Arriving in New York City with my MBA, I was incredibly lucky to land at Grey Advertising on a Procter & Gamble (P&G) account.  Grey was well-known as a strategy-driven agency.  They had possibly the best research department in New York.  Grey also had – and still has – an impressive roster of global packaged goods clients, including Procter & Gamble and General Foods.  Everyone in advertising knew that if you worked with one of those clients you were solidly schooled in the business of marketing. If you worked on a P&G account, other agencies took you seriously.

Today, in my opinion, it’s possible to launch a successful career in advertising account management without CPG (consumer package goods) experience. According to the AdAge “Leading U.S. Advertisers” report, the top ten advertisers during 2023 were Amazon, Comcast, Procter & Gamble, Walt Disney, Alphabet (Google), American Express, Capital One Financial Corp., Verizon, Walmart, and Charter Communications. P&G is the only classic consumer package goods marketer on the list. The big branding challenges in this new consumer environment are in the realm of digital entertainment, communication, and services. The shift away from CPG has resulted in some incredible advertising.  Here’s my favorite ad as of today: 

There’s another big difference between then and now. Today an advertising career no longer is restricted to New York or Chicago. Today, an advertising career can start in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boulder, Minneapolis, Portland, and many, many other places.  The decentralization of the business has made it more diverse and, in my opinion, more creative. But New York still beckons. Young advertising strategists and creatives live in different neighborhoods than we did (our old neighborhoods are now officially dull) and they work for newer agencies (that are amazing) but they’re having the same, exhilarating experience we had. It’s still a wonderful, wonderful life.