What Does an Advertising Specialist Do?

An advertising specialist is a person who works as part of a team or individually to develop and implement a marketing and advertising strategy for a business or company. This professional will do market analysis, develop copy and images for ads, and target specific audiences through a variety of media to boost sales numbers, increase exposure, or otherwise improve a company's image in the public sphere. An advertising specialist is likely to have specific education and training in advertising or marketing; most advertising positions require the job candidate to hold a college degree in marketing or a related field.

A company may hire an advertising specialist to work in-house, or the specialist may provide services independently to several companies at once. Once hired, the advertising specialist will be responsible for identifying the company's advertising goals, identifying the company's target market, and developing a marketing strategy for effectively reaching that target market. The specialist may work alone or as part of a larger team; this will generally depend on the size of the project as well as the needs of a particular business. Very large businesses and corporations will often hire teams of advertising specialists to effectively handle all aspects of a large advertising and marketing campaign.

Once the advertising specialist has a solid understanding of the target audience, he or she will need to begin to develop writing, images, video, and audio to effectively convey the advertising message. This may mean writing press releases, writing scripts for commercials, purchasing images for print advertising, or putting together a film production for a commercial shoot. The different types of advertising strategies will often depend on the intended audience as well as the business's budget for reaching that intended audience. Print ads tend to be far less expensive than film ads, for example, so a smaller company may choose to stick to print or Internet advertising over television advertising.

Another key responsibility of the advertising specialist is analyzing the effectiveness of the ad campaign once it is launched. The specialist will need to interpret public reactions to the advertising, as well as any boosts or losses in sales once the ad runs. A thorough analysis may result in similar ads, or it may result in the termination of an ad campaign in favor of one that is working more effectively. Sometimes the campaign can be adjusted to more effectively maximize exposure and public response.