Back to earth. Back to reality.

There's a feeling of 'back to school' this week. But that's not the reason for the jolt.

The reality check is the decision to fold the Media Guardian supplement (and Education and Society supplements too) into the main paper. Clearly, this is a commercially-driven decision taken because of the migration of job advertisements from print to online (and elsewhere). Decades ago, before the world of the web, each Monday's Media Guardian had page after page of job ads and was the place to find a whole range of graduate opportunities. Times change, and so does technology.

The second jolt relates to this first one. Here's a very lucid perspective on the issue of unpaid internships from an MSc Marketing student. The phrase that leaps out at me is this uncontentious-looking one: 'I’m 23 and aspire to a career in advertising'. Only connect. The Guardian loses its well-established Media supplement  because of the migration of classified ads online. Then ask some questions about the future of display ads and print media.

Yes, but surely broadcast ads have bounced back in the past year. Perhaps; but what's the wider picture? The future of advertising isn't in advertising. It's in creating ideas, delivering compelling communications, fostering communities and managing digital campaigns (as this student is already aware). In other words, the future of advertising looks very like public relations...

Hopefully smart graduates are alert to this. Hopefully their lecturers and textbook authors are too. But I very much doubt that university marketing and management teams are when they offer courses that appear to promise glittering careers in glamorous twentieth-century industries that evoke a Mad Men world.

Bump. Back to reality.

Comments

[Catherine Sweet]

I agree- a sad day when the Guardian media supplement folded. Sadder still that it comes with the loss of some 100 jobs, so that the online version will be denuded of meaningful content.

When it comes to the convergence of bought, owned and earned communication channels, we who are educating the next generation of professionals need to be aware that the jobs of the future will be all about what you described in your post- ideas, creativity and communication, irrespective of the chosen channel. That said, as a professional with over thirty years' experience in advertising, marketing, public affairs and media relations, it was ever thus!

[Account Deleted]

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[nvq courses]

I like the idea of to foldig the Media Guardian supplement,Education and Society supplements into the main paper.