I'd like to go further into advertising, since it it something I'm interested in doing in the future.
What type of subjects should I pick in school and also in the future; so what kind of things I should study?
A teacher I talked to said that Philosophy would be very useful, does anyone have any experience with this?
The former deals with the more strategic aspects. The issue here is who to advertise to (understanding consumer segmentation and so on), and which resources to use/ focus on. This section fits under the marketing strategy.
The latter deals more with an actual understanding of communication and design. These people are usually experts in formulating ads, designing commercials, communicating through images, etc. They know how to best get the message across to the segments that were chosen above.
Now obviously these two are not totally separate, but people do tend to specialise in certain aspects. I for one know quite a bit about the former, but I would never try to actually design an ad.
I do not know what courses are available these days in school (and certainly not in a US school), so I will tell you the kind of thing that is useful. The answers below mine were good, so there will be some overlap.
For the former, a good foundation in business management disciplines (like strategy and marketing) is useful. Anything that emphasises your ability to plan really, even if these courses are not directly related. It is much easier to become a good planner and organiser if one starts early. The skills are the same no matter what the discipline.
For the latter, any courses to do with media, with design (anything from art, since some ad designers are really artists, to computer related courses in specialist programs), or with communication. Remember the idea here is twofold, first to understand how people perceive and react to a message (whether a picture or a tv ad) and second how to actually design that message.
In all honesty I have no idea how philosophy can work here, but its such a broad subject it might be good to ask your teacher which branch he meant. I would rather say that psychology would be extremely useful, since that gives you an insight into how people think (and the object of the game is to influence their thoughts, actions and desires).
tropicalbabe33 answered Friday January 9 2009, 7:42 pm: I definitely think you should take both Business Studies and Media Studies. I take Media and it involves a lot of work to do with advertisment, target audiences, meanings behind advertisments and persuasive writing. Seriously, it would help so much with advertising, you do a lot to do with it.
I'm also pretty sure Business would help a lot, I don't take it so I don't know that much about it, but a lot of my friends do, and from what I've heard, it would definitely help with advertising. [ tropicalbabe33's advice column | Ask tropicalbabe33 A Question ]
geckonumber1 answered Thursday January 8 2009, 10:10 pm: Philosophy is surprisingly helpful for advertising in my opinion(talks about consumerism and such) but if your school offers a communications technologies course that is almost essential (it's a college course as well if you can't take it at your school, and business classes such as possibly an advertising class (obviously) but also Entreprenureship or another class I've heard of where you do online and computer work for various projects talk to your guidance counsellor for more advice.
[By the way, just so you know I am canadian so the classes might be different and such] [ geckonumber1's advice column | Ask geckonumber1 A Question ]
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