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Yup.
Lot of premature promotion to retain talent circa pandemic + loss of more junior talent = CDs are the new senior/ACDs and so on.
Titles have long been pretty…evolving (read: meaningless), but now you have CDs who have never managed an account/team in the same bucket as CDs who are former agency ECDs. Mad.
Yep. It’s tough to provide proper mentorship when you’re knee deep in the weeds.
Rising Star
Honestly I think we’re pretty cooked unless mentorship comes back in a big way. I signed up for a program to mentor students and juniors, and they are absolutely starved for feedback since their CDs and ACDs don’t have time for them.
Title inflation and clients cutting budget.
Yeah there is title inflation. But it's also budget and timelines. I remember junior creatives having 3+ weeks to crack one brief working closely with CDs. And slowly learn to get it done faster. Now there's one week to crack 3 briefs and only seasoned creatives can do that.
So how do juniors get mentorship and learn by doing anymore? No idea, but they'll help choose the influencer. It's pretty fucked!
CD team is the new senior team
I’ve done more work this year writing DM copy than overseeing juniors
Yes that’s absolutely true. But the enshitification of the title is the problem too. It used to be a CD had to have a minimum of 10-12 years experience, some good awards and created at least one long term, sustaining brand positioning. Now you need to be a solid, competent creative and threaten to leave if you don’t get the title or willing to take the title for nowhere near the appropriate compensation.
Title inflation is a real problem.
People's egos just wanna be CDs, even if they aren't actually doing anything a CD does.
Yeah it’s definitely changed.
Personally I manage and oversee one full large account and only loop in the CCO for anything major and then am always also working on a few briefs myself. Personally I think it’s the perfect balance. But it’s definitely not a “CD” role the way they were back in the day.
Problem is there’s no juniors left. Agencies took a break hiring interns and juniors when paid internships became mandatory and as a result, there’s hundreds of seniors with no juniors to manage.