Advertising is “dying”.
At least, that’s what I’m told. Repeatedly. With charts.
And honestly, after the way the industry has behaved over the last couple of decades, I understand why fewer young people are queueing up to join it. Long hours, fragile business models, performative culture, and a habit of confusing resilience with endurance. None of that is especially attractive.
But here’s the bit I think we’re getting wrong...
When people turn away from portfolio schools because advertising looks unstable, they’re not rejecting an industry. They’re rejecting a set of skills they’ll wish they had later.
And those two things are not the same.
A good portfolio school isn’t really about advertising. Advertising just happens to be a brutally efficient training ground.
What’s actually being taught is how to:
• notice human behaviour properly, not lazily
• turn vague, messy situations into clear problems
• generate ideas under constraint
• communicate those ideas so they move people, not just fill space
That’s not an “adland” skillset. It's a how-to-be-useful-in-the-world skillset.
Now, I know the obvious counter-argument.
“Isn’t the smart move now something solid? A trade? Something practical?”
Sure. If someone wants to be a plumber, an electrician, a builder, that’s a brilliant path. The world will always need people who can fix real things in the real world. No argument from me.
But most people aren’t choosing between plumbing and portfolio school.
They’re choosing between learning how to think, persuade, and create,
or drifting into a safer-looking default without ever really learning how they operate best.
And that’s the risk.
AI is getting very good at execution.
It’s terrible at judgment.
It doesn’t know what matters, what’s culturally sensitive, what’s emotionally charged, or what’s worth doing in the first place.
That work still sits with humans.
Especially humans who’ve been trained to spot patterns in behaviour and shape them ethically, creatively, and entrepreneurially.
The irony is that the moment creativity starts to look “unsafe” is usually the moment it becomes most valuable. When industries wobble, people who can reframe problems and communicate change are the ones who stay standing.
So no, I’m not arguing that advertising is fine.
It isn’t.
It needs to change.
But opting out of learning creativity, problem-solving, and communication because one industry is going through a messy transition is a category error.
Those skills don’t disappear when a sector struggles.
They adapt and they compound.
And in a world that’s becoming increasingly automated, synthetic, and efficient at producing stuff, the ability to understand humans and influence outcomes thoughtfully is not a luxury.
It’s leverage.
Debate very welcome. So too are applications for our September cohort.
