Advertising and Media Executive

On an advertising and media executive apprenticeship course, you’ll help oversee the day-to-day progress of the advertising process.

An advertising and media executive oversees the day-to-day operations of the advertising process, from receiving the marketing team’s brief, which includes objectives, budget, and timelines, to evaluating the campaign’s success.

You will help campaigns move forward while coping with inevitable setbacks and changes in direction. You will almost certainly specialise in one of two parts of the advertising process: designing the commercial (creative) or delivering the advertisement (delivery) (media). If you focus on the creative side, you will be in charge of working with creative producers, like copywriters, to assist them in making choices.

This may include informing them about rival brands to assist them in deciding. In addition, you will monitor the creative producers’ progress and evaluate their work. Finally, if you focus on media, you will interact with and get the most out of automated platforms by using your knowledge of what programmatic/automatic buying can and cannot do.

What you’ll learn

On an advertising and media executive apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Determine how creativity and media may help organisations achieve their business objectives.
• Structure problems and ways for objectively resolving them.
• Manage projects utilising project management techniques to keep campaigns on track, such as accurate scheduling plans and an efficient to-do list.
• Use government agencies’ resources and technologies to help them plan, budget, and bill.
• Make sure your communication is professional. Correct names, spelling, grammar, and branding, for example, in PowerPoint, emails, minutes, and reports.
• Use understanding of the interaction and dynamics of the various agencies to ensure a smooth flow of work (primarily media and creative).
• Adhere to relevant legal obligations in the advertising and media sectors and your organisational norms and processes.
• Assist in addressing practical and creative problems (e.g., reporting on consumer habits, gathering important data for evaluation) within defined budgets and timelines while influencing outcomes without jeopardising relationships.
• Effectively engage with all parties, such as when organising a response to a client brief, using third-party management techniques and interpersonal skills (e.g., active listening and persuading).
• Ensure that the value of the supply chain is delivered on schedule.
• Deploy the right digital media to get the greatest outcomes, such as using Google Analytics to validate key keywords.
• Contact clients, colleagues, regulatory bodies (such as the Advertising Standards Authority or Clearcast), and suppliers (such as photographers or research firms) by phone, meetings, presentations, emails, and written documents such as agendas, competitive reviews, proposals, call/meeting minutes, and status reports. Feedback coordination.
• Assist in collecting the necessary data.
• Communicate with clients, colleagues, regulatory bodies (such as the Advertising Standards Authority), media owners (such as commercial television channels, newspapers/magazines, billboard companies, and so on), or media intermediaries/platforms (such as programmatic advertising platforms, Facebook, and Google) by phone, meetings, presentations, or emails.
• Assist in investigating how the message/creative idea may be successfully distributed to reach the target audience, e.g. time of day, and provide recommendations based on this.
• Assist in collecting the necessary data.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• Depending on the employer, likely GCSEs or equivalent qualifications or relevant experience for an advanced apprenticeship.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises two distinct assessment methods: 

• Project Showcase (Work-based project with a slide deck, oral presentation and Q&A) 
• Professional discussion and practical observation (supported by a portfolio of evidence) 

Duration, level, subjects and potential salary upon completion

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 3 Advertising and Media Executive Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page.