A not so brief explanation of why I want to go into advertising

When I tell people that I'm going to school for advertising copywriting, the reactions I get usually come in the form of slight scoffs and mildly condescending "Oh, that's nice" comments.

I'll admit that when I first started my program eight months ago, I was a little embarrassed to say that I was going into advertising. For whatever reason, I thought advertising automatically meant that I was "selling my soul" or giving up on my former dreams of being a "real" writer.

Partly it seemed to be that everyone generally thinks of advertising as being something evil, because it is usually done on behalf of big corporations and that it really is everywhere. Me wanting to join the industry somehow made me an accessory continuing to its continued existence, and I was supposed to feel guilty about that.

But why? The more time I spend working on my portfolio and the closer I get to actually working at an agency, the more I'm sure this is the kind of business I want to be in.

Is it because I like selling things? Is it because I want to trick people into buying things that they don't need?

No. And if you think I'm fooling myself, well, you don't really know what you're talking about.

Whenever someone says that advertising doesn't work on them or that all advertising is terrible, all I can think is that odds are they have laughed at a funny ad and probably sent their friends the YouTube link. There's good advertising and terrible advertising, just likes there's good and bad movies, music, et cetera.

Let me admit that I used to never think about advertising as a career (aside from when a slightly eccentric and slightly drunker retired ad man told me to go into the business), I wanted to be a film and music journalist. Which, contrary to popular belief, is still a job that is obtainable, especially for the talented and very hardworking.

But being one tends to require another full-time job to support yourself, because the pay is awful. It's not that newspaper and magazines don't want to pay you well, they just can't. Working as a freelance journalist is only for the determined and those who don't require much food to live. Juggling freelance work with a proper nine-to-five is also tricky because you need a job that is flexible, allowing you to run off to a screening or interview on short notice. The thing about flexible jobs? The pay is also awful.

I tried my hand at mixing freelance work with a job as a prep cook for a little over six months, and the only real thing I got out of it was a distaste for my own writing. When I decided to stop writing film and music criticism it wasn't because I was giving up, it was because I hated doing it. (Save for the few times I got to make fun of terrible Zac Efron movies.) So when people make jokes about how I gave up on my dream or that I didn't work hard enough, it bothers me. Who says what you thought you wanted to do for living is actually what you want to do for a living?

I stopped being a critic because I didn't find it challenged me in anyway other than having to make phone calls to strangers. I felt like I was writing the same article over and over, just with slightly different words. (Whether or not that means I'm a bad writer is for you to decide.)

I turned to copywriting because it looked like a challenge. It was something I didn't know how to do and had never done before. I figured I'd try it out and see if I liked it. I reasoned that I could justify going into advertising to other people by saying that I just needed a job that I didn't totally hate.

But now, as my program comes to an end, I genuinely really like the kind of work advertising allows me to do. For one thing, every campaign is different. Even if it's a similar product to one you've worked on before, you have to find something new or different to say about it. And then you have to make sure that hasn't been said before.

People who know me know that I set overly high expectations for myself, and when I don't meet them I pretty much think I've failed. So I don't think anyone should be surprised that I aspire to work in an industry that sets very high expectations of its workers. Every day you are expected to deliver, and if you don't, then you haven't done your job.

It isn't like being a prep cook where you can constantly say "good enough." It isn't like being a journalist where you can get published simply by being a little more coherent and clever than the average person. (This isn't a comment on journalists as a whole, just myself.)

Whether or not you succeed in advertising is largely based on results. It's based on whether or not the client buys your idea, whether or not that idea does for the client what they wanted. This is what is expected of you everyday.

And this isn't to say that the prospect of selling excites me. It's the process of coming up with new, interesting, possibly funny ideas that people can relate to that makes me want to constantly work harder. Which, in itself, isn't all that different from journalism. I'm not saying that I think advertising is an art form; I'm not trying to rationalize my choice of profession by convincing myself that I am still being creative everyday and not really working some boring office tower job.

It is a job — one with a lot of expectations. That's why it appeals to me. Advertising does require you to be creative because you have to force yourself to think harder everyday. If what I do all day is think of new ways to say things, then I'm pretty sure I'm doing what I've wanted to do for a long time.

So don't tell me I'm somehow a worse person for wanting to do something interesting.