r/creative_advertising

Hi, I am currently and undergraduate student studying Marketing and hope to work in advertising in the future. I have enough credits to graduate early but I decided to add a double major in finance to extend my stay in undergrad the full four years. However, I'm now considering graduating early and attending a different school to get a masters in advertising and enroll in a portfolio program as I currently have a very very limited portfolio. Is this even worth it or should I just work to build a portfolio independently? If so, does anyone have advice for how to go about building a portfolio without any assignments or structure.

My long term goal in advertising would be to work in account management or strategy but am also really interested in a creative direction role. I do however also want to set myself up for success and dont want to be banking on a job that is incredibly difficult to get.

I would be happy to learn how people come up with cool creatives and where do you all find inspiration from.

I'm a copywriter with 10 years of experience at a small agency located half way across the country (US) from where I live. As their only copywriter, I do any and all writing needed: all the client work + agency socials and content and biz dev needs. I edit my own work, I direct all messaging strategy for every project. I haven't been promoted or given a raise past the mid-level, generic, "copywriter" title. Additionally, the leadership at this place annoys me -- always changing business strategy, and has this vibe like my job is easy because I can just use AI, or so they think. We have some good clients, and some really low-level, dumb businesses, mostly located in their region, who really don't care about the quality of writing anyway. The good part? I do like the creative team members I work closely with.

Clearly I don't like my job anymore, lol. But do I switch to a slightly lower paying, local, part time gig, and pursue additional part-time, freelance opportunities that are hopefully higher paying to balance it out? That's the question. Right now, I'm just sick of the corporate grind and bullshitting to higher ups, and have been feeling like I want to do something more meaningful in my immediate community, even though remote work has its perks.

In the new part-time gig, I'd probably be responsible for even more, but at a smaller organization, executing all marketing functions on my own. So I'd have to be scrappy. But it's still only 20 hours/week, leaving me time to find other freelance things. And, I would be, ideally, contributing to my local economy/community in a more direct way.

I'm afraid that the crux of the issue is that an agency role comes with a certain level of "prestige" -- in theory -- and working for this little local non-profit association could be seen as a step down.

But hey, maybe that's what I need, to take a step back in order to take a step forward, and to feel more valued as well as purposeful.

Thanks for coming to my chardonnay essay Ted Talk,

a disgruntled copywriter

I am trying to budget for outdoor advertising but everything I find online is vague ranges. Seriously want real numbers so I know if this is even realistic for us