WPP Fellow - Dale Kirsop

Advertising is pretty easy to grasp in some ways as we’ve all grown-up consuming it. You get advertising on TV, in press, on posters, online, through your door, projected onto the houses of parliament, in the cinema and just about anywhere where people spend time.

What a lot of insiders seemed to love about the industry is that you get to combine creativity with business. So you could quite happily find yourself sat down looking at casting shots with a film director in the morning and discussing your client’s business strategy in the afternoon.

It’s a young industry with most people in their twenties or early thirties and this makes for a very fun working environment but the work is tough. Delivering large advertising campaigns is a painstaking process and as a service provider you are at your client’s mercy, so expect some long hours and weekend work. As most agencies are small businesses though (compared to their clients), they tend to be good at compensating hard work with days off.

Those looking for a career in advertising will probably want to consider the type of agency they’re interested in as they often cover different media. For example some agencies specialise in large brand campaigns which involve TV, Posters and mass media whilst others specialise in more one to one communications like direct mail. There are also digital advertising agencies and those that specialise in recruitment advertising. 

Pay in advertising and the media in general is notoriously poor compared to some of the other professions such as banking, law and management consultancy. However it struck us that few people seemed to love their jobs as much as those in advertising. There aren’t many careers where a week on set with Marlene Class and Antonio Banderas is just part of the job.

At the large advertising agencies expect a starting salary of around £20-22,000. After 4 years you’ll be on about £40,000 and after 7 probably around £60,000. The senior management grade will be on approx £120,000 with the top CEOs up to £250,000. There are very few people in advertising that will earn in excess of £250,000 but one of the beauties of the industry is the ease with which you can set-up your own agency. The barrier to entry is low (all you need is a desk and computer) and it’s building (and exiting) from your own agency where the big money is found in this industry.

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm Dale Kirsop and I'm a WPP fellow working on my first rotation in Rainey, Kelly Cambell Rolfe in London having graduated from Nottingham University last year.

What is Advertising?

I think basically advertising is communicating the benefits of a particular product or brand and giving consumers a reason why this particular product or consumer buys this particular brand above those of its rivals.

What attracted you to this career?

What attracted me to advertising and marketing was that I am quite a creative person but I am also quite excited by business and the way that business is done, so I think advertising and marketing sits somewhere in between those two business areas.  It is neither totally corporate nor 100% creative and I think that is what made me want to be part of this industry.  I have been here for six months now and I think it has absolutely lived up to everything I hoped it was going to be, I am having a great time, I am working on exciting projects with some exciting clients so it has been really good so far.

What does your job involve?

Well I am here working in account management on two different clients, two totally different clients, and essentially I come in every day and I sit down with our team and we discuss all the projects that need to be done that day and whether there is anything that is ongoing with the client every day to check that everything is smooth.  It is quite a difficult job to explain, account management, because it is so varied and there are so many different aspects to it but essentially you are the wheels of the machine to make sure everything gets through, on time and budget.

What do you do on a typical day?

Again it totally depends on the day and what the projects are but it is very much a client facing role, we have meetings with both my clients, two or three times a week, they will come here or we will travel out to their offices and if we are in creative development you will be in art buying and you will be in and out of the studio just having a look at the advertising as it goes through the processes from creative development through to actually supplying it to the TV channel

What are the best bits about your job?

The most exciting thing I am working on at the moment, and the thing I really enjoy, is that one of the clients I work for is new here and we have had the opportunity to really totally re-brand an organisation and coming in as a graduate and seeing that process literally from day one until tomorrow actually, when everything is signed off and supplied, it has been an incredible process and very exciting and it has been a great way to learn the process of advertising because it is not just sitting down in a room and writing flashy headlines, there is a lot of strategy and thought that goes into it and so many different people in so many different roles are involved and from my point of view that has been the best part of the job so far.

What are the worst bits about your job?

Nothing major, I think there are a lot more spreadsheets and graphs and filling out forms than you would expect there to be from a business that is perhaps quite creative from the outset, there is a lot of process in advertising and that surprised me. Sometimes when you are sat with a 14-page spreadsheet with every single hole in it needs filling in, that can be a bit frustrating.  But there is nothing that I wake up in the morning and think "today is going to be a terrible day"

What has been your greatest achievement?

I can’t wait for the day in a months time when the TV advert which looks really good, its brilliant, I think it looks totally different for the category, it is for Oxfam so we are kind of breaking the charity mould and hopefully when that goes out on TV it will be a very proud day for me.

Any regrets?

Touch wood I have not made a major cock up yet. I probably will at some point. I think, if I look back in the six months, this is an industry where it is all about the idea and there are times when we have had client meetings and I have had ideas which are potentially worth sharing and I have just sat there and not said anything. I regretted that when I came out but it is all one big learning curve so from that point of view it is not a problem.  It didn't get me in any trouble but I have definitely learned from that just to find your voice and raise your opinions when you have them.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

The pay in advertising is ok it is not brilliant it is not investment banking salary.  I get paid more than most graduates.  WPP graduates get a little bit more that graduates on regular project programmes.  There are bonuses at the end of the year, we have an appraisal at the end of the year and it is based on that.  There are decent bonuses, the pay is fine, it is more than enough to live on in London, it is more than enough to be able to go out at the weekend and have a good time and rent your own flat, it is not a problem. Then there are all the other things that I just sign off and don't really know much about, like health insurance and pension plans and share options and stuff like that.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

It really varies, I don't have to come in too early, I come in about 9 or 9.15 and depending on what needs to be done that day, leave anytime between 6 and sometimes I have worked until 9 or 10 at night just to get things done so that can be a little frustrating at times.  Then if you have got any other projects aside from your own account for example, I have worked on two pitches since I have been here and then you can literally be working all night on a pitch.  In a sense I quite like to do that not every night because it is quite nice way of getting to know people here you are all there and you have got to get this done for a bigger presentation potentially worth billions of pounds. It is quite a good feeling actually sitting up.

Is there much in the way of travel?

On my rotation here I certainly travel around the UK for research groups, neither of my clients are based in London.  I have never travelled abroad though I think that is on the cards. A trip to Germany for my Zerox client for the worlds biggest print and paper fair which is going to be an exciting day and I am actually working really hard towards that so it will actually be quite a good trip.  On my accounts there are no opportunities to spend a lot of time overseas particularly at my level.  Within WPP there are absolutely opportunities to travel abroad you can pretty much pick any country in the world that WPP operates in which I think is about 100 and provided you can make a case for going to live there you can go and live there for a year.  I am flying out in June to interview for positions in Shanghai to start in September which is awesome and really exciting.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

I think all the big advertising agencies are based in London, actually most of them are based in the Soho village of London, we are not at Rainey Kelly actually, we are based in Camden.  I do think it is pretty important to be based centrally in one of the big cities, purely because it relies on so many other companies in advertising, you have your client who needs to be able to get to see you in a moments notice, you have production companies, research companies, media agencies, and you spend al your time travelling around the country if you weren’t located near to each other.

What is the working environment like?

It is very informal, very relaxed and a lot of fun actually here, there is no dress code you can wear what you like within reason as long as you look reasonably smart; I have never had to wear a suit and tie.  There are no barriers in the office, anyone can walk into anyone’s office, unlike some advertising agencies where you have your CEO on the top floor and the senior management locked away, here everyone is kind of mixed up with each other, there are no doors on the offices so anyone can come and go which is great.

How big are ad agencies?

Well WPP who employ me is the biggest advertising and marketing group in the world they are enormous, they are in the FTSE 100 they employ about 150,000 people but very few people work for WPP the parent company.  It is split up into 100s of smaller companies of which Rainey Kelly is one and Rainey Kelly is pretty standard it is a big London advertising of which there are about 15 or 20 and about 300 people work here.

How did you get into your job?

My degree was in geography from Nottingham so it is totally unrelated to advertising, that said I knew mid way through my degree that this was certainly a path I would look at taking so I took work experience with a big London agency and that kind of reinforced for me the theory that it is a competitive industry to get in.  I think the more you know it, not necessarily the more chance you have got of getting in, but it just helps you out at interviews because you know what people in advertising are like you know the process and you get some idea of the good campaigns that are out there and I think it is important to do some research and know that this is the industry that you want to be in.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I think you have to be pretty switched on to what is going on not on a political level on a kind of social level, I think it is important to keep up with the news on one hand that is ticking people’s boxes on a big national level but then you should also know local trends and technological trends what people are doing on the internet, what people will be doing in five years on the internet for example.  You have to have quite a broad range of interests and if somebody has focused their whole life on one area and they are very passionate about this one thing, I wouldn’t recommend that person come and work in an advertising agency.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I think it was very clear from my applications and what I said at interviews that I really wanted this job, it wasn't something I wanted to do because I heard it was a glamorous lifestyle, or heard it was a lot of fun, I am genuinely interested in advertising and brands and strategies that underpin all the campaigns and strategies you see in the papers or on your TV an I think that came out on my application and that is important because there are so many people that want these jobs.  In my opinion the reason why I got it was not because I was the cleverest person in the room, not because I was the smartest person in the room, I just think it was because I wanted the job more than a lot of the other people that were there.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

Well my course is three one year rotations so I will have a year here, a year hopefully in Shanghai and then a year somewhere else in a totally different company.  After that, hopefully, the plan is that some companies within the WPP group will make me offers may be companies that I have worked with, before I would like to have an offer from Rainey Kelly to come back in two years time or we can just scope around the WPP group and see what opportunities there are for us.  Another good thing about the WPP scheme is that you are not pinned down to one job for three years, so at the moment I am in account management, next year I will do strategic planning the year after that I might work in PR or media or political lobbying so the opportunities at the end of these three years hopefully will be pretty broad.

Where do you see the industry going?

This time, the next few years and the couple of years previous to this are a really exciting a potentially threatening time for advertising agencies.  I think it is time to adapt or die or kill off your agency model essentially.  The power of the internet, the web2 in particular means that brands can't escape from criticism any more they can't push one message and actually do another because they will get found out. Aside from that there are these whole new worlds of opportunities and brands and naturally where they can buy media and a way that they can interact with their customers.  There are some advertising agencies, Rainey Kelly is one of them who have really grasped that and are really moving forward so they will be in a good position in a couple of years time. There are some advertising agencies that perhaps haven’t been quite so quick on the uptake and I think that that area, if I was a graduate coming in, as I was six months ago, I would definitely ask more questions about the power of the internet, and is something that presents a huge opportunity to advertising agencies but also pretty frightening at the moment.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

Campaign is the advertising press which is the bible, I think everyone here gets a copy every Thursday and that is by far the best way to keep up with the advertising industry about what is going on, what people think is good or bad, about what is happening at the moment.  They also have a website which is brandpublic.com so you can get a subscription for a campaign and you can register for free and every article that is published on that website and I would definitely 100% recommend just reading that in the months leading up to your interviews just so you are in good shape come November or December or whenever you are called into interview.  Also aside from that just play on the internet for ages go to Google labs and places like that that are producing the future of the content on the internet.  You will definitely be asked your opinions on what the internet will look like in five or ten years so they are good places to start.  There are 100s of advertising blogs and media guardian comes up every Monday.  There are loads of source of information on the industry but aside from that just look at the advertising campaigns, know advertising campaigns that you like, be prepared to talk about brands that you think aren’t doing so well and how you would improve them.  Just come armed with loads of opinions basically

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I have wanted to do this career for a long time basically, but I think if I wasn't in advertising I wouldn't be a journalist, I would probably leave media altogether. I always wanted to be a pilot and when it came to the point of either being a pilot or work in advertising, so if I didn't work in advertising I would be an airline pilot.