News

The direct marketing industry appears to be making progress in its efforts to attract graduates into agencies, but more needs to be done to recruit people into the supplier side, according to industry figures.

The latest initiative to encourage young people into a DM career is a summer school launched last month by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. It offers students an introduction to agency life through a three-month work placement.

Nine agencies are participating, including Proximity London, Rapier, WWAV Rapp Collins and Stephens Francis Whitson. The summer school includes an evening lecture programme, enabling the students to mix, and to meet industry figures.

“Direct Marketing has been slower to grasp the graduate nettle than other industries. We feel we need to give young people a broader understanding of what DM is,” explained Christ Whitson planning partner of Stephens Francis Whitson, and part of the IPA’s DM Future Group, whish is responsible for the scheme.

The IPA is not alone in trying to tackle the issue. The Institute of Direct Marketing already runs a week-long intensive introduction to DM each summer, as well as an annual student competition, where university teams follow a brief from a real firm to develop a campaign. Seventeen universities also cover the IDM’s direct and digital principals as past of their curriculum.

In addition, the IDM recently launched “U R The Brand”: a competition to win a one-month work placement at an agency in New York, Hong Kong, Dubai, Paris to Toronto. To enter, students must sell themselves as a brand creating their own ad or presentation, and upload it to www.urthebrand.co.uk.

The Direct Marketing Association also runs a couple of initiatives. It targets 11 to 16 year olds with its Your Direct Marketing Awards, where pupils create a campaign for a brand, and reached university students with the Graeme Robertson Trust Award. Previous winners include Dave Mullen, now creative director at Story, and Barney Cockerell at WWAV Rapp Collins.

However, while awareness of DM may be increasing among students, most remain unaware of what the supplier side has to offer. This is partly down to lack of information, but also because agency work attracts more interest as the sexy side of DM. “It is easy to get people to work in agencies but far harder to get them to work in the service sector, despite there being huge opportunities in data companies in terms of career progression, and indeed salaries.” Said IDM managing director Derek Holder.

Caroline Worboys, chief executive of Broadsystem, added “Agencies are generally seen as being further up the value chain.” She believes one answer is to target more students outside of marketing courses. “Potentially companies like us could attract students that aren’t studying marketing, but subjects like IT and programming.”
However, solving the problem would require the involvement of more companies, and for many this represents too much of a long term investment. “Organisations are commercially driven, and ticking the ‘long-term awareness of the industry’s box is great, but that has to be balanced with consumer special interest,” said Mike Barnes director of marketing and business development at the DMA.