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R-O-A-S or ROH-AZ?
Is it a good time to switch jobs
What is a typical FB interview process?
Does anyone have any prayer requests?
R-O-A-S or ROH-AZ?
Ask a lot and deep questions. Some full service shops put media at the very end of the process - and you are essentially second class citizens. Ask if you get to work with account, creatives and brand planning on the strategy and how the dynamics work in those relationship. The answers will be the same but read the body language and probe what they see as areas that would make those relationships work better. That answer should tell you whatever you need to know - if they tap dance you have found the issue.
I’ve worked in both situation and I personally LOVE being in an integrated setting when it works well and there is mutual respect. Amazing things can be done for your clients if the team as a whole works together. And you learn to be a stronger marketer overall - which breaks you from some bad assumptions about how media works when you understand the full picture.
In an integrated setting media is often seen as a representative of how the consumer lives and breathes - and that is a fun role beyond just straight media. Your experience at Carat should give you a good marketing language to interface with the broader team. If they wonder why you are pushing into the more connection planning roles or are confused you are even asking about that run - you’ll be an IO jockey and be fending off requests for playoff tickets for whichever team is in the playoffs that year.
Working in a smaller shop myself, there are pro's and con's. While you will get to work with every department you will also in most cases be picking up slack somewhere else, ie Account Management, Reporting , sometimes even activation. The other great thing is the experience - because you will be interacting with so many different roles and backgrounds you will feel growth much faster than doin comms planning in a large agency. Expect to be pulled into BD constantly.
There's a few smaller shops in the DAN network, take a look and ask to transfer.
I was recently on a comms pitch where it was just me and a strat planner in a room throwing ideas at each other. Ultimately it was incredibly rewarding because it forces everyone to get out of their respective mindsets for a bit and see how things come together across the board - at several points I was working on comms and he was working on media.
Also, making media and creative brief each other where necessary is painful and hilarious at first. After the first brief went out we had to have a sit down (with decks!) on how to brief each other, but after a while you get a good idea of how the other brain works.
I’ve done both and agree with both above. Full service gives you additional insight into creative strategy that you simply don’t have access to in a media shop so it helps you craft better plans and in some cases even affect the creative produced. But yes, you have to change your way of thinking to account for the entire creative process. In a media only shop you get used to being handed a finished product so it takes some getting used to.