Back To School: Academia Vs. Advertising

Samuel D. Bradley, an assistant professor spent five days at Buchanan & Associates, an Ohio advertising agency as part of a week in residence program as part of the Texas Tech University’s College of Mass Communications Partners in Scholars program. The aim is to send academics back into the field so that they can offer more real world knowledge to their students. We found his five day immersion quite interesting actually. Here’s the highlights and insights:

Day 1: Bradley gives a talk at the agency. His thoughts: “Unlike the disinterested classroom, everyone at my talk seemed genuinely interested in how the ideas could help them do their jobs. If our students were as interested in what we teach, the classroom would be a lot more enjoyable.”

Bradley is a copy writing and creative strategy professor. So yeah… your students are either hung over from the night before or just trying to get that advertising degree, so they can skip having to do the whole MBA thing and still make a six figure salary. Sorry, but it’s probably true.

Day 2: Bradley doesn’t seem to do much, but play around online with the Gallup Strength Finder. Yup. Playing around on the internet is definitely a real world work scenario.

Day 3: Agency head Jack Buchanan informs Bradley that the big difference between academia and the industry is that academics have time to think. This revelation seems to catch the research professor off guard. See? The trip has already paid for itself.

Bradley comes to the conclusion that he has lost side of the fact that ideas drive him. Ah-ha! And here is where we find a similarity between academia and the industry. Ideas… Ideas… what were they again? Oh wait. Gotta take this client meeting and then explain to our assistant how to research a brief. Oh damn… then we have the all office meeting about our next bowling party. Shit. This proof is wrong. Wait – what time am we supposed to be at the post-house?

Day 4: Bradley spends the day talking with the creatives. He asks them what skills students should be equipped with to get a job at such an agency. Their answer: “If the new person can get job there along, the employees here largely felt that creative skills could be improved. It was more important to be a good person than to have a great portfolio.”

Isn’t that nice? In fact, it’s a kind of great. Yet, we know feel like we ship Bradley to McCann or Publicis West so he can see how the other half work.

Day 5: At the end of his work week, the professor walks away with a few key insights:

- An agency should be devoted to “loosening up the thoughts.” His favorite new method is beanbag toss. You can seen brand strategist Tim Laubacher executing it in the photo above.

- “You can assemble great people, but you also need to foster an environment that makes them feel like great people. If you can do that, you will rarely be disappointed by the outcome.” That is the golden rule of the small agency and it seems to work for many of them.

We really like the professor by the way. Honestly, all academics should come plow in the fields of the industry. Simple insights like the fact that there is no spare time and that working with creative people all day can be fantastic should be shared. Maybe the new crop of kids coming in will have a better understanding of what the biz is all about and perhaps, want to stay a bit longer.