A big decision in the life of any aspiring media professional is whether to choose the agency or the big corporate job. A comparison between these two more often than not, tilts in favour of the latter and not the former.  The reason for this is more than apparent. A corporate job means a fat pay cheque and all the perks which come with it. And nowhere in this article am I questioning the joy of that pay cheque! What I look at in this article is its second cousin- the choice of an agency and what needs to be considered while joining it. While a lot can be said about how choosing an agency is the more viable option in order to lay the building blocks of a flourishing career in an MNC, this is not the route that I am going to take during the course of this article. For here all I am concerned with is the few things to be kept in mind while starting a career in media with the agency in mind. Period.

1.Ask yourself what you value more

While there are chances that the growth in the hierarchy( and in the bank account as well) is faster in a corporate, the learning opportunities could be limited there. This is because big corporations tend to have more rules and policies that are in place which might not allow a complete expression of one’s creativity. On the other hand agency’s allow a certain amount of freedom of self expression which help in enhancing one’s learning curve. Thus it is important to ask yourself which of the two you value more and then choose accordingly.

2.Growth Opportunities

In most cases, agencies allow for internal growth. Thus most of the higher positions would be filled in by people who have stayed there for long and proved their mettle. More often than not a newbie is let in at the initial career levels and is expected to grow from there. This makes it important to find out the growth opportunities that are available in the agency and how long it takes to get where you want to go.

3.Work Environment

Any job that involves creativity needs an environment that facilitates it. It is important to understand if the agency has the suitable environment to work in so as to not hamper one’s creative processes. While a good work environment is important in any industry, a good healthy work environment characterized by a level of openness and freedom is key to an agency.

4.Reputation in the market

While this might seem like an inconsequential issue at the time, in reality it is very important to identify the reputation that the company has in the market and it’s rating amongst its peer companies. A good rating is an indication of the overall growth and work environment that exists in the agency which is an important point to consider before joining an agency.

5.Choice of department

While at an initial point in a career it is more important to get the job rather than a job in one’s preferred department, it is important to keep your eyes and ears open for any opportunities coming your way. Though at an initial stage you might be fine doing a copy writing job, if you aspire to be in research or account planning, this is something that needs to be highlighted at the beginning itself. Also it is important to understand whether the agency considers such shifts in interests and facilitates them for its employees. If not, there could be a situation where you have the ideal agency but not the ideal job.

6.A smaller pay cheque

While this has been mentioned earlier as well, it cannot be emphasized enough! An agency job might not be able to compare with a corporate one in the salary domain. Thus it is important to realize this while deciding to join an agency so as to prevent disappointment later. What one needs to understand is that this is the initial situation and things get a lot better with some amount of experience.

7.Late hours of work

A job in an agency means you need to be available around the clock. By virtue of being part of the media industry and a creative part of it, there are no fixed hours of work that can be adhered to. This is not to discourage an aspirant but to tell him or her that this field is fraught with exciting new challenges each day. It is a job which ceases to be a job and should become a way of life.

8.Personal satisfaction

At the end of the day, choosing an agency depends a lot on your own personality as well. It is important to choose an agency that mirrors your own personality so that the relationship becomes symbiotic. There is a lot of mutual inter dependence and understanding that is required while working in a creative field and especially in an agency.

A job becomes so much more when it becomes a part of your life. And as a great person once said, find a job you like and you won’t have to work a single day of your life.

Thinking about a career in copy0writing? Think you’ve got what it takes? If you’ve ever wondered what makes a good copywriter then this is a must read for you. Written by Vishal Khandelwal on copywriterinindia, here’s a comprehensive article on 5 habits of highly successful copywriters.

Habit #1: Successful Copywriters…Read a Lot

The first habit of highly successful copywriters is not related to writing! Instead, it is about ‘reading’. If you want to become a successful writer or copywriter, you must ‘read a lot’. It’s as simple as this – if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Reading creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing. Regular reading will pull you into a place where you can write eagerly and without self-consciousness. Successful writers read with an eye for good writing.

Habit #2: Successful Copywriters…Write a Lot

For a copywriter, practicing the art of writing is extremely important. Successful copywriters are those who burn the midnight oil practicing this art to perfection. If you are trying to become a good copywriter yourself, try writing every day. Ideas will be hard to come by initially, but with patience and consistent hard work, your mind will become a repository of good ideas. And that is when you will realise the worth of your practice.

Habit #3: Successful Copywriters…Use the ‘Power of One’

Writing about one, and just one big idea is one of the best habits. Readers don’t (like to) hear everything a writer has to say on a particular topic. They are just looking for that single, useful suggestion or piece of information that could benefit them. Lincoln’s one big idea was ‘liberty’. Gandhi’s one big idea was ‘non-violence’. Martin Luther King’s one big idea was ‘equality’. History is replete with examples of how a person has focused on his one big idea to revolutionize an entire race or country.

Habit #4: Successful Copywriters…Understand Emotions

‘Emotions’ are the bed rock of great copywriting. If you don’t have them, you don’t understand them and you can’t trigger them. In order to become a successful copywriter, you must be able to engage your prospects emotionally. You should engage the reader so much that the product or service starts to seem like a solution to the problem the reader is facing.

Habit #5: Successful Copywriters…Tell Stories

Everyone loves stories! Stories create magic, especially because they take us to a different unreal world. All our problems cease to exist for those moments. In the same way, as a copywriter, you must write as if you are telling a story face to face to your listener (reader). Engage him in an informal conversation, as if you are talking to a good friend.

Like all storytellers…

• Use expressions.
• Use emotions.
• Offer help.
• Ask questions.
• Make promises.
• Make him debate, disagree with you.
• Given him a benefit (like the moral of the story

Organization Name: SellMojo

Organization Description: SellMojo is a unique social commerce platform, offering businesses the opportunity to sell to their customers with fun, accessibility, and ease within Facebook. SellMojo combines the best parts of an online store platform with a social shopping experience.

Location: Chembur, Next to R.K. Studios

Role Title: Intern

Role Description: Social Media, Content creation

Role Responsibilities:

• Manage SellMojo’s presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ in tandem with the team
• Pitch post ideas to bloggers who write about the industries in which we operate
• Launch contests and giveaways for our users

Qualification Requirement:

• College student

Skill Set Requirement:

• Smart
• Hard worker
• Detail oriented
• Talented writer

Experience Requirement: Previous experience with content writing would be beneficial. Even if they don’t have previous experience, ability to create content is required.

Compensation/Stipend: Rs 5000/month

Application Process: Write to Nameet/Janvi on hello@SellMojo.com

— By Mariya Sethjiwala, Sophia BMM

Dressing up is something we all love to do. Whether it is for parties, functions or social gatherings, what you wear reflects on your personality. The same goes with your favourite celebrities!  You judge them so much on the basis of what they wear. Whether the apparel a celebrity wears is a hit or a miss, depends a lot on the kind of stylist they hire. A fashion stylist is what we are talking about here.

Do not confuse a Fashion Stylist with a fashion designer. A designer designs the clothes a person wears. A fashion stylist smartly puts together an entire outfit for you, complete with accessories and bags and even hair and make-up. A fashion stylist is responsible for putting together clothing ensembles to meet the demands of specific clients. They work to get a person ready for a particular event or lifestyle choice.

To be a fashion stylist, it is a no-brainer first up to have a unique sense of fashion. You should be confident enough to experiment with your wardrobe in order to stand out at a function. A course in fashion designing is not necessarily a criterion here. A good understanding of latest trends, colours and hues and what-goes-with-what is! Therefore reading high-end fashion magazines is highly recommended.

To get you noticed in this field, like most other fields in the fashion industry remains a challenge. For beginners, working with a magazine or other lifestyle organisation helps. You should stick around with one organisation for a good period of time in order to build relations with people who might hire you as their stylist in future. Also another great way to begin would be assisting an established stylist. Working under a known stylist can you help you gain clients of your own as you tend to meet a lot of people and get to spread the word that “You are here!!”

As a stylist to a celebrity, you are always under constant pressure to give your client fresh looks every time they step out for an event. With the ever growing sense of fashion of the audiences and with the fashion police always looking for its next victim, being on your toes always is a must. You should also be willing to experiment and invent your own fashion trends to make your client stand out rather than always following the rule book.

A stylist needs to be a good communicator as you are required work with a team of professionals to style your client. Also, once you start working, it is advisable to ask some models styled by you to pose in order to create a portfolio that you can show to people. One of the most demanded professionals in the fashion industry, Stylists are being widely recognised as a key factor in building an image for celebrities.

— By Mariya Sethjiwala, Sophia BMM

Management takes an all different and exciting twist when you add a dash of glamour and mix in a high profile celebrity. Managing a celebrity is quite an art we say!  An artist or a sportsperson has certainly put in all efforts to reach a cult status, but it is the job of his or her manager to help the person manage his/her day to day affairs, and help them live and cope up with their high flying lives. A manager is an indispensable asset in a celebrity’s life.

A celebrity manager provides services such as celebrity/athlete grooming, managing his or her time schedule, public relation services, marketing and advertising campaigns, negotiating endorsements, promotional launches, parties, and personal appearances.

The catch here for beginners is not to run after an already established star, but find your clients yourself! Identifying talent in sport-spersons or musicians of varied genres and then marketing them in order to create their brand value is what you should look to do.  A safe option here would be to associate yourself with a celebrity management firm at the start of your career before you have enough experience to be an independent celebrity manager or maybe, open your own firm.

To become successful in this field, you should have the ability to connect with people coming from various backgrounds. Ample amount of patience is required to deal with the person you are managing. A good knowledge of all brands is a must to identify and target brands that your client can endorse. You should be able to come up with solutions quickly and deal with pressure cooker situations. A celebrity manager needs to be creative enough to make his/her client reach out to brands and the audience. For this, good Public Relations skills come in handy.

Managing a celebrity is not rocket science. All it takes is to be aware and foresighted enough to spot opportunities in opposing circumstances. Once you get in the field, you get to travel the world, and live the celebrity life as your clients’! This isn’t a desk job, and new work assignments daily and interacting with people from varied fields enriches you as a person. Also, cracking big deals for your client can mean getting a fat pay-check for yourself too!

So, if you are good with people, smart and logical, a quick thinker and have a general understanding of the entertainment industry, you have a shot at becoming a celebrity manager.

— By Mariya Sethjiwala, Sophia College

Nature, in all its forms, presents not only a great escape from the hustles of city, but if you look through your lenses closely, it can provide various career opportunities. Ever thought YOU could be a wildlife photographer? Today, photography has become a common hobby for the metro youth. The great thing is it is a highly diverse profession. One of the most interesting and challenging streams of photography surely is Wildlife Photography.

A passion for photography and a great deal of knowledge about cameras and lenses is a must to start with when you talk about becoming a wildlife photographer. Apart from that, you need to have a genuine love for animals, birds, forests and everything natural. This profession, whether taken up as a hobby or a profession, requires a great deal of perseverance and patience from the photographer. Moreover, it is imperative that you respect your subjects. Awareness about the various laws of forest and environment and their compliance is a necessity.
As such, being a wildlife photographer requires no formal training. Most wildlife photographers would tell you they started doing it just by chance on some camping trip or a family holiday to forest reserves! If you are intrigued by nature, start as soon as you lay your hands on a camera. Who says you have to get to a forest? Begin by observing closely your surroundings and environment and the creatures that live around.

When you decide on turning a pro, a journey that might well change the way you see the tiniest of things awaits you. Getting close to nature also involves communicating well with the forest officials and even local tribesmen. You have to get information from these people as to what is the most suitable time and place to shoot the animals, birds or any aspect of nature you are looking to capture. Doing your homework before you start shooting and drawing up a schedule is also an important aspect of shooting in the wild.
After you have done your shooting and finished working for the day, the important task of getting your work noticed lies ahead. It is advisable to do as much independent work as possible when you have just started off. You can share your work with magazines, newspapers or even wildlife NGOs. You can even use your pictures as cards and calendar backgrounds. Hosting exhibitions and booking gallery shows to display your work once you get known in the local market is what will follow.

Fortunately, India’s rich and diverse wildlife offers great opportunities to photographers to capture breath-taking images. After all the hard-work and, just one amazing image is enough to make your day!

– By Mariya Sethjiwala, Sophia College

The scratching sound of a disc, the innumerable keys on the sound board, the lights of the dance floor, the thump of the music – if this gives you an adrenaline rush, then surely, a part of you wants to make people dance to your tunes and take a party by storm. To be a DJ is the career you need to zero in on then!

Not regarded as a mainstream career option till a while back, Disc Jockeying or DJ-ing today has emerged to be a successful career option for people who know their music and can create foot-tapping numbers to dance on. With the increase in per capita income and the willingness of people to spend on celebrations- no matter big or small, music remains the key. The soaring high awareness of good music among the party-goers and party-hosts has made a good DJ one of the most sought after people in the media industry.

To give you a very basic explanation, a DJ is the person who selects and plays pre-recorded music for a gathered audience for a variety of events and functions. Most professional DJs do much more than just play music: they are responsible for mixing tunes, forming beats, setting the right mood in the club, understanding the clientele and playing music according to their likes and dislikes.

To become successful in any profession isn’t a piece of cake and DJ-ing is no exception. Knowledge of the technicalities of sound is a must if you want to be a DJ; that means concentrating hard in your Radio and Television lectures in the fourth semester of BMM. But let me tell you that these lectures will simply give you a sketchy base. There’s a sea of things you will need to know and learn about like cartridges, needles, mixers, tables and the list is endless.

I’d advise you to follow the current trends of music. A DJ should know at the tip of his fingers what sort of music is in and what is out. Stay glued to top music channels and keep a track on what’s playing on the radio stations as well. Practice is what will make or break your career. Wouldn’t it be really uncool if people are staring at the ceiling when you are playing your music instead of dancing? You need to get hands on training to prepare for your big night. So if you really are sure you want to be a DJ and are willing to spend massive amounts on equipment, then go ahead and buy your own tools. But a wiser option would be to work as an assistant to a DJ and get to used his equipment and learn from him.

The bottom line is that you must strike the right chord with your audience. Once you do then a life of fun, music and a lot of ‘scratching’ awaits you!

THE ERA OF SPECIALISATION

NorthpointCentre of Learning offers 4 Post Graduate Career programs – Advertising, Digital Marketing and Media Management and 1 in the field of Market Research.

The programs aim to develop high quality manpower expertise for the fast changingAdvertising, Digital and Media Industry. The focus is to guide students towards choosing one of the preferred careers within the Advertising, digital or the media space.

The Northpoint Centre of Learning

Course Highlights:

–The Northpoint Centre of Learning provides a bridge between the evolving needs of industry for effective talent on the one hand and the developmental needs and aspirations of young professionals on the other.

-The courses are an 11-month residential program in a scenic campus at Khandala, away from the hustle bustle of city; it provides the perfect environment for learning.

– All training at Northpoint is done in close engagement with leading organizations in industry.  Such partners, a growing list of 17 large companies, participate in curriculum design, in-class training (over a 100 senior managers come to teach specialized courses every year), field work and in-company internships on live projects.

Northpoint’s growing list of industry partners are:

Ogilvy, JWT, Lowe Lintas, Leo Burnett, AY Digital (New York), Nielsen,  Lintas Media Group, Aegis Media, Carat, iProspect Communicate2, Posterscope, Vizeum, Carat Fresh Integrated, Doosra, Isobar, Position² and Social Wavelength

Mr. HareeshTibrewala, Joint CEO of Social Wavelength, had this to say, “We are here, not just to build a business, but to build an industry. We are delighted to have this opportunity of working with a reputed institution like Northpoint and to contribute towards creating a qualified resource pool.”

Ganapathy Balagopalan, Vice President – Planning, Ogilvy & Mather thinks “Northpoint is a great opportunity to nurture talent with the right skills and attitude for an industry which badly needs it.”

– Field work and in-company internships are the pillars of these courses.

– Over 225 alumni are currently successfully placed in industry with many who are already well established entrepreneurs

The 4 Northpoint courses are as follows:

• Digital Marketing and Marketing Communications
• Advertising Management and Marketing Communications
• Media Management & Marketing Communications
• Marketing Research

Success of this training model is expressed in the words of:

Saraswati Kheterpal, student of the PGPAMMC 2005-06 batch (who was initially placed at Publicis by Northpoint and now works with the CFI Group), “Northpoint Centre of Learning is a realistic balance between theory and practice. It is an educational centre which puts you in the shoes of a complete professional, who is fit to be a part of the industry. My program at Northpoint gave me exposure to – ‘Practical learning by doing!’ and I think that it is the only place which can do that.”

Admissions are open and you can contact the Course Co-ordinator, Sunita D’souza on +91 9594992609.  The details are also available on Northpoint’s Website or their facebook page