Over the last five years, growth in the area of interactive advertising has been staggering. From the perspective of a creative director, I value my team members who truly understand interactive and how it must integrate functionally and creatively with each campaign. Unfortunately, when you go looking around today for interactive talent, you find very few who are truly capable of getting the job done. This is not only a problem now, but it's going be to a huge problem for the industry over the next 10 years. We are quickly approaching a time when interactive is no longer going to be used only in more progressive ad campaigns but in all campaigns.
We need interactive pros, and we need them now. Here's a brief overview of interactive in advertising and some thoughts on our needs for the future.
Advertising's first foray into interactive started by mixing and matching technical education pros with advertising industry executives. This mash-up resulted in many awkward collaborations because the creative pros could never quite fully explain to the technical experts what the campaign needed to convey or how to convey it. They could produce the work from a technical sense, but something was missing. Sensing the lack of connection to the material, many technical pros decided to learn about the advertising world.
Stay informed. For more insights into the latest digital marketing opportunities and challenges, attend the iMedia Agency Summit, May 21-25.
Request your invitation today.
Because of this evolution, most interactive pros working today are partially self-taught in the ways of creative advertising as it intersects with technology. As interactive grows with the explosive need for talent, there is no longer time for pros to be self-taught. Advertising needs interactive talent now. In fact, most agencies are so desperate to fill interactive openings that they are taking professionals with skill sets that are less than what is desired.
Specifically, the advertising industry needs to start treating the development and growth of interactive talent as an industry priority. Our needs are specific, and very few outside the industry -- including those who teach "interactive programs"-- seem to understand what those needs are. Many schools tack on HTML or Flash programs and call them "interactive" but don't supply the creative training required. Quite simply, we need pros who understand not only the technology but also the strategy behind the campaigns they are developing.
We need our interactive staffers to understand what consumer engagement is and how to achieve this through technology. Agencies also need interactive talent who build clean code because it is cost effective for both the agency and its clients. Most self-taught coders have a hard time creating code that can be copied and reused for other projects. It's clear that the advertising industry has very specific needs and a huge demand for talent, but there are very few programs specific to advertising industry interactive.
The value of advertising-specific interactive education is obvious. This type of program teaches developers how to create the clean code we need. More importantly, these programs train developers to be part of the creative process, making them collaborators who understand both the strategy and vision of each campaign. Students leave these interactive advertising programs as passionate about their interactive training as any creative director or art director because they love and understand advertising. The industry also benefits from these types of programs because they are nimble and able to use industry need as a barometer for advertising programs and make curriculum changes.
The ability to evolve based on need and progress is essential in a landscape that is constantly developing. There are only a few schools with ad-specific interactive programs available today -- Hyper Island, Digital Works, Berghs, and Atlanta's Creative Circus.
According to Dave Haan, executive director of the Creative Circus, agencies all over the country are already wooing their interactive students. "Even our students who have been in the program only a few months are being interviewed by every agency that comes to visit the Creative Circus," Haan says. While Haan is hopeful, he is also concerned. "There are simply not enough students enrolled in these programs to meet industry need. In fact, there are not enough training programs available to accommodate the volume of talent needed to support the industry over the next 10 years."
The current demand for qualified interactive applicants is staggering. If we as an industry are actively interviewing students who only have three months of experience in ad-specific programs, we are clearly clamoring for talent. While this is great news for any student looking at interactive as a career, the industry is at a precipice. We must find a way to recruit new talent to the interactive field, train them, and start them working as soon as possible.
So, with that said, throw open the windows. Tell every young person you know that interactive is the wave of the future. We're the advertising industry, and we must find a collective way to advertise this need. We need talent now -- qualified and creative interactive talent who understand strategy and the importance of creating clean code. In my entire tenure in this industry, I have never seen a need this significant. We're starving. It's time to feed the beast.
John Stapleton is EVP and chief creative director of 22squared.
On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.
