I'm a web strategist and aspiring know-it-all with a passion for all things digital. I've worked in PR, advertising and not-for profit industries, and now I run a creative agency. These are the things I think about, and am sometimes compelled to write. More...

How did you get into marketing?

Jan 03 2007

I read a lot of marketing / advertising / PR blogs. Some are written by consultants, some by major industry leaders, and some by people who are just interested in it. Whenever I read their thoughts, I wonder how they ended up getting into this world. Not many kids say “I want to be a creative director,” when they’re little.

My story is this.

I wanted to be an architect from the time I was 12. In highschool, I took five years of drafting (we had grade 13 – I wasn’t stupid), five years of art, plus physics and calculus and all that good stuff. I had a good portfolio, good grades and had the whole extra-curricular thing down pat, acting in musicals, hosting coffee houses, directing productions.

For my senior art project, I designed an ad campaign for a fictional cola – Galaxy Cola. I was fortunate enough in my small town to have an art teacher who, despite being a complete prick (it was kind of endearing, actually) was a former art director from Toronto. He gave me some great advice, alongside his rants about leaving the ad game because his wife didn’t want to live in Toronto, and how he never wanted to be a teacher.

After highschool, I went to Carleton University’s School of Architecture for the same reason that everyone else does: Waterloo wouldn’t take me. After a semester of drawing the folds of my shirt 1:1 on a tabloid page, and being told to ask my projects what they wanted to be carved with, it seemed that my adolescence-long dream of being as cocky as Frank Lloyd Wright was over.

I came home to visit my parents over Christmas, wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, when I came across the folder that contained my final art project. I knew I had gotten an A on it, and that my teacher liked it. I started looking through the pieces and found a post-it note among the storyboards and sketches that said:

“Ryan, you are incredibly talented. If architecture doesn’t work out, consider advertising.”

That was a pivotal moment in my life. From a man who gave out compliments as if it were water in the desert came the advice that I was looking for.

When I went back to school, I talked to everyone I could about how to get into advertising. There was no such thing as a university program in advertising, and I wanted a degree. I finally talked to my drawing teacher, who told me of a degree program called “interdisciplinary studies” that allowed second-year students to create their own curriculum, aimed at a specific course of study that could not be acheived through a normal degree program.

In the meantime, to take my mind off the pain of designing a house for my head in my studio classes, I auditioned for a production of Little Shop of Horrors at the school. I got a tiny chorus role, and performing in the school musical became an annual tradition for me.

Because of my background in marketing and theatre, I was offered the job as publicist for a local festival. I then co-founded a theatre company and handled all the marketing for it. Because we had no budget, most of it was media relations. I worked hard at it while I was in school, and took on little contracts for web and graphic design here and there, and when I graduated, I had a bit of a reputation for being good at it. I planned to look for a job in an advertising firm, but people kept offering me PR contracts. Eventually, one of my professors who also ran a PR firm called me and offered me a job.

After a few years there, I became director of public relations for an interactive advertising agency, and my accidental career intersected with my intended career, and I was – and still am – extremely happy.

I never meant to go into PR, and in a lot of ways, the fact that I had a lot of random marketing experience opened a lot more doors to me. In all honesty, I’m a mediocre graphic designer at best, so it’s unlikely that I would have been able to waltz into an agency as a creative. Now that the world of marketing is changing so rapidly, I consider myself very lucky to be in the PR and interactive advertising field. It’s like having a front row seat to the next stage in evolution.

It was an extremely random string of events that brought me to where I am today, but I don’t regret a single one.

So, what’s your story?

http://www.noahbrier.com Noah Brier

I’ve got a degree in ‘independent study’ with a concentration in media, culture and postmodernism. What else was I supposed to do?
Jonesy

In high school, I was set on becoming a veterinarian. I was taking all the required sciences, and even had a student employment program job with the S.P.C.A. to work with the Vet-Tech. I was also on track to go to the University of Guelph and focus on farm animal medicine.

But I had to take options (another word for electives) in order to finish my diploma. Out of curiosity and availability I took video production, enterprise & innovation, and marketing. They blew me away and set things in motion.

The enterprise & innovation class covered the very basics of starting a business, particularly the planning and research aspects. The marketing class covered the basics of creating a marketing plan, and segued nicely into the enterprise & innovation class’s focus on research and planning. Finally, in the Video class I learned to film and edit video, adding music and dialogue as well. My Video class project was a simple 28 second commercial which I also used for my enterprise & innovation class project. (Two birds with one stone!)

Anyways, by now I was hooked. But I didn’t realize it was marketing that fascinated me. It was the attractiveness of business in general that took me into post secondary. It was there that, as part of a management education, I took more in-depth courses on the fundamentals of business. Then it happened.

I took a public relations course and loved it. I even ran for, and succeeded in getting, the PR coordinator seat on the student’s union. Interestingly though, public relations was part of the management curriculum, not the communications curriculum. So I became a marketing management student.

Public relations was what got me interested in marketing related work, via media releases and advisories to drum up awareness. But after becoming a marketing student, and taking courses in advertising and market research to name two, I finally realized what eluded me in high school – I love strategic planning! Right from idea generation, to research, to creative, to implementation and control. And marketing was the umbrella for it all.

Thank God too! Because I was a hair away from a Finance degree. Get too creative there and you go to jail!
http://www.greenbanana.com Heather Yaxley

This is interesting – one of the questions that students of PR often ask. In my case, my dad saw a job advertised for a PR Officer for Peugeot in Autocar (a consumer car magazine)and thought it would be interesting to me (although neither of us knew what PR was). I was working as a research analyst studying the industry (having got that job because I had good communication and IT skills – from studying for a secretarial diploma after a degree in psychology). Once in PR, I realised it was the career for me – so nearly 20 years (and several career moves) later, I am still passionate about the profession, have become freelance to teach PR and remain devoted to the motor industry, running the Motor Industry Public Affairs Association (www.mipaa.com). And, my secretarial skills and the degree in psychology have all proved useful in PR too. A mixture of chance, good luck, application and hard work.
http://www.ryananderson.ca Ryan

Noah – that’s odd. I have almost the same degree.

Those are both interesting stories. It seems that very few people take the direct route into PR. I’m not sure there is one, honestly.
http://www.creativetraction.com Duane Brown

I wanted to be a lawyer or a therapist as a kid and since those were shot down, $60,000 for UofT anyone. PR seemed like a good field to give me what I enjoyed about those areas. I interact with people, read oh how do I read, be creative and just know that the rules can change and no two clients are a like. I think I like the challenge more then anything.

I went to college and got that diploma, and now I get to run my own company and wake up each day ready to take on a new challenge and push myself as far as I want to go with no limits in site. Oh yeah, I did some PR stuff in high school. I just didn’t know what it was at time.
http://www.stellajatounit.blogspot.com Stella Jato Unit

First, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. So I took psych in Uni. Then, I decided to become a pilot. So I took flying lessons and changed my major to human kinetics. When I realized I didn’t really want to be a commercial pilot, I dropped my HK major and tried to find a new one. I had taken communications classes as electives during my first year and aced them. I figured I could start there. After graduation, one thing led to another and I ended up in a PR firm (I had a bit of a journalism background and had worked in communications and marketing as a student). I discovered I was really good at it, I didn’t mind the long hours, and I actually enjoyed it. As chance would have it, PR was in the cards for me.

I think a lot of people find themselves accidentally falling into PR and growing their careers in that direction. If you’ve got talent and you like what you do, it’ll happen for you, too.
http://www.capitalpr.ca Keelan Green

Ass backwards is how I got into marketing.

My degree is in finance. When I finished it at Acadia University, I stayed there (in Wolfville, Nova Scotia) for the summer. When I returned home to Ottawa, I stumbled on a three-month job in the communications branch at the Department of Finance. I guess I had a knack for communications and performed well, as they offered me another contract, followed by another and then a term. I stayed there for about three and a half years and worked on several federal budgets, economic updates and a variety of international ministerial meetings (G-7, G-20, Western Hemisphere) that Canada chaired and hosted. This meant a lot of international and domestic travel. This was a great opportunity that taught me a lot.

After that, I took a job in the CIO’s branch at Treasury Board working on communications for Government On-Line. I was there for 6-months when the person that hired me left for Thornley Fallis. 6-months after that, she suggested that Thornley Fallis hire me.

The rest is history. I’ve now been with Thornley Fallis and 76design for almost 5 years. I started as a Consultant, then moved to Senior Consultant, then Account Director, and I’m now Vice-President of the Ottawa Office.
http://www.cardcommunications.com/blog Kelly

I actually went straight into PR!

Well it started like this – I finished high school and took a one-year general arts and science program with a concentration in communications and media. I knew that was the area I wanted to go into, but not sure from there.

In that program, we had a career planning class, where we chose an area in media/design and researched it, our choices were like journalism, advertising, graphic design, theatre, broadcast journalism and PR.

I really couldn’t make up my mind, because nothing seemed right to me. SO I randomly chose PR because, honestly – I didn’t really even know what it was!

Anyway I fell in love – it was like they took all the certain tasks I was interested in and called it PR! I took a two-year PR diploma program at Algonquin College (Great program btw.), got some great experience during the program with local charities, on-campus jobs, and finally landed my current job right after graduation where I’ve been ever since. And I’ve loved every minute of it!
http://www.radicaltrust.ca collin

When I was 6 I wanted to be a helicopter pilot.

When I was 18, I wanted to be a helicopter pilot, but couldn’t afford it, so I studied animation

When I was 20 I took my first job in marketing

I made Creative Director at age 28.

I am now 32, and I want to be a helicopter pilot.

Pretty soon I will be able to afford it.
Bhavna

I just graduated with a BComm Degree- Major-Marketing. I have account executive experience but am looking to break into the world of PR. I have the skills that most people think would be great for PR but not the diploma to go along with it. Most of the jobs in Toronto require some PR diploma/certification and experience, I don’t have either but i do have natural skills and volunteer experience that numerous ppl have told me would predispose me to a career in PR. Most of you seem to have gone the unconventional route, any suggestions?