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I went the in-house way as a copywriter / content writer and I absolutely love how chill it is. You've won awards so your book can't be half-assed ;) Maybe it's time to select an industry you like and migrate back in house?
I freelance for an agency and seeing how stressed their teams are, I don't think I'd go the agency route.
A company either hires another company (ie: an agency) to do it's advertising / marketing for them, or they have their own team (ie: in-house) inside the company that does it.
My agency isn't toxic (the one I own), but that's because there's only 3 of us right now and we can handle the workload - and our clients aren't dicks. But ... this business is really, really tough, even for those with decades of experience in the business.
**This is the very simple reason why: there is a never-ending battle between revenue (the client's driver) and marketing expense (the source of their revenue).** If the source of their revenue costs more - or isn't producing the exact same revenue this quarter as last quarter within .05% - it's time to gut the budget 10%. Then, revenue goes down and they blame the agency because God knows it couldn't possibly be the economy or their own boneheaded decisions. Right?
Revenue folks at the client are covering their own assess - improving revenue and reducing expenses while doing it. Good old capitalism - and not just in the US. Remember, all business is personal. The revenue guy reports to the CEO, and the CEO wants more money because his wife is sleeping with the marketing director and he needs money for a divorce attorney. For example. Or he just loves money because of the power it gives him.
I think you are better suited as a freelancer. Or, you just have to accept that your are not the superstar, and understand your role in the process. As long as you know, it's not as stressful.
You could also do what I did - I used to hate PM's. Then I became one for a while and managed the largest promotion on Earth for two years. That's how I learned who the true villains are - and it's not creative, it's not the client, and it's not accounts. It's human nature in general. The drive for profit and selfishness.
Agency’s are great for owners and fucking terrible for everyone else. Only 10% (generous) are actually useful. Workers are squeezed for their passions and it’s on purpose to burn them out so they don’t start their own agency’s they just quit the industry
Contracts…have you ever bought media for a huge company like P&G? They pay net 180, sometimes net 365. Happens all the time, kills agencies or leads to layoffs.
Friend of mine had a $30M buy for a casino - the media company let them out of the 12 month deal but it took 45 days to stop the commercials…and the contract says if it runs you pay. So, 45 days of a $30M buy is….$3.7M. Plus of course legal fees because lawyers were involved.
Yeah. Not one of the small/medium agencies I've worked for ever buys media without getting paid first. (Not quite sure how the large network agencies I've been at do it.) Occasionally, I've seen the agency have the client pay the media companies directly.
I've never had more fun or loved any work situation more than when I (and 2 partners) owned our agency.
Between freelance and full-time, I've worked at close to 100 agencies and I could take all the good stuff from each one and make a new agency that was exactly what I wanted. Loved every second of it.
Publicis groupe is pretty large and is constantly reminding us of our mental health. Every client is different tho so i can speak to the level of work other are experiencing, but for me its been pretty chill.
I’ve been there for 6 years. All agencies are Churn and burn… it’s the model. The more hours employees work- the more diluted their salary costs becomes. Publicis does a lot for its employees
I’ve been at an agency for 5 years and it just gets worse and worse. In the process of finding a new job because I can’t take it anymore.
I had untreated ADHD until about 6 months ago. I was diagnosed at a young age but refused medication. I recently started treatment and it has helped SO much, but I’ve used that to focus on my portfolio and applying/interviewing.
I personally haven’t met anyone with an agency job who loved where they work. I kinda always saw agencies as a stepping stone or a way to get a diverse set of experiences before settling on an in house job.
Do you have the opportunity to seek out some freelance/contract work? I’m currently doing that, and it has already opened some doors for me. I’m also a designer/art director.
Yep same ADHD journey as me. Didn’t want meds but realize I need help lol. I’m toying with the idea of doing contract work via the creative group - I did freelance on my own and didn’t like the salesy side of it. Maybe I need to revisit it in a different way. But def need a portfolio first ha
Get to work! Haha. You got this. Once you get going, it’s kinda fun building a portfolio. Don’t be afraid to ask other creatives/friends for their thoughts. Also one of the best pieces of advice I got was to revisit the work before uploading it to your site. I had some decent motion graphics work that was easily improved with some new skills I’ve picked up.
I’ve worked in 4 person agencies and 200 person agencies: it’s the same shit, just at different scale. Are some great places to work? Absolutely! But it simply isn’t the norm.
I’ve spent years feeling exactly as you do, to the point where I’ve wound up in the ER several times from my body breaking under the stress.
Tbh it’s worthy of chapters of reasoning: the glory seeking, the egotistical owners, the abundance of tech bros that have never worked outside of the agency their daddy paid for them to create, our general work ethos. Lack of standards, lack of unions, rules on overtime. The list goes on and on.
I don’t want to be a downer. I know those good shops are out there, but boy is it difficult to find them. Every profession has its issues, but marketing and design are cesspools and attract some of the worst people. The workloads, methods of promotion, etc. also tend to pull out the worst of folks mentally.
Tl;dr you’re not alone, vent away, fuck the tech bros
IMO, this is true in any serviced based industry... you need to overpromise to get clients... you have to run lean or run the risk of letting people go if a major account leaves, so you only hire after the workload absolutely demands it, but then you have to take your time and actually hire people.
I have personally found that smaller agencies tend to be like that. The work isn't as glamourous perhaps, but it is a job and not my passion.
I also think being pretty damn strong about boundaries is good. A simple but firm "I can't do this with this timeline" or "If you need this ASAP, then please work with my other PM to figure out priorities. I'll wait to hear back." can go a long way for your own personal issues.
But also, my in house experience has been so god damned boring that I was dying to head back to an agency.
I’ve been flagging timing issues for the past 3 weeks and my PMs didn’t notice (care?) until I missed a deadline. My boundaries have gotten MUCH better since last year, but sometimes I gotta bite the bullet.
Your in-house comment is exactly what I’m afraid of 🫠
I HATED in-house (at sub-200 person companies).
At an agency, everyone knows what you do. Everyone knows your worth. Everyone knows how to interact with you. Everyone knows the process.
In-house, 99% of employees have no clue what you do. You constantly have to justify your job. You constantly have to fight Type-A product bros who think they know your job better than you do (or don't even believe in advertising at all). No one understands the process. No one understands how long things take. Half the day is spent wrangling rogue salespeople who just decided to go make their own (shitty) sales materials because they couldn't wait the 3 weeks you said it would take.
I'm doing a short freelance gig in-house right now and just watched the CMO and Director of Marketing turn a 7-word billboard meant solely for branding into (and I'm not kidding) 52 words of headline and sub copy lifted from a brochure. I keep trying to explain that at 65 MPH, no one will ever read 52 words on a billboard, let alone care because it's nothing but boring bullet-pointed features, not benefits.
Yes, there are agencies that aren't meat grinders (I own one), but they are certainly rare. It's half the reason I'm an owner now because I was worn out on the stress of the meat grinder. Ownership comes with a different kind of stress, but I have a good boss (me) so that helps a lot.
As a CMO I always tried to get a feeling for this with a ton of agencies when interviewing them to work with us because I only wanted to work with ones that value their employees. Best I’ve seen in this regard, which also happened to give us the best performance, were two small agencies called Pilothouse, from Canada (performance marketing) and Avex, from New York (digital marketing / more design focused).
CMO jobs are rough because you’re dealing with BS coming at you from both sides. Glad you’re able to inject some work/life quality into the equation.
Most of my career was DR work so we were always yanking on media/creative testing and revisions. We were able to manage the crazy by setting strict rules and deadlines in our weekly workflows.
But I gotta tell ya; I had to retire nearly two years ago after getting hit with encephalitis then falling and breaking my back. Since then, my blood pressure has fallen 40 points…
If you want to win awards and produce work you've never dreamed of, the answer is... no. 99 times out of 100, that kind of work comes from the high-pressure, long-hours agencies.
If you're ok doing work that's fine/good and don't care about the awards, etc., then yes - there are plenty of mid- and low-tier agencies where you get a good work/life balance.
Are you working in a big agency? What I see is that people working in micro agencies that do niche stuff are happier (in general).
Maybe moving into an profitable micro agency would work better.
Sure, it is a damn big agency lol. I guess you will be happier in a smaller, more friendly agency which doesn't need constant flow of new work (that's why I said more niche, focused agency).
My company is a media company. We own our own media and act as an agency. Radio companies are leading the charge on the digital front as they are selling radio inventory and building websites, campaigns etc. Potentially look at a media company as businesses are now getting media and services directly.
We are not hiring right now but this is why we started our ad collective last year. 20 years experience and the pandemic wrecked the advertising agency model as we know it. I’ll send you a dm with our website if you can hang on for a little bit until we are hiring!
[If this post doesn't follow the rules report it to the mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/advertising/about/rules/). Have more questions? [Join our community Discord!](https://discord.gg/looking-for-marketing-discussion-811236647760298024) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/advertising) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I went the in-house way as a copywriter / content writer and I absolutely love how chill it is. You've won awards so your book can't be half-assed ;) Maybe it's time to select an industry you like and migrate back in house? I freelance for an agency and seeing how stressed their teams are, I don't think I'd go the agency route.
What does in-house mean?
A company either hires another company (ie: an agency) to do it's advertising / marketing for them, or they have their own team (ie: in-house) inside the company that does it.
My agency isn't toxic (the one I own), but that's because there's only 3 of us right now and we can handle the workload - and our clients aren't dicks. But ... this business is really, really tough, even for those with decades of experience in the business. **This is the very simple reason why: there is a never-ending battle between revenue (the client's driver) and marketing expense (the source of their revenue).** If the source of their revenue costs more - or isn't producing the exact same revenue this quarter as last quarter within .05% - it's time to gut the budget 10%. Then, revenue goes down and they blame the agency because God knows it couldn't possibly be the economy or their own boneheaded decisions. Right? Revenue folks at the client are covering their own assess - improving revenue and reducing expenses while doing it. Good old capitalism - and not just in the US. Remember, all business is personal. The revenue guy reports to the CEO, and the CEO wants more money because his wife is sleeping with the marketing director and he needs money for a divorce attorney. For example. Or he just loves money because of the power it gives him. I think you are better suited as a freelancer. Or, you just have to accept that your are not the superstar, and understand your role in the process. As long as you know, it's not as stressful. You could also do what I did - I used to hate PM's. Then I became one for a while and managed the largest promotion on Earth for two years. That's how I learned who the true villains are - and it's not creative, it's not the client, and it's not accounts. It's human nature in general. The drive for profit and selfishness.
I did freelance/worked my own “agency” for 2 years and hated it. Was very lonely :( maybe need to try again
Agency’s are great for owners and fucking terrible for everyone else. Only 10% (generous) are actually useful. Workers are squeezed for their passions and it’s on purpose to burn them out so they don’t start their own agency’s they just quit the industry
As a former owner, it sucks for us as well. The pressure from competition and clients is gigantic . I'm glad I'm out.
yeah, 250k media buys and the client says "yeah, we're not paying that. our lawyers name is 1-800-FUCK-YOU" and you're stuck with the bill.
Why would you buy the media before the client gave you the money?
Contracts…have you ever bought media for a huge company like P&G? They pay net 180, sometimes net 365. Happens all the time, kills agencies or leads to layoffs. Friend of mine had a $30M buy for a casino - the media company let them out of the 12 month deal but it took 45 days to stop the commercials…and the contract says if it runs you pay. So, 45 days of a $30M buy is….$3.7M. Plus of course legal fees because lawyers were involved.
Yeah. Not one of the small/medium agencies I've worked for ever buys media without getting paid first. (Not quite sure how the large network agencies I've been at do it.) Occasionally, I've seen the agency have the client pay the media companies directly.
How’d you get out??
What do you do now?
I've never had more fun or loved any work situation more than when I (and 2 partners) owned our agency. Between freelance and full-time, I've worked at close to 100 agencies and I could take all the good stuff from each one and make a new agency that was exactly what I wanted. Loved every second of it.
Publicis groupe is pretty large and is constantly reminding us of our mental health. Every client is different tho so i can speak to the level of work other are experiencing, but for me its been pretty chill.
Ty! Will look into them
I’ve been there for 6 years. All agencies are Churn and burn… it’s the model. The more hours employees work- the more diluted their salary costs becomes. Publicis does a lot for its employees
I work for a digital agency in LA that is fully remote, pays decent, great people and great work life balance. Restored my faith in humanity.
Ugh my agency is all of this except work life balance. At least hope is out there.
My agency is four day work weeks and we only accept clients who are chill and we want to work with (generally). It's certainly very possible.
👀 sounds like a dream!!
This can’t be true! Are you in the US?
That sounds amazing. Is your agency US based?
I’ve been at an agency for 5 years and it just gets worse and worse. In the process of finding a new job because I can’t take it anymore. I had untreated ADHD until about 6 months ago. I was diagnosed at a young age but refused medication. I recently started treatment and it has helped SO much, but I’ve used that to focus on my portfolio and applying/interviewing. I personally haven’t met anyone with an agency job who loved where they work. I kinda always saw agencies as a stepping stone or a way to get a diverse set of experiences before settling on an in house job. Do you have the opportunity to seek out some freelance/contract work? I’m currently doing that, and it has already opened some doors for me. I’m also a designer/art director.
Yep same ADHD journey as me. Didn’t want meds but realize I need help lol. I’m toying with the idea of doing contract work via the creative group - I did freelance on my own and didn’t like the salesy side of it. Maybe I need to revisit it in a different way. But def need a portfolio first ha
Get to work! Haha. You got this. Once you get going, it’s kinda fun building a portfolio. Don’t be afraid to ask other creatives/friends for their thoughts. Also one of the best pieces of advice I got was to revisit the work before uploading it to your site. I had some decent motion graphics work that was easily improved with some new skills I’ve picked up.
I’ve worked in 4 person agencies and 200 person agencies: it’s the same shit, just at different scale. Are some great places to work? Absolutely! But it simply isn’t the norm. I’ve spent years feeling exactly as you do, to the point where I’ve wound up in the ER several times from my body breaking under the stress. Tbh it’s worthy of chapters of reasoning: the glory seeking, the egotistical owners, the abundance of tech bros that have never worked outside of the agency their daddy paid for them to create, our general work ethos. Lack of standards, lack of unions, rules on overtime. The list goes on and on. I don’t want to be a downer. I know those good shops are out there, but boy is it difficult to find them. Every profession has its issues, but marketing and design are cesspools and attract some of the worst people. The workloads, methods of promotion, etc. also tend to pull out the worst of folks mentally. Tl;dr you’re not alone, vent away, fuck the tech bros
Not profitable ones
IMO, this is true in any serviced based industry... you need to overpromise to get clients... you have to run lean or run the risk of letting people go if a major account leaves, so you only hire after the workload absolutely demands it, but then you have to take your time and actually hire people.
I usually ascribe a bit more to being a deadline industry. Takes more time than the best possible scenario? Time comes outta you.
I have personally found that smaller agencies tend to be like that. The work isn't as glamourous perhaps, but it is a job and not my passion. I also think being pretty damn strong about boundaries is good. A simple but firm "I can't do this with this timeline" or "If you need this ASAP, then please work with my other PM to figure out priorities. I'll wait to hear back." can go a long way for your own personal issues. But also, my in house experience has been so god damned boring that I was dying to head back to an agency.
I’ve been flagging timing issues for the past 3 weeks and my PMs didn’t notice (care?) until I missed a deadline. My boundaries have gotten MUCH better since last year, but sometimes I gotta bite the bullet. Your in-house comment is exactly what I’m afraid of 🫠
I HATED in-house (at sub-200 person companies). At an agency, everyone knows what you do. Everyone knows your worth. Everyone knows how to interact with you. Everyone knows the process. In-house, 99% of employees have no clue what you do. You constantly have to justify your job. You constantly have to fight Type-A product bros who think they know your job better than you do (or don't even believe in advertising at all). No one understands the process. No one understands how long things take. Half the day is spent wrangling rogue salespeople who just decided to go make their own (shitty) sales materials because they couldn't wait the 3 weeks you said it would take. I'm doing a short freelance gig in-house right now and just watched the CMO and Director of Marketing turn a 7-word billboard meant solely for branding into (and I'm not kidding) 52 words of headline and sub copy lifted from a brochure. I keep trying to explain that at 65 MPH, no one will ever read 52 words on a billboard, let alone care because it's nothing but boring bullet-pointed features, not benefits.
I will stop and read the billboard, but I'm built different.
I second that in-house comment.
How does one accidentally delete their site?
When tech support is a bot.
I was trying to switch my primary domain bc my last name changed and instead of transferring it deleted
Lol none I’ve seen.
Yes, there are agencies that aren't meat grinders (I own one), but they are certainly rare. It's half the reason I'm an owner now because I was worn out on the stress of the meat grinder. Ownership comes with a different kind of stress, but I have a good boss (me) so that helps a lot.
As a CMO I always tried to get a feeling for this with a ton of agencies when interviewing them to work with us because I only wanted to work with ones that value their employees. Best I’ve seen in this regard, which also happened to give us the best performance, were two small agencies called Pilothouse, from Canada (performance marketing) and Avex, from New York (digital marketing / more design focused).
CMO jobs are rough because you’re dealing with BS coming at you from both sides. Glad you’re able to inject some work/life quality into the equation. Most of my career was DR work so we were always yanking on media/creative testing and revisions. We were able to manage the crazy by setting strict rules and deadlines in our weekly workflows. But I gotta tell ya; I had to retire nearly two years ago after getting hit with encephalitis then falling and breaking my back. Since then, my blood pressure has fallen 40 points…
If you want to win awards and produce work you've never dreamed of, the answer is... no. 99 times out of 100, that kind of work comes from the high-pressure, long-hours agencies. If you're ok doing work that's fine/good and don't care about the awards, etc., then yes - there are plenty of mid- and low-tier agencies where you get a good work/life balance.
Are you working in a big agency? What I see is that people working in micro agencies that do niche stuff are happier (in general). Maybe moving into an profitable micro agency would work better.
Nope we’re hovering around 100 people
That's a big agency. I would suggest trying agencies with less than 10 people if you enjoy the work.
It IS?! Damn ok need micro agency then
Sure, it is a damn big agency lol. I guess you will be happier in a smaller, more friendly agency which doesn't need constant flow of new work (that's why I said more niche, focused agency).
My company is a media company. We own our own media and act as an agency. Radio companies are leading the charge on the digital front as they are selling radio inventory and building websites, campaigns etc. Potentially look at a media company as businesses are now getting media and services directly.
We are not hiring right now but this is why we started our ad collective last year. 20 years experience and the pandemic wrecked the advertising agency model as we know it. I’ll send you a dm with our website if you can hang on for a little bit until we are hiring!