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Sample Personal Statement for Advertising
Among the 26 English alphabets, the one I like most is the
capitalized D because this alphabet, simple as it is, is the most
beautiful one. The two strokes, one vertical line and one curve,
adumbrate two totally divergent trajectories as if serving as constant
indicator of the psyche of the professionals in the advertising
industry: to travel from one point to another, there is an infinite
number of routes to choose; but ultimately speaking, there are only
two routes: one is along a straight line, the other along a curve.
While the general public may opt for the first, advertising
professionals should decide on the second. A curved trajectory may
well enable one to expand his horizon, enrich his experience of life,
and cultivate his capability for excellent interpersonal exchange and
communication. I maintain the conviction that the longer the journey
of life that one travels, the richer the experience one can derive
from life and hence the greater the novelty that he can create out of
the apparently commonplace.
In 1998, I entered XX University with remarkable performance at the
National College Entrance Examination (among the top 10 percent of the
participants majoring in Humanities Disciplines). During the first
year of my undergraduate studies, I majored in International Law but
it immediately dawned on me that I was not meant for studies in this
field and my real interest lied in advertising. Therefore, with extra
efforts I audited all the major courses in advertising and in the
second year, with a solid command of all the theoretical knowledge of
the basic courses, I transferred to Advertising Speciality. Once I
embarked on studying what really interested me, I made rapid progress
and my GPA reached 3.5 (among the top three for 26 students of my
class). In addition, I achieved the highest score of the class in four
most important courses in the field: History of Chinese and Foreign
Advertising, Principles of Advertising, Advertisement Planning, and
Mass Communication.
As I delved deeper into my subject, I came to acquire an increasingly
profound understanding of the nature of advertising. As a matter of
fact, advertising is an art of persuasion, concerned with how the
advertiser can influence the behavior and value orientation of the
general public with his individually unique mentality and perspective.
It is an integral branch of mass communication, inextricably
intertwined with both art and economics. At the same time, it requires
a framework of scientific management. In the course of my studies, I
learned to exploit another form of language, my advertising designs,
to conduct dialogues with my audience and to convey through those work
my ideas and perceptions in order to achieve the objective of
affecting the recipients' psychology and conduct and realizing the
value of communication. But I ventured beyond the mere designing of
individual advertisements. I also attempted at a series of
coordination work that included the planning, execution, solution and
effect of advertising. This process helped me to perfect my framework
of theoretical conceptions concerning such notions as personal
communication, interpersonal communication and mass communication. I
immersed myself in a wide variety of advertising courses. By studying
advertising, I could feel the joy of thinking and the charm of
knowledge.
Advertising is an art more to be practiced than theorized. For my
extra-curricular practice, I worked part-time for the WuHan
Silver-Horse Advertising Corporation, an advertising agency which
enjoys very prestigious reputation in and around WuHan. After being
subjected to the most rigorous screening test, I was recruited as one
of the five undergraduate students from my university and worked on
several projects under the direct leadership of the chief supervisor
of the Planning Department. On account of my distinctive notion and
original creativity, my design for an advertisement for an automobile
maintenance center was adopted, a fact which adequately evinces my
professional qualities and tremendous potential. Later, with strong
recommendations from my teacher, I worked at a medium-size advertising
company in Beijing, responsible for the advertising agent business in
the magazine Global Weekly. With the company's support, I participated
in a number of designing contests ranging from the 10th Golden Calf
Advertising Contest sponsored by the Taiwan's China Times, the 2nd
Academy Advertising Competition sponsored by China Advertising
Association to the Annual CAC Public Welfare Advertising Competition
sponsored by the publishing house of International Advertising
Magazine. My participation in those events not only brought me
important awards but also enabled me to derive much professional
knowledge from the exchange and cooperation with other staff, apart
from enhancing my hands-on ability and practical problem-solving
skills.
I took part consecutively in two authoritative Competitions for Young
Advertisers, which aroused my attention to the discrepancies in the
advertising level and the advertising consciousness between Taiwan and
mainland China as well as the disparity in the advertising management.
In order to call the serious attention of China's advertising industry
to those problems, I published a full-length academic paper entitled
On the Eve of WTO Accession: A Perspective on the Present Conditions
of Advertising Management on Mainland China on the website of China
Advertising Communication and Research (this website is launched by
XiaMen University, the first university in China to have established
an Advertising Department and which enjoys a very high academic
prestige).
Historically speaking, China's advertising industry can only be
described as underdeveloped compared with that of the advanced Western
countries. Although China's advertising industry is achieving
remarkable development around the turn of the century, challenges and
obstacles are equally serious. For instance, the relationship between
the client, the media and the advertising company has not been
properly established. The advertising agent system and the relevant
legal regulations of advertising are not fully developed. The
awareness of self-discipline is weak within this profession and a
sound system of social supervision over unlawful advertising practices
is lacking.
With China's immediate accession into WTO, China's overall advertising
industry will face severe challenges presented by major international
advertising agencies. On the other hand, China promises a bright and
alluring prospect in advertising industry as China has the largest
advertising market among the developing countries. The profit of the
advertising industry maintains an annual growth rate of 39.73. Such a
growth momentum is sufficient to indicate the tremendous dimension and
the exciting prospect of China's future advertising industry. This
situation necessarily calls for the emergence of a large number of
highly qualified advertising professionals, especially those who can
incorporate both their intimate knowledge of China's domestic
advertising market and international advertising background.
It is precisely against this backdrop that I, equipped with a solid
groundwork (at once theoretical and empirical) in the field of
advertising acquired from my undergraduate education, wish to apply
for a graduate program. My motivation is fairly simple: only the
United States, a country with the most unparalleled development in
advertising industry and the most prestigious institutions of higher
learning in mass communication of which advertising is a part, can
offer the necessary environment in which I can mature toward my
professional goals.
Now that I have charted my course of action, I am on the verge of
proceeding from one point of my life to another point. To return to my
metaphor of the alphabet D, I have decided to relinquish the
effortless straight line in favor of the beautiful curve, for I
believe that whatever the turns and twists alongside it, it will
ultimately lead to my prescribed ideal. The profound truth inherent in
it has already been given the most poetical pronunciation by the poet
Robert Frost at the conclusion of his The Road Not Taken: Two roads
diverged in the wood, and I - / I took the one less traveled by / And
that has made all the difference. |
