What to Love and Hate About the Advertising Industry

Marketing and advertising have always been exciting and lucrative fields for those who enjoy learning about why people are the way that they are and how to appeal to a person’s needs and desires. The industry is full of talented individuals from all walks of life, including those interested in creativity, statistical analysis, personal relations, and team leadership. But as the saying goes, “Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.” Although there are so many aspects of marketing that are inspiring and exhilarating, there are also some pitfalls along the way.

We sat down with a few members of the Colling Media leadership team to find out what they both love and hate about the advertising industry.

Brian Colling, Colling Media CEO

What I love about marketing is buildings things that make a difference and the relationships we develop in the process. Learning about each client is a new adventure, and the process of learning and discovery always leads to great things.

What I dislike in marketing and advertising is Failure. We all hate to fail. In advertising and marketing, you take a lot of shots. You are going to miss some along the way. Anyone who claims to hit 100% of those shots is not shooting enough or does not know the scoreboard. We take a lot of shots with a lot of great clients, and that is what makes great partnerships. The humble confidence and support from companies, brands, and agencies to shoot more and not expect to hit 100% are key. We try to embrace the uncomfortable part of not hitting every shot and knowing the difference between failures and valuable lessons on the journey. We get to do what we dislike more. Shoot more, fail more, learn more, and then get back up and keep improving. Advertising, like life, is a journey.

Chloe Moen, Performance Marketing Manager

What I love about the advertising industry is no day is the same, there is consistently something new to learn whether it be a new client, a new platform, or a new type of ad, no two days are the same in the advertising world.

My least favorite thing about the advertising industry is no day is the same, the ever-changing landscape is exciting and exhausting all in one.

Kristen O’Neall, Client Service Manager

What I love is client relationships, and when the client really looks at us at Colling Media as the experts and lets us pitch them awesome ideas to test. I love when clients give us free rein to try new things.

In turn, what I dislike when it comes to trying new things is that cutting-edge technology is ever-changing. For example, Tik Tok is so new that it makes it tough to be at the forefront of these new platforms. You have to make so many changes and adjustments and sometimes not all of the kinks have been worked out

Jordan Walsh, Creative Director

My favorite part of the advertising industry is the creative process. When a team of people contribute to an idea and make it greater than it could be if completed by one person. Most often it’s quite magical and takes on a life all its own.

A creative person is most frustrated when wrestling with those pushing for perfect in place of excellent. Usually, the idea of perfect slows down the time an asset or campaign is pushed live. Typically, the goal should be to get the best version at the time in the market and then follow up with improvements.

Dan Chen, Director Of Technology

I love that we can finally track how our ads are performing across multiple channels and devices. We can tell if people make a purchase on their mobile device after watching a video ad on their tv for instance. We can even tell if people show up in an offline store after seeing an online ad. And this can all be done using anonymous, aggregate-level data that does not infringe on users’ privacy.

Although the granular levels of data are often helpful for optimizing ad spends, it can also be a source of confusion when multiple platforms are showing different counts for the same things. Google Analytics and CRM apps will typically show different lead counts for instance. Luckily, Colling Media has figured out ways of reconciling these discrepancies for advertisers, but implementing the fixes can still be difficult in many cases due to the vast variety of tech stacks found across different companies.