The Street, a source of current business and financial news, consulted Pace University’s Lubin School of Business Professor of Marketing, Dr. Larry Chiagouris, late last month about a choice faced by students interested in the similar, yet distinct fields of Marketing and Advertising: when considering post-graduate job opportunity and earning potential, which discipline should they specialize in? Dr. Chiagouris, author of The Secret to Getting a Job After College: Marketing Tactics to Turn Degrees Into Dollars (Brand New Marketing Publishers, 2011), gave TheStreet his expert feedback concerning jobs and salaries for Marketing and Advertising professionals.
Professor Chiagouris described the Marketing specialization as a broader, more diversified line of study. Marketing majors are employable within a much wider range of industries; businesses must be marketed regardless of the products and services they offer. Chiagouris explained that Advertising specialists are really limited to their own industry for employment because the academic training in Advertisement is tailored to that industry in particular. However, setting aside any professional allegiance to the Marketing field, Chiagouris is clear that employers frequently seek out hyper-specialization and set skillsets among potential employees. Therefore, although they may be limited to their own industry, Advertising students hold more appeal for employers than Marketing students according to Chiagouris’s research on post-graduate employment within the two fields.
Professor Chiagouris’s assessment shifted from job opportunity to earning potential, the other deciding factor between Advertising and Marketing according to The Street’s parameters. Chiagouris explained that Marketing and Advertising specialists will initially receive very similar compensation when they first enter the workforce. However, because Advertising professionals focus on sales, there is no limit to their earning potential. If sales continue, and they close deals with more clients, their salaries grow. Marketing professionals, connected with particular business(es), will peak much sooner in terms of salary growth. According to Chiagouris’s research, after five years, the Marketing professional who started off making a salary similar to his Advertising counterpart will make around $60,000 to $70,000, whereas the five-year Advertising Executive will likely make around $200,000.
Quantitative data aside, potential Marketers or Advertisers will have to weigh their personal preferences when determining their specialization; Professor Chiagouris’s data shines a light on some of the job hiring and compensation statistics, but cannot (by his own admission) account for the element of individual interest that will ultimately be the deciding factor for a student choosing an academic or professional specialization.
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