TV, radio, print & online media, public relations and advertising; these are just some of the sub-sectors that make up the creative economy in the UK.
Advertising: Advertising sits happily and readily in this cluster of creative endeavours, providing essential growth, inspiration and funding for the sector as a whole. It helps promote and fund many other creative industries such as the performing arts and publishing. It provides important economic contributions to growth and exports, and develops many of the world’s renowned creative ideas and productions that make the UK a global hub for culture and creativity. Advertising is at the core of creativity in the UK
Media:
Public Relations:
BDH is a multi-disciplinary design company whose reputation and remit has grown along with the awards cabinet.
As recipients of BAFTA, D&AD, Royal Television Society Awards, and Grammy and Emmy nominated work, BDH have, for over 10 years, directed commercials, created brand identities, music screen visuals, motion-graphics, ‘creative content’ for television productions and a growing catalogue of documentary film work.
Our main office is in Bristol, with a satellite base in London.
Ogilvy is a communications agency that specialises in advertising, direct marketing, online marketing, PR, design and promotion. It is known as one agency, but is made up of 12 different companies that each specialise in one area of advertising, marketing or PR.
Ogilvy believe their graduate training is the best in the industry. It consists of six weeks of initial training and then three years spent at three different companies within the Ogilvy group.
The companies which make up the Ogilvy group include:
For more information on Ogilvy visit the WikiJob forums.
Ogilvy runs a small but very highly rated graduate scheme, called the Ogilvy Fellowship Scheme. More details are available at www.ogilvyfellowship.co.uk
The Ogilvy Fellowship Scheme offers graduates six weeks of initial training, followed by a three year period where graduates will work in three different companies that operate within the Ogilvy umbrella group.
When you start working for Ogilvy, you will be called an Account Executive.
Officially, there are no set requirements (academic or otherwise) for candidates to have in order to apply for the Ogilvy Fellowship Scheme. All you need to be is enthusiastic, be able to demonstrate passion for advertising and have great ideas.
The application and assessment process at Ogilvy is as follows:
The Ogilvy assessment day lasts from 9:30am - 5:30pm. The day will start with introductions and a company presentation.
You will be required to give a five minute oral presentation at the start of the assessment day, as a way of introducing yourself to interviewers and other candidates. For this, you will be asked to bring an object which you feel represents you to the assessment day, and to talk about it for five minutes. This is a lot like "show and tell", although you will need to be professional: confident, interesting and coherent, to do really well.
You will meet four interviewers over the course of the day who will each ask different questions, in their own style. Expect lots of discussion about "why advertising" and "why Ogilvy". Make sure you have researched who "Ogilvy" was and why he was such an important driving force in advertising. At the very least, make sure you read books written by David Ogilvy and about him, as at least one of your interviewers will certainly ask you about him.
Expect specific questions such as:
Also be prepared for competency based questions and questions about your education, history, background, CV and application. Watch out for:
For example, you might be asked to: "Think of a photo of a group of men in the 1930's, 1940's and even 1950's. All the men are wearing hats. Imagine a group of men in the 1960's. These men are not wearing hats. Why is this?"
At some point during the assessment day (morning or afternoon) you will be given a product and asked to come up with an advertising campaign for it. You will then have to present your ideas to the rest of the interviewees and about ten interviewers, all from different parts of the agency.
Specifically, you will be given a brief and then told to split into groups of about four people. You will then have four hours to come up with a way of relaunching the product and subsequently asked to give a fifteen minute presentation explaining it.
Overall the assessment day is relaxed and not excessively pressured. You should bear in mind however, that you are at all times "on show" and even when talking and joking with your interviewers, they will still be assessing you, and deciding whether or not you would make a good team fit.
Also See - Ogilvy information on the WikiJob Advertising Forum.
Recent Assessment Day: Feb 2011
Had a 15 minute interview discussing two different adverts- one from Ogilvy and one from a competitor
Then had a group excersise during the afternoon. As there were 47 candidates, it was split into groups of 6. We had three hours to re-launch a brand and its services. Then complete a 10 minute presentation explaining our campaign.
It was watched by all candidates and assessors from the day.
A very competitive environment, I would suggest understanding how to deal with 'difficult people' in a group situation before attending.
Saatchi & Saatchi is a global advertising agency founded by two brothers named Saatchi.
The London office, the home of the original agency, is on Charlotte Street and has its own pub, named "The Pregnant Man" after the firm's first famous ad.
TBWA is an advertising agency that specialises in identifying Disruptive strategies and developing Disruptive advertising campaigns. TBWA was founded in Paris in 1970 and opened offices in London in 1973.
The TBWA Account Management graduate scheme interview process is a one and a half hour session/assessment. You'll be interviewed by one interviewer for 30 minutes, then by another interviewer for a further 30 minutes, and finally by both for 30 minutes.
Expect to be asked industry specific questions such as:
Other questions will probably be competency based or CV/application based, such as:
There is only one exercise/presentation during the assessment which requires you to work in collaboration with another (and only one other) candidate. As a pair, you will have to pick an advert concept (from a selection of five provided) and with your partner ‘pitch’ this idea to a "client" (played by the interviewer).
WPP Group is one of the world's largest communications services groups, employing over 110,000 people working in over 2,000 offices in 106 countries.
The Group is structured as follows:
Global, national and specialist advertising services from a range of top international and specialist agencies, amongst them Grey, JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Enfatico, United Group and Y&R.
Above- and below-the-line media planning and buying andspecialist sponsorship and branded entertainment services from GroupM companies Mediacom, Mediaedge:cia, Mindshare, MAXUS and others
WPP's Kantar companies, including Research International, Millward Brown, Henley Centre HeadlightVision and many other specialists in brand, consumer, media and marketplace insight, work with clients to generate and apply great insights.
Corporate, consumer, financial and brand-building services from PR and lobbying firms Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, Hill & Knowlton, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide and others.
Consumer, corporate and employee branding and design services, covering identity, packaging, literature, events, training and architecture from Addison, The Brand Union, FITCH, Lambie-Nairn, Landor Associates, The Partners and others.
The full range of general and specialist customer, channel, direct, field, retail, promotional and point-of-sale services from Bridge Worldwide, G2, OgilvyOne, OgilvyAction, RTC Relationship Marketing, rmg:connect, VML, Wunderman, Maxx Marketing, and others.
CommonHealth, GHG, Ogilvy Healthworld, Sudler & Hennessy and others provide integrated healthcare marketing solutions from advertising to medical education and online marketing.
A comprehensive range of specialist services, from custom media and multicultural marketing to event, sports, youth and entertainment marketing; corporate and business-to-business; media, technology and production services.
The WPP graduate scheme is called the WPP Marketing Fellowship (for graduates and MBAs). The programme aims to develop high-calibre management employees and provide experience across a range of marketing disciplines.
The Program is comprised of three one-year rotations through WPP's companies, with each rotation chosen on the basis of the individual's interests and the Group's needs.