Getting A Job in The Malaysian Advertising Industry

On the 13th of July which was two weeks ago, I went to Bangsar to attend a public talk. A few days before that, I saw an advertorial that says “Here’s how you can get a job in advertising paying you a salary of RM2,300. Guaranteed.” The headline alone drew me to read the half a page content. The advertisement was from 95%: The Advertising Academy so it did a good job at making me notice and take action to come to their talk.

Since LV is a masscom student majoring in advertising, I brought her along as well just to give her some insight of what her future career will look like. I've already have a career but somewhere deep inside of me, I have a lot of interest in advertising. Eventhough I blew up some of my own advertising money during a few weeks of online advertising campaign I practiced a couple of years ago, I still think advertising has an endless bright future.


95% The Advertising Academy Office 


A Scene Before The 95% The Advertising Academy Talk 

The talk starts at 2.30pm so even though I was kind of late, I still managed to arrive there.


Janet Lee Giving A Speech 

That’s Janet Lee, she’s one of the founder of 95% The Advertising Academy. They have their own blog here if you are interested to read what they are planning to do or what they have done so far.


The Welcome to Advertising Slide Show 

The welcoming slide is rather simple but quite creative. If you cannot read what the fineprint is saying, it says “Say goodbye to dull and boring days”. Basically it was assuming that people who came there are looking for a career change and advertising are one of the industry that isn’t dull and boring.


One of the trainer at 95% The Advertising Academy 

That’s Shaikh Shahnaz Karim. He was the one presenting the entire presentation to the audience. He was actually from the IT industry before he came into the advertising world which he finds it 'colourful'. Now read this, the advertising industry is a RM5 BILLION industry in Malaysia alone. That’s a HUGE amount of money! Now look at this figure:


Number of advertising agencies in Malaysia 

I think there are plenty of shares to have more advertising agencies in Malaysia for that RM5 billion advertising pie. That might be one of the reason 95 percent ad academy has come out with a program called Hydrogen. The program cost RM15,000 for 6 months but there is a screening before you are actually admitted into the program. They have 3 positions to be filled; 1)Copywriter 2)Strategic Planner 3)Account Executive. If I were to choose, I think I'll go for copywriting since I like to play around with words.


95 percent Advertising Agency Hydrogen program 

The best thing about the program is it is sort of like a crash course training twice during your weekdays evening and you are actually guaranteed a job. If I were looking for a job or a career change, I think this program is really worth it. Just think of the time you can save by leveraging through your mentor’s network and experience and you get paid on top of that. It’s a healthy investment. The advertising industry is the only industry that can connect and communicate with every industry available because of their excellent medium which is now become really targeted using Information Technology. Throughout the talk, they’ve shown us sample videos of advertisement from many different countries and which videos won the Kancil Awards and the Cannes Lions festival.

Then again, I’ve already found my career field which is currently in the IT solution and application. 95 % The Advertising Academy works closely with the Association of Accredited Advertising Agents Malaysia. You can check out their blog at http://enter95percent.blogspot.com/ or visit http://www.rise67.com to learn more about their program.