My agency loves making teams compete internally for everything (not talking about Super Bowl briefs). Only one team ever gets its idea produced — and that’s rare. Meanwhile, creative directors still put everything in their portfolios.
I get that it’s how the place runs, but it’s tough putting in work that goes nowhere 99% of the time. It stings even more when leadership celebrates “our” wins and expects everyone to feel the family spirit 🤮
Is this normal? How do you deal with it?

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Tbh our job is to put in work that goes nowhere 99.9% of the time. I kinda like it when there is a very good brief and they open it up for all creatives. It makes me feel like I’m participating in student competitions again. A little bit of junior/amateur spirit. But obviously it’s a balance thing. You can’t do that all the time.

I do have to say though, that there should still be 1 team responsible for the project. If other teams don’t deliver (enough) ideas, they should take care of it.

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Just means you have creative leadership that has no clue what they want and you’ll probably eventually lose the account.

The client will find out every job has an endless amount of creative teams just burning cash for an output that probably isn’t worth it.

The market is obvs tough, but it you can get to a different agency or a different team where you’re at it’d probably be for the best

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What’s the alternative? Only one creative team works on a brief? And then they’re stuck with whatever they come up with.

Yea man.

#democracyatwork

This is more common than you think especially in larger agencies. I personally don’t like it and think it’s dumb, but it is what it is. I’ve worked in shops of all sizes and types and in my experience—the smaller shops, the more chance you have of owning and producing a project without having to compete with 6 other teams every single time.

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