I stumbled onto studying advertising mid-way through college. I don’t think it occurred to me in high school that advertising would be a career option.
But Minneapolis agency OLSON is reaching out to high schoolers in an attempt to both diversify the business and get young folks interested in advertising. From The Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
BrandLab is a three-year-old program that takes a marketing curriculum into the classrooms of a handful of economically stressed and culturally diverse high schools across the Twin Cities and teaches students about brand development, advertising and marketing through hands-on assignments, guest lecturers and field trips to agencies where students observe a jungle of creativity.
BrandLab is the brainchild of John Olson, chief executive of the agency Olson, who said he created the concept after he looked around his industry and saw a sea of mainly white faces.
“It seemed ironic that the creative class turned out so homogeneous when the rest of the marketplace is so diverse,” Olson said in an interview. “We think there’s a simple answer to that, and we’re moving as fast as we can.”
I’ll bet it also makes for a good focus group for the agency. Seeing the elusive youth market up close is a great research tool. But will seeing the world of advertising up close be a motivator for kids as they pursue careers, or will it be a turn-off?