continued from Part I

“The problem I have is we cannot make everything perfect at the same time”

Obstacles at work:  “No Idea! This is an intuitive answer. However, we do face different kinds of problems everyday because we are in people business. We need to commune with people and there are times when our understanding conflicts. This creates the problem. However, the main problem I have is we cannot make everything perfect at the same time.”

“If our understanding of the needs is different, we need to tune it up.”

“There is a saying that people in advertisement industry are either genius or insane. I used to be in that stage but I already passed it. When I was at DYR, I was very hot-tempered. I fought with clients most of the time but nowadays I’m getting a lot better; I’m not as hot-tempered as I used to be. One reason for this is because I’m a leader now; I’ve got subordinates to take care. If I use my temper with them, the whole team will get burned up. They will be stressed and won’t be able to work. But it is not that we are not stressed with work at all, but we also need to stay calm. We need to know what to do in different situations. For example, if our understanding of the needs is different, we need to tune it up. If it was before I’d only see the quality of work, but in business the thing that is most important is not the quality of work; the most important thing is to meeting the objectives/reaching the goals. From my perspective, problems usually come up when our objective is not clear and we need to sit down and tune it up first.

When we ask about the direction of advertisement industry from K. Pawit: “From my view, the market is going down. I’m not saying that it’s bad, just that it wasn’t very good as before. It isn’t booming. This business is not only about advertisement; it’s about 360 degree media/marketing. I want it to be more than advertisement; I don’t want us to use advertisement as the point of attraction. And if someone wants to work ion this industry, they should make sure that they have enough knowledge and experience to do something “creative”. As I said, the new generation wants be rich and well-known at the early stage of life itself, which is not wrong but if they are very much looking for that then I’d recommend entertainment business to them. It is not that advertisement industry can’t make them rich but you need to put in much effort in order to succeed. This is not an industry for people who don’t know where they are heading in life.

The qualities that people in advertisement industry should have and shouldn’t have
“Well, the qualities they should have…I must say that in this generation they are a lot of people who aren’t honest. And as we know, it is very easy to cheat advertisement project; chances that you steal ideas and creativity is very easy. And as people usually say that client hire us to create and position the brand for them, it usually turn out that people try to brand themselves. They want to be well-known more than making the client’s brand well-known which I think is not right. Advertisement business is for people who are very creative and want to make good outcome for their clients. They should always view things from various angles and innovate because this type of work is commercial art and the responsibility of the people in this industry is not just a producer, but it’s about pointing out the gist. And, if it can initiate them and make them develop new ideas, we’re on the right track. However, never expect that all our idea will be right.

Career path in this industry: Usually people work in this industry for a while and they move out. Career path in advertisement industry is like pyramid. The base starts with AE, follow up to AM (Account Manager) and then AD (Account Director), GAD (Group Account Director). Then they move up to BD (Business Director) and BM (Business Manager). And, the top of the pyramid is MD (Managing Director). Actually there are a lot of responsibilities intersection between each position and the number of people decreases as we move up the pyramid. The main filter is from AE to AM; it is usually that people who are AE move out of the career path but if they work as AE for more than 3 years, they will want to be promoted or they will start to promote themselves. They will want to be an AM. But actually from my view, the upgrade from AE to AM doesn’t mean you will become better overnight. Your talents are the same as of yesterday and the thing that changes is that people start to expect more from you. For example, when you attend a meeting with client and you are unable to close the project... you can’t say “Oh! I just became an AM. Yesterday, I was still an AE.” But there is also another group of people who work as AE and can’t wait to become AM. They usually move out of the path to handle client service division.

Ending up our story with what K. Pawit wishes to tell the new generation: “These days technology is helping us a lot. The new generation AEs isn’t very talented. They are already in the well-established world. In the old times when I used to be an AE, not all of us have computers. When something goes wrong with our artwork, we have to redo everything again and again. We can’t edit or undo. We weren’t in the digital world. And, when we have to go meet clients and we can’t contact them, our day is gone. We did not have mobile phones and email; these technologies can really boost performance and save lives. The new generation is like the spoiled age. They are in a convenient world. However, I do appreciate the good people. This job is very much based on experience and I feel a master degree doesn’t really help much. It is the experience that matters.

I might be negative when I say things but in business world, we really need to be honest and we need to have faith in people. We need to have the willpower to help clients and take care of the company’s portfolio. The new generation who wishes to come into this industry should know what they like and enjoy doing. You can’t just say that you like advertisement industry, because being in advertisement industry doesn’t only mean doing advertisement project. However, people who still don’t know what they want in life are still better than those who don’t work hard.