I get hit up on a semi-regular basis by journalists who want advice on how to break into advertising.

For a while, these calls were invariably bleak, and that was with me trying to be as encouraging as possible. My way into the industry was fairly singular, and I couldn’t offer any advice on how to replicate it.

That’s changed as of late. Now, I tell journalists that the skills they have are just as valuable to brands and agencies as the stuff you go to ad school for. While big broadcast will never die, there’s a whole new frontier opening up.

Advertising has always been an intrusion, an interruption in what people are actually interested in doing. Advertising that actually provokes or entertains, or somehow transcends the form, is the exception that proves the rule.

This new frontier is editorial work that dares to ask a simple question: what if brands produced content that people actually wanted to consume?