Search Engine Marketing is finally starting to get the recognition it deserves!

I just graduated in May, and as an advertising major, interactive marketing was barely touched on in my 4 years of college. In a semester break down filled with print and TV, the syllabus usually set aside one class to discuss the internet. With professors who worked in the agency realm 30 years ago, we lectured on the wow factor of agencies like BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, with almost every class using the “Got milk?” ads to set the bar as a basis for comparison across the board. In our campaign projects, we would create an idea and carry it across different mediums…the mediums being magazine, newspapers, TV, radio, and direct mail. Even for my final project senior year, which was only 9 months ago, interactive was not a component.

Post graduation when all I wanted to do was get a job at an agency and move to NYC, two places I interviewed with that were at the top of my list were Morpheus and Digitas, both interactive agencies. It was/is exciting to be part of such a new, fast growing field, at a place that is ahead of the curve, and where everything was new and exciting to me.
For homework in college we would have to read articles from AdAge and, like in our classes, we would learn about print and TV. Now when you go to the AdAge homepage there is a whole section dedicated to digital with a “Search Fact Pack” for 2007 showing stats of what is going on in the SEM world and how big a part of advertising it has become. It shows the top searches and sites and interactive marketing agencies and much more. It is a good starting point for people trying to learn about digital advertising.

I hope that universities are making sure to stay on top of this trend and preparing their students for what the advertising world really is about in 2008, with widgets and wikis and mobile, as Morpheus has done for me.