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Im pretty sure that ACD and CDs are overworked too. Plus they can actually deliver work and keep clients happy. Juniors are definitely under paid, but you being less to the table than you think.
A lot of the answers here are true, but they really don’t hit on the real reason for this disparity. It’s because the agency model is built around the idea of making money on the backs of cheap labor. Let’s say I own an ad agency. If I have five art directors and five copywriters and they all make $85,000 ($850,000 in total) a year and they all produce 1,680 billable hours a year, and I bill them at $125 an hour, they are all costing me a tad over $50 an hour but they are netting me $75 an hour (I’m leaving out overhead costs for simplicity sake, but you get the idea.) $75 x 1,680 x 10 =$1,260,000.00. Nice haul. And my clients will happily pay that $125 an hour for a junior to do most of the heavy lifting. The dirty little secret is you can’t mark up a seasoned creative person at the same rate as a junior person. Someone who is costing me $250,000 a year usually has fewer true billable hours (let’s say 1200 a year) Because they do more than just client work, has to be billed out at $208/hour just to cover their salary and benefits. Let’s say those people are marked up to bill out at $275 an hour. Clients don’t really love paying that hourly rate. And as you can see, those bodies are only netting me $67 an hour — and they work fewer hours. For me, the agency owner, to make the same money as I make with those five junior art directors, and five junior copywriters, I would need 15.5 senior people. That’s a salary cost of 3,850,000! (Note: $3 million more than my 10 junior people.) There’s no way in hell I’m trying to make that payroll every month. My standard agency model has a vested interest in keeping your junior salaries low because — ready? — the lower they are, the more money I make. This is almost the very definition of a Ponzi scheme. Have I blown your mind yet?
THIS!!! It also explains why agencies drag heels in promoting junior staff as long as possible, even if they're already performing at the next level. The higher they get, the lower the profit margin-- and why pay someone more when they're willing to grind at the junior level? It's incredibly disheartening to see junior staffers not rewarded for their effort and growth.
An ACD or CD could see a big project through from start to finish — including concepting, presenting and selling, shooting, and finishing — all by themselves without any handholding or oversight. They can also guide other people’s ideas and help make them stronger and/or strategically sound. They can also be counted on to deliver when the clients are getting impatient and the clock is ticking.
That aside, the pay disparity isn’t very big in advertising. Look at finance and law. Way larger gap. 150k disparity is practically sofa cushion money.
$200K in JOURNALISM?! Unless you're a columnist at a top magazine...u can FORGET that figure!
This was something I wondered as well when I graduated 10+ years ago. A lot of my friends in other professional industries started at 80K+ but salaries didn't bump up much over the years from them. I started out a 35K but drastically say my salary increase.
I'd personally prefer something a bit more evened out since those first few years were really hard. With the hours I was putting in, I honestly thought at times it'd be better to work a minimum wage job.
As SC1 pointed out, it's really on current industry leaders to make a change.
Sounds like most industries (sad)
Companies value experience.
Companies value money. The less they have to pay for their talent, the better for them. There is always someone willing to work for less to get their foot in the door and companies love taking advantage of that. I've seen senior-level jobs posted at a fraction of what they should be paid and still get hundreds of applicants. Heck, I saw an engineering job posted recently that required a degree and 2 years of experience that paid a mere $20 an hour. It's nuts out there. Millions of people are out of work and desperate.
Two words: industry norms. It takes a revolution for such things to change, and I don't see one coming.