Hasta La Creative!

It was bound to happen. The advertising business is about to get its own reality show.  The Big Ad Gig is a competition where aspiring ad creatives are invited to enter video submissions and creative books for a chance to win one of four paid freelance gigs at a big NY agency for a month. OK, in terms of reality TV, it’s not exactly eight kids and a cheating husband, but it’s our little drama.

Eight finalists will be chosen to come to New York to deliver their creative pitches to a live audience during Advertising Week, and they will be judged by a panel of big agency big shots. In addition to winning an agency gig, they will also gain some significant exposure: the winning campaign will get produced and run across Microsoft Advertising’s media properties.

This reality show will be an amazing opportunity for four young advertising hopefuls to gain exposure and employment in the heart of the advertising world, but I can’t help but think of the other reality of the advertising business now: thousands and thousands of advertising creatives who are out of work.

No one gets into advertising for job security, because there is none. Most creatives I know, myself included, work in advertising because they simply can’t work anywhere else. As my friend and mentor Ken Krimstein told me when he ushered me into the business, “Advertising is the refuge for odd toys.”

Before I got into the ad business I was a creative person without a way to make a living creatively. Finding out about working in advertising was a revelation. When I heard that someone was going to give me a job and pay me for being creative, it was like an answered prayer.

Now, I’m a dozen years into this business and I see it dying. I’m not saying that advertising is dead, but at this point it has been badly wounded by a perfect storm of massive overexposure, a changing media landscape, and one of the shittiest economies on record. So, all of those creatives—the odd toys, my friends—are just SOL right now.

I’m not painting a picture of a wonderful business gone bad. Along with getting paid for being creative comes the inevitable price for being creative in a non-creative world. What I’m mourning is a wonderful opportunity that may not be available for many more creative people, for much longer.

Now, I’m sure the contest was designed to attract young ad creatives, just out of school and eager for their first big break in the ad world. But I just checked the contest rules and it’s open to anyone 18 or older who is not currently a full-time employee with a contract. Let’s see, that’s, well… almost everybody, including those thousands and thousands of unemployed creative folks I was talking about earlier. I’m wondering if the people who came up this reality show idea really thought this one out. Stay tuned because, frankly, this reality show could get ugly.

Steven Stark is a Copywriter, Blogger and Creative Director for hire. He can be contacted @ www.stevenstark.net