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I’m client side after 15 years of being agency side, and I fluctuate between being relieved that I made the jump (salary/big bonuses/pension/don’t work beyond 9-5), and desperately missing the quality of work and competence on the agency side. IME the brand teams (clients) and CMO tend to treat the in-house creatives like they’re morons and massively underestimate the amount of work and effort it takes to actually deliver good, high-quality work despite absolutely burying us in briefs from XM work, to full social campaigns, to content creation, shoots, “big thinking” briefs intended for the awards circuit, video editing, OOH campaigns, adapt work, etc., etc. We are terribly understaffed and pretty used and abused on the daily. Overall it is “better” than working at a traditional agency, but it’s definitely worse in some pretty important aspects. My self-worth as a creative is in the trenches even though I have a beautiful long list of awards to my name.
Facts (Been in house for 5 years after 10 in agencies)
When you look at the work produced by Spotify’s in-house team, do you think it’s bad? What do agencies have that the client side couldn't replicate? An in-house team will only ever be as good as the company wants it to be. I’m always in disbelief when I hear of a client hiring an agency for social media, for example. What can a social agency provide that they couldn’t internalize?
This applies to every medium, not just social. If the leadership and a handful of top talent from an agency like Rethink migrated to an in-house model tomorrow, I guarantee the work would be just as good, if not better. It all comes down to one simple question: 'Is the client willing to do good work, or not?
The problem with client side or in-house is not lack of talent, it’s bureaucracy. On the other hand, that same bureaucracy will lead to lighter work, lighter workload and therefore, better work-life balance.
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Agree! I found it was really hard to push back on client when I was client-side. They gave other agencies proper briefs but the in-house team would get a Slack message as a brief or a deck full of fluff with the important information buried.
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The work is usually worse client-side but the work-life is typically way better.
Oliver quality of work depends on the account but it’s 100% remote, which is hard to find these days.
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Work-life balance*