• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 22, 2017

Advertising is important. Really, it is. In fact, it's so important that Publicis thinks it needs science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates to do the job rather than, you know, people who actually went to school to study marketing. Yup, it's more important to divert toward advertising a graduate who might end up discovering the cure to cancer or a bullshit detector that could be planted inside the heads of half of the Americans who, on their own, can't seem to detect the waterfall of "alternative facts" emanating from the mouth of a certain orange-haired politician.

OK, that was way too political. My bad. Let's carry on.

So Tim Jones, who became top dog at Publicis Media Americas last year, issued a directive to the company that 50% of its recruits should come from graduates with a STEM background. Because, apparently, he's sick of all the smart ones heading to Google, Facebook and Snapchat.

Of the directive, Jones toldBusiness Insider: "We have to compete with Facebook, with Snapchat, and we have to be a cool company. We are a cool company, we really are. If you go to our space now in New York or Atlanta, which is probably the best example, it's like the Google Campus."

Um, so, Publicis has cool offices? That's a reason to blow a STEM background on a career in advertising? It would seem so as the agency is encouraging these STEM graduates to join its 120-day training program which is designed to expose them to various aspects of the agency's functional areas.

And to further lure these STEM graduates away from, say, a boring biomedical firm, the final week of this 120-day program is set up like a draft whereby Publicis department heads can pick their favorite graduates and offer them jobs.

Of the draft, Jones said: "The draft is great fun because people know who they want and you see the heads of departments, just like the NFL draft, saying 'I'll take these two if you give me that one,' all of that goes on."

Yeah, so, kind of like...I don't know...binders full of women or bidding on interns like they're livestock?

Sounds fun.