Advertising Training or Education

Have you undertaken professional training or serious study of Advertising? -Houston

Nothing formal but my bookcase has a whole shelf filled with books on advertising, publicity, marketing, etc. -SpeedRacer

How much does the average salesperson need to know about advertising? :dun -Mikey

You can get a formal education and or training in advertising, and still remain a novice in this very dynamic and ever-growing industry. We deal with human passions and emotions, with cultures and technology, and have to live with trends and what's "in". Whatever they can teach and how much you can learn, the industry will always stay ahead of you. So you never stop learning just to stay abreast.

I believe this industry has more than it's fair share of misfits, those who received formal training in other disciplines but wind up in advertising (hopefully for the passion, not because it's a good-paying job)

Shah -wiromal

for the average salesperson? not much. Often times a company executes expensive advertising programmes without even referring to the sales team.

however, for the good salesperson, knowing a lot about advertising will be a big plus. In a way, advertising by his company is both competition to him while also being a sales booster.

researching and understanding the advertising programme of his customer will provide him with a clue of his customer's needs, and help him prepare for the next sales interview. -wiromal

I have spent some time studying advertising and marketing... I think for most sales people in most companies it is not that important. However, if you are in a very small company without a full blown marketing and advertising departments there is a lot to be gained. The same could be said for people who work as private contractors in industries like real estate, insurance, mortgage, etc... If you are in that situation I think a lot can be gained from some training in both advertising and marketing because you most likely are branding yourself in addition to your parent company.

-Brad -bmtrnavsky

Houston,

As to your Lead Thread question, I suppose I've had both formal and on-the-job training in advertising from 1972, since my career has been mainly in selling advertising space. -wiromal

I have been in media advertising sales for over twenty years and I have seen all types of of advertising sales hopefuls come and go over the years. Many were fresh out of college and many just had the fire in their belly. In my opinion, when I am training a new Advertising Executive I'll take the one with the fire in the belly anyday! Believe me I am in no way knocking a college education. Three of my four kids went to college and the other one joined the Navy and is now a Navy Senior Chief. I'm saying it takes more than training and more than education. It takes "desire, guts, thick skin and a will to succeed". -MPrince

Relentlessly. -Ace Coldiron

As I see it, the REVERSE is true. Advertising people could benefit by knowing more about SALES! The only measure of advertising is its ability to generate sales. -Rainmaker

The question is how much does the average sales person need to know about advertising or "Advertising Training or Education". -MPrince

It is partially for that reason, RM, that the giants of advertising--Caples, Ogilvy, Burnett, Hopkins, Barton, etc. saw advertising as SELLING rather than marketing. Your point is well taken.

I can't speak for an average salesperson, but I would guess that they don't venture into too many areas of study in their chosen field. Advertising would probably be not one of them. -Ace Coldiron

I think advertising people should understand that their advertising should be measurable and should result in putting salespeople in front of qualified buyers.

And here we have to go beyond brand recognition. Ford, GM and Chrysler are great brands. They just don't sell, so all the advertising is useless.

However, as long as advertising and sales people are paid differently, we can't expect them to respect reach other and work as a team.

So, advertising folks keep producing cute images and slogans, and sales folks keep hunting for good leads, so they can convert them to clients, so the advertising folks can have their paycheques at the end of the week.

Cheers

BD -Bald Dog

What I think is sales people should know what they are talking about before they voice an opinion. It is not the advertising "folks" job to get sales leads for sales people. It is the sales people who need to get off their butt and generate their own sales leads. It is not advertising folks that create cute ads and slogans it is the creative departments at the TV stations, radio stations, agencies, etc. Advertising folks work with businesses to determine when and where to place a businesses advertising buy. That is what I do. I am an Advertising Sales Executive and a very good one I might add. I have never been paid at the end of the week. I work on a commission basis. If it were not for advertising "folks" a lot of people might not get paid. -MPrince

I disagree but it's only my opinion.

Then what is the role of advertising? Nuclear warfare?

What's the point in having a department in a company whose objective is not about improving the company's financial performance and overall success?

But... My experience is in the complex, B2B world.

And I think it's a huge mistake to let them do it. It all should be done in-house with accountability for ROI. And sales and advertising people should work in close collaboration on it.

I think another great question is what sort of ROI your clients are deriving from the ads you've sold them. I'm not doubting you. I'm just putting out a way of measuring things you sell.

Look at most car dealerships for instance. The salespeople make good commissions while the dealerships go broke. The two have almost no correlation. IN the early 90s, when IBM was going down, salespeople were still making great money.

The commission structure often creates the quick buck mentality, which is often against the long-term objectives of their employers and their clients.

BD -Bald Dog

Well BD...let me put it this way whether you doubt me or not doesn't alter my way of doing business one way or the other. It only stand to reason that some very powerful business owners have put their trust in mine and other advertising B2B sales people over the years for some reason and that reason is; advertising is an investment and business owners get a healthy track-able return on the advertising dollars they spend. Now if that doesn't increase a sales person's (at that business) sales then maybe it is time for the sales person to look at their sales techniques. Maybe they need to make some changes. Again, it is not the job of advertising to make sales for you. Advertising gets people to the door or gets the phone to ring. -MPrince

MPrince

I think that sales people should have a better understanding of the entire marketing process. Rather than seeing advertising and sales as 2 separate processes within business, they should really see and understand why the 2 are inter-connected.

What is also important for sales success is that sales people understand what the aims and objectives for their advertising campaigns are and how they should support the campaign (not all advertising directly drives footfall for instance). For instance we have a fairly large ad campaign on TV presently, for one of the countries largest insurers that is focused on letting customers know that they're about to change their name. I don't expect that people will rush to buy their products because they've changed their name, but their sales force will need to understand how to leverage this opportunity.

Following on from other posts on this subject, I think that advertisers should understand the marketing process, but don't necessarily need to have such a detailed understanding of 'selling'. As long as business advertising meets its defined goals and has a positive impact, then what sales people do to leverage this impact, isn't too much of an issue for advertisers.

What is an issue for advertisers, is when advertsing has no impact, or effectiveness isn't measured. It is often sales people that are able to provide the data to demonstrate the success of an advertising campaign. -marky

I could not disagree more with that statement. Nobody should ever be allowed to construct a single ad, let alone an ad campaign, without realizing that advertising IS selling.

Marketing is one of the most vague terms in all of the lexicon of business. There is no singular "marketing process" to be understood. The principles of Selling are learnable and those very same principles are found in Advertising.

Again--the giants of advertising--Caples, Ogilvy, Burnett, Hopkins, Barton, etc. saw advertising as SELLING rather than marketing.

BTW, Jeff has made available for download, Claude Hopkins classic book, Scientific Advertising. As David Ogilvy said, nobody should attempt to create advertising without reading Hopkin's book at least seven times. -Ace Coldiron

I have taken some serious training classes, but not much to do with advertising.

Teach me the wonderful ways of advertising.

Thanks -Jumpman

Jumpman

I will be happy to share with you all that I know and all that I can dig up on Advertising and Advertising Sales and yes advertising is sales. If you have a question feel free to ask. I have been making a very good living for a long time in Advertising Sales but if I know anything it is that I know nothing and that is why I love the world of Advertising. Each client offers a brand new opportunity and I have to constantly read, study and develop my skills. I have to keep the ability to stay humble and listen to others who have been before me and others such as Ace whose has profound wisdom in the matters of sales will help me or you to the next level. The way I see it is we are all in this together so, when I have a little more time I will share more or if you have question fire away.

MPrince -MPrince