Transitioning to a Digital Agency

After graduating from Texas Tech University, I immediately entered the professional workforce focused on a career in advertising. After all, it was my major in college, and it was my desired career path since taking an advertising class during my senior year of high school.

With my job history spanning across print, radio, television and even the outdoor sides of advertising, I can truly say that I have a unique perspective on this business. What I’ve found throughout my journey is that the entirety of the advertising industry is essentially the same. There’s always a need for growth and expansion, thus new clients are pitched and won. Clients must not only receive excellent service from their agencies, but you also must continue to push the envelope in order to stay in the game. Regardless of what services your agency is providing to the client, the formula remains the same.

It didn’t take me long to understand that this industry had a clearly defined totem poll. Your career begins with an internship (at an agency, if you’re lucky), followed by a position that seems eerily similar (other than the paycheck you receive), and finally you land the role you’ve been waiting for – your first account to manage. From there, it’s media buying, reporting, and billing, with a few fun projects sprinkled in every now and then; all the while looking toward that next step you want to make. Whether it’s moving higher up in the ranks, switching accounts, or transitioning to a new shop altogether, you never seem to find yourself fully satisfied – or so I thought.

Coming to PMG, I quickly learned that there’s more to the above mentioned formula than what I had originally believed to be true. Although my experience in digital was rather limited at the time of joining the agency, I adapted my knowledge and skills from my traditional background and applied them to the necessary responsibilities my role would entail. Once the learning curve passed, I noticed how smoothly things flowed at an agency where colleagues were friends, and the smoke and mirrors often present in larger corporations was nonexistent. When you spend more time at work than you find yourself at home, you want to make sure that environment is something you can enjoy. That’s the true key to success for any job, especially when you’re within an industry that never seems to slow down.

I decided to write specifically on this topic for anyone out there who looks at the digital world with any bit of hesitation. Often you’ll hear the clichéd line, “digital is the future.” That statement is false. Digital is not the future, digital is now. No component of any advertising campaign should ever be without digital involvement. At this point in time, nearly all boundaries that once existed between the different mediums and the Internet have dissolved.

So, what are you waiting for? Make the switch to digital, or at least begin to educate yourself to stay ahead of the curve. The choice is yours.