WCIA Human Resources

I was looking to see what WCIA had in the way of jobs, it looks like they need an Account Executive. For Champaign a job like that would be exciting, especially in that town. I recently visited the college town and immediately fell in love with its amazing vitality. Bustling with college students, all of them on the road to brighter futures. Driven by hope, you can see in the way they walk and hold themselves in eager anticipation for the next vital bit of information that will gain them more strength in their pursuits.

Meanwhile, back on the Internet, It appears that any jobs they had available at their own facilities are mixed evenly among most other jobs available in that community.

WCIA is an affiliate of Nextar Broadcasting Group, headquartered in Irving, Texas. Their website is http://nexstar.tv and they list positions available for the multitude of television stations they own.

The advent of video capability on the Internet has rendered even these positions tenuous at best.

Bloggers are encroaching on the careers of print journalism, YouTubers are encroaching on the careers of television news network video production crews. These crews will eventually need to be self-sustaining and efficient because the first step in that evolution will be layoffs.

The pain and suffering that newspapers are experiencing right now will grow and spread into the television advertising segment.

UNLESS... The advertising is flexible enough to fit on all electronic forms of communication while maintaining a consistent perception of the brand being advertised.

This means that there will no longer be such a thing as a "Television Commercial."

Every communication will need to be a campaign. The Ad Executive must be able to produce an entire package that includes Press releases, Web banner ads, Pop-up windows, YouTube videos, websites, Facebook and MySpace identities, even a Second Life identity. You could even go as far as a WOW account, just to squeeze in a plug now and then ( if you can find someone with no life to maintain it, or pay those with no lives to slip in a plug now and then.) [by the way, WOW is "World of Warcraft."]

Some call this Guerrilla advertising. Such tactics, once recognized by the public, or someone with a keen interest in informing the public, such as myself, will find this kind of tactic very deceptive and suspicious. This form of marketing stinks of desperation.

In the end, the only tools an Advertising executive has for an honest campaign is the word of experienced consumers. Oh by the way, Don't try to create fictional identities and flood message boards with fictional endorsements of a product, because they will be balanced with equally weighted criticism by unsatisfied customers.

The only thing you can do is plainly present the product, list its benefits, and let the chips fall where they may.