LETTERS.

RECRUITMENT

The ad industry must appear accessible to those with raw ability

As a mature graduate attempting, as yet unsuccessfully, to gain entry to the advertising world, I felt that Rupert Howell made a cogent case for revamping the advertising brand to cater for graduates. In a sense, though, he is preaching to the converted.

It remains conventional wisdom that advertising is one of the few industries where a special minority of daring thinkers can be accommodated to add value. Those with an eye for a stunning visual or a witty endline still see IPA agencies as the natural home for their talents and the prospect of devising an award-winning strategy still fires the imagination. I don't even think that money is the pivotal issue.

Of course, some cash-strapped students saddled with crushing debts succumb to the immediate financial inducements offered by those awash with cash. Callow youths so easily dazzled by golden hellos are probably not what the advertising industry needs anyway.

What the industry does need urgently to address is the perception that it is a self-congratulatory, aloof cabal that hand-picks malleable acolytes from the quadrangles of Oxbridge and from the ranks of the well-connected. For many who are passionate about good advertising, the cliquey milieu rather than any intellectual hurdles form the most formidable barrier to entry.

If the IPA as industry lobbyist is serious about harnessing creativity outside such elite institutions, the ad industry needs to rehabilitate its brand. As it stands, many graduates see the ad industry as a gentlemen's club, where entry is by invitation only and nepotism always trumps raw ability.