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I was in the final stages of an interview with Microsoft two weeks ago, in partner marketing. Then the recruiter told me they were putting the hiring process on hold to assess the need for the role. Well, then we heard about Microsoft layoffs last week. Seems like most were in Xbox and Project Alpha but there’s not a lot of information out there. Should I hold out any hope that I’m going to get this job? Any insights on how much these layoffs have impacted the marketing org and/or new hiring?
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Just realized it's not Friday ☹️
Going in house is the move, right?
How’s BFG lookin these days?
Which agencies are going through layoffs
How’s RGA for a CW?
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The holding companies contributed, and are still contributing, to its demise. Without those, many agencies would probably have been agile enough to adapt to all the changes in how consumers want to consume goods and information. But because the holding companies are clutching onto their massive media buys and expensive TV campaigns like a pricey, outdated life jacket to stay afloat, there’s little room for new ways of doing business.
Now we’re left with creative people jumping ship to clients, because that’s one of the only escape routes, but it’s not always as creatively fulfilling as the rotation of clients that an ad agency used to bring. From a creativity standpoint, I’m seeing people wanting to now leave client-side because it’s not so fulfilling, but where do you go when your entire portfolio is years’ and years’ worth of work featuring just faucets or a cheeseburger or a sedan? Agencies used to, and should, be a place where lots of different kinds of creativity transpired under one roof, but I think because of the holding companies in particular, that era is over.
It’s been dying for a while. It’s a dying industry. There’s smaller, more agile and more capable digital agencies and more directed, data-heavy work by the more capable firms. Traditional consulting firms are getting agency arms to further their strategy through implementation pull and big advertising is just not as effective.
Traditional media aren’t as important and the new media isn’t well managed by the old firms. I mean, if you see some of the consumer “marketing” done by those actually capable of using data- it’s pretty awesome. In the health space, doing physician-level marketing based on their own damn prescribing patterns? It’s the new world.
Basically, how millennials and younger generations buy things and consume is killing this. Not to mention just how these generations are being influenced. It’s instagram, it’s quirky, sardonic niche websites. Traditional brands are seeing their share slowly get eroded by new startups and trends and aren’t quick enough to adapt. They can’t partner with a slow, old-school agency to compound that issue.
Short answer, yes. I went to publisher side and I think that’s dying too. Long answer: you already see the job postings. Big clients are hiring big time creatives away from agencies. Their goal is to handle 50-75% of all creative campaigns/marketing in house and outsource the rest as projects to agencies. Agencies won’t go away overnight but I think 5-10 years from now most of what you think of AOR big time agencies will be long gone.
Cont...and have there been any agencies that have reversed this trend? What did they do to help the situation...invest in tech, explore alt fee structures than the billable hour, flat line the structure (get rid of all the unnecessary higher ups, keep the people that actually did the work), etc.
To me, the industry is in a death spiral. The only short-term solution agencies have to lower costs is to get rid of higher cost senior talent, mainly through layoffs. This causes the work and work management to suffer. As a result, the client relations get worse. Which leads to mistrust, getting fired. Which results in more layoffs.
That and zero-based accounting is making marketing quantitatively account for the ROI on ever nickel spent every quarter. If marketing can’t justify a media spend or agency fee, their budget will get slashed. Huge TV budgets are going away due to this in favor of approaches that have real time data-backed analysis of conversions and allow quick testing and adjustments.
I don’t know of any that really are both of high name and successful. I don’t think many of them will survive this without completely surrendering themselves to analytics and new media. You can’t just buy a strong, but little social media marketing firm or a big data vendor. You have to manage them properly and you have to be led and driven by them, not try and integrate them.
Usually the higher ups who don’t actually do the work are paid comfortably because they bring in the work through their industry partnerships or experience- but I come from a more niche and consulting background so that may not be the case in big advertising.
The people at the bottom, in all reality, are completely expendable in this workforce. You could put out a listing with a competitive wage for a FT copy or graphic/art position and get dozens of experienced applicants within a week for the spot; hundreds if you list it on LinkedIn or offer a little higher of a range. We got 100+ on a LinkedIn post that gave a salary range. I’m sure it was a lot of noise, but it’s just led management to really devalue certain team members knowing how the market currently is. Tons of experienced freelancers, dozens from big name ad agencies.
It’s not a hot spot to be in.
Read Madison Avenue Manslaughter. It’s been dying for 15 years.
Ditto on this. It’s a little dry but explains a lot.
If it takes you 2 weeks and a team of 9 people burning 150 head hours to deliver a couple of banner ads, yeah, good riddance.
The giant CPG brands are dying a slow death, that is for sure, and so are the agencies that depended on them. It’s a different game now, so if your set up to function on early 90s type budgets you are doomed. The $ just isn’t there for the most part.
Too many agency folks mimicked their clients bad behavior and we became like the clients. Clients don’t want to hire clients. This can change with the old rules out the window and new people in the right positions.
The industry reorg is much needed- less hierarchy is important. People at an AE level shouldn’t be managing a AAE. Everyone needs to learn how to contribute to the process not micromanage their peer.
Clients don’t need all their hierarchy either. Great work happens in small teams who pay attention and are taught to collaborate with each other.
Hear you. I’ve noticed the second we get approved for a hire we hire the most junior person. In our office we are elevating the scoping and staffing function to be held by people who get it so that will help resort some of this. High performing companies have something near 60hrs a year of training for their employees. Much needed agency side
Are agencies now suffering (as newsrooms and artists have for years) from the decline of ad revenues as the money continues to shift to monopolies with the unfair advantages of personal data? Shouldn’t everyone in advertising be fighting for strong privacy regulation to stop the bleeding of newsrooms (long funded on ad revenues) and our democracy, as well as agencies and artists? Check out artistsforprivacy.com Is it really that all other media can’t compete because of the number of fb users, or is it that most companies prefer fb because they have more personal data points than other media sources? What are your thoughts on this perspective?
I don’t think it has the draw like it used to for talent. Why work 90 hours a week for a social campaign and a 2% annual raise when you can work for a private company instead?
The hours are nuts for traditional stuff. I’m lucky I left that. Why would I work management consulting hours and get paid less than a third (really less than a quarter)? I mean it’s ridiculous.
Look at BCG salaries for undergrad and post-MBA pay and then look at where ad agencies now are. The hours aren’t that different, but the talent level difference is massive and it wasn’t always that way.