative. People have spent their entire advertising careers in agricultural advertising, and the summers they spent working on a farm were all the enticement they needed to start off in that direction. Still others wait until they're in college to get involved in agriculture. They major in agronomy, agricultural engineering, agricultural journalism, or even animal husbandry. They go on from there to pursue careers in advertising.
Just for the record, if you want to get into the agency side of the business, agricultural advertising tends to offer more job security than consumer goods advertising, primarily because agricultural clients tend to switch agencies less frequently. They're not as prone to change for the sake of change as are some consumer goods advertisers.
But make no mistake about it, agricultural advertising requires just as much hard work as any other kind of advertising. Just because agricultural clients tend to stick with an agency longer doesn't mean they're any less demanding.
If agricultural advertising is what you're interested in, contact agricultural advertisers, agencies who specialize in that area, or agencies who have special agricultural divisions. They're located all over the country, on both sides of the George Washington Bridge, and you can find most of them in the Advertising Redbook.
Maybe you grew up around the construction business, or maybe your father is a contractor. Maybe that's why you have an interest in industrial advertising. If that's the case, you might have majored in or taken courses in anything from chemistry or physics to engineering or mathematics.
When you're ready to begin your career, you'll want to contact industrial advertisers, industrial agencies, or large consumer goods agencies which have industrial divisions. Because industrial clients are so lucrative for agencies, there are several very large and well-known consumer goods agencies which also have very large but not-so-well-known industrial divisions. Just look through the Advertising Redbook and you'll see for yourself.
Maybe you're interested in medical and pharmaceutical advertising. To testify to that interest, you took a lot of science, biology, chemistry, physics, math, and pharmacy courses. Maybe you were in pre-med, or possibly you even went to med school for a while. You'll want to contact medical and pharmaceutical advertisers and/or their agencies.
What if you're a movie buff and would like to get into motion picture advertising? Most of the major studios, feature production companies, and releasing corporations in this country are on one of our coasts, so most of the motion picture advertising done in this country is done in either New York or Los Angeles.
Movie companies don't have trainee programs for advertising. If you want to get into it on the client side, your best bet would be to contact the studios and offer your services on any level at which they'll take you. If you have a choice, try to start in promotion. If you can't, then take what you can get and work your way into advertising from there.
If you want to get into the agency side, scour the Advertising Redbook for the agencies that specialize in or have divisions handling the movie business.
What about direct mail and direct response? There is probably no special area in advertising where as much money is spent as in direct mail and direct response. If you doubt that, think back to your mail box over the past two weeks. Remember that advertising you got from businesses? From that company with the special sale on orthopedic body stockings? Or from that book club? Well, that was either direct mail or direct response advertising. Nowadays there isn't much difference between the two, but if you really want to get technical, direct mail sometimes doesn't contain a response vehicle in it, like a coupon or an address to write to, while direct response always does.
