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So why do company merges result in mass layoffs?
Are there any solid recruiters in SF?
how many of you get high before/during work?
🙋🏻♂️
Best (non-agency) company to work at in Boston??
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I have seen two kinds of situations. One, like you describe, where every idea anybody has gets put in the deck like throwing spaghetti at the wall. The other, one person is firmly in charge, and is constantly making edits to the deck to keep it tight. Usually there is a strong strategy that leads up to three tight campaigns. I think we all know which is better.
But to answer your question, yes, it is normal. Just not good.
So well said.
Having been in advertising for close to 30 years, I can attest that this is normal. Additionally, I would offer up that despite what others have shared here, it’s a necessary part of the process. As a creative, going through the swirl, turning over every rock, coming at the problem from a new angle is not linear. It’s messy AF. And in order to get to the best outcome, you’ve got to hear inputs from all perspectives. Especially when you have massively fragmented media channels and variables to consider. In the new business pitch setting, this feels like chaos. It’s a pressure cooker. But a good agency should have skilled account, creative, and strategy leaders looking at all those puzzle pieces and threading a needle to get to a cohesive story. Like lots of work, a great pitch comes together the later stages. If you knew the answer right away, you probably haven’t spent enough time with the problem or considered enough inputs. Hang in there. It’s all part of the process.
with 10 business days to deliver a polished pitch, and half of this time being spent by strategists coming up with the most lukewarm “insights”… hard to find time to turn every stone
You didn’t mention the absurdity of keeping the pitch team in a conference room into the wee hours the night before the meeting to endlessly practice, role play, tweak the deck, and eat crappy food. This way no one is rested, confident, or entirely sure what the final pitch is to be.
Yo. Thanks for bringing this up. It IS really shitty food all the fucking time.
Welcome to advertising?
Yes, please tell us where they know what they’re doing because the craziness everyone is confirming as “normal” is bat shit crazy.
The 11th hour CEO who changes his mind and wants the deck that took 6 weeks to be completely redone in a night
It's normal. Yeah, generally speaking, the "more important" a project is, the more of a cluster-F it becomes. Hang in there.
The craziness everyone is confirming as “normal” is bat shit crazy. Horrible way to pitch when it’s arguably the most important work to ensure a steady stream.
Someone has to lead the strategy, vision, and the execution part. Those 3 leads lay down the path forward for the creative team. What those 3 decide may be reviewed by an ECD, but the leads in those roles should own the pitch.
That’s how I’d run things. Anyone who wants to have a look, has an idea, those ideas will be considered, but the leads are in their role to decide with the ECD.
That should eliminate a ton of last minute, pivoting, redoing etc. complete nonsense to run any business, advertising or otherwise, without certain people in charge who have the skill, experience and talent to take the reins, and move the work forward. If they aren’t trusted to know their shit, why were they hired, why are they in those roles.
Too many cooks…we all know the saying, and for tight deadline pitch work, it’s especially important. And who will be at their best, and producing their best if the work is always at the precipice of being undone, redone, late night, putting your life on hold in other areas to make room for pitch insanity. Utter craziness!
Someone honestly should have the sense, wisdom, experience, and the guts, to stand up to leadership that’s untrusting, interfering and wreaking havoc with the pitch effort.
Creatives need to be allowed to do their job, that’s why they were hired, and what they should be entrusted to do. The strategist lead ensures checks along the way, so everything is on point.
Does this make sense, or am I missing something…oh wait, yeah…everyone not on the creative team wants to play Creative Director because creative work “looks fun” and everyone thinks their idea is great, especially if they’re in a position of power.
That’s exactly the point—there shouldn’t be last minute pivots because someone “important” had an epiphany.
There’s a misread in what briefs are supposed to do and how creatives accomplish their work. Because it’s “creative” work doesn’t mean you work as an artist does—take your work where inspiration strikes.
It’s far more intentional, and needs to be, to solve for marketing and business goals. It’s not about going with a feeling. It’s far more complex and measured and intuitive based on rationale than non creatives appreciate. It’s part business thinking, psychology, and abstract connecting of dots that gets completely effed with, watered down and muddled when outsiders not part of the process try to get involved late stage, adjust and tweak.
Not saying epiphanies don’t happen, but they need to spring from clarity of the goals, the audience and a deep understanding of all the nuances in the work.
Entirely normal. That’s what those places do.
100% normal
Happens at media agencies too. And combined teams. It shouldn’t be normal. Just trains people to wait for the swirl and then do whatever they are told to do instead of the right thing or working out the best solution.
Wait til the C-level strategist you’ve never seen before shows up the night before the presentation to leave heavy comments in the deck about how the platforms aren’t working
Wait until all the creative gets killed the night before the pitch
This is normal. 20 years in I still don't really understand this terrible terrible process
This can happen. Don’t let it. Someone has to own the deck. Like a master deck writer. To own the deck narrative, make the voice consistent and focus the vision. Otherwise it just becomes a messy presentation that lets all the work down.
Even ahead of agency leadership, I and/or a lead writer will take on this role. Whether anyone even asks. Deck writing is a skill and not everyone has it. But, boy, they really think they do 😅
at which agency do you work and can I join your team?
Yes. For decades it’s been this way. Enjoy!
Sounds about right.
In my experience this happens largely because very senior execs can’t justify actually doing advertising work at big network shops, except when a pitch is “off the rails”. So, every big pitch magically goes off the rails long enough for super senior people to spend 36 or 48 hours remembering what it was like to actually work in advertising, rather than being senior management at a company that makes ads.
I spent years trying to understand the mismanagement and why such a destructive process was standard before I realized: this is summer camp for them. When else does a CEO get to go deep into the creative weeds and come up with a new story of being “in the trenches”?
Well said.
Yes this is very normal at bad agencies (99% of all agencies) unfortunately.
What agency?
Sounds like pretty much every network agency from VML to Publicis.
As someone who works in business development, sadly this is normal. I’ve worked at a few different large hold cos and it’s the same across the board. We try to come up with ways to make the process smoother, but it’s extremely difficult. Especially dealing with the clients and sometimes their crazy timelines.