... or what advertising agencies need to do to recruit and retain top talent.
Below is absolutely nothing new. New is hard. These are just some recycled thoughts to help me figure out a few things.
I play at an
art school in San Francisco, preparing people to become "Creative Strategists." Historically, the program is designed to place graduates in advertising agencies - but they want to go to these shops for employment less and less. Our geographic location means that we are surrounded by many companies doing many interesting things. Students are starting to wander.
Now I've worked in 7 advertising agencies in my career. I loved working in every one of them. I hated working in every one of them. (Thank you Mr. Dickens.) Below are the reasons I've collected that people hesitate to work in advertising agencies anymore (newbies to exhausted vets.)
1.
Timesheets - Wow, do the people who work in the industry hate these things. When people move from a timesheet situation to a non-timesheet situation, it seems to be akin to taking the doughnut off the bat or when
Rock Lee takes the weights off his body (obligatory baseball and comic book reference, check.) I understand how "essential" they are, just like media commissions used to be. Essential factors of the past are what drives down innovation of the future. I don't have the solution. I am just saying that in the world of "Time as currency," time-tracking time is a ridiculous, tedious waste. Also, the very act commoditizes someone's skills, talents and value, as well as biases our client-recommendations.
2.
Completion - In my anecdotal assessment, this reason is the top one given for the talent-suck from advertising agencies. Too often working in an agency means you are not going to see your hard work reach the light of day. I once worked about 75% of my time for about 4 months on a project that was nixed due to "distribution inefficiencies." We are trained in our broken education system to think Failure is the worst thing in the world. Obviously, we all grow up learning that is not the case. Failure = learning. What is most difficult is not seeing if your idea could actually do anything including failing, the device essential to growth. Advertising agency employees get tired of not seeing their ideas even planted, so they go off to the glorious pastures of failure. (This story is best expressed in the well-know story of Eric Ryan getting sick of Big Soap following an old road, so he starts Method.)
These last three I am going to steal from Daniel Pink's book on motivation,
Drive. I loved reading this book.
3.
Autonomy - I have had the great pleasure of "building an academic program" over the past several years. One of the things I love about the Academy of Art University as an employer is the immense autonomy they have given me. Now, I haven't been given a ton of resources, but I would easily choose scrappy autonomy over decision-by-committee resources. Advertising agencies are client-service driven, so autonomy is not high on the list of offerings. As mentioned in the previous factor, decisions are often beyond one's control. I understand these are inherent in the nature of the current advertising agency model, so what can agencies do? Can they offer opportunities for control? Just because it isn't baked into the model, doesn't mean it should be abandoned.
4.
Mastery - Wouldn't you like to apply grit and enter a state of flow towards improving on something that matters? Of course, this reason is the vision why many of my students enter graduate school; the brave ones fulfill it, the lazy ones go into debt. Advertising as an industry attracts the "easily-distracted professionally," the people who love to have their hands in everything. I often tell a story at my first agency where I spent the morning on a call with France about a B2B print ad, then moved to a studio for a radio recording on a retail store, then back to the agency for a website wireframe on a global brand, finally finishing the day at a film studio discussing production on a pizza tv commercial. It was such a great day, my scattered brain was quite fulfilled. To be honest, I think the "sink or swim" style of agencies often (not always, but often) lead to great mastery. But everyone does a shit job of recognizing it, both employee and employer. You know who best recognizes "mastery?" - ANOTHER employer, which is why the industry is filled with people hopping around from shop to shop.
5.
Purpose - Yes, the topic du jour (or hopefully generation into infinitude.) I am not going to write yet again on the very important need to tie commerce and those involved in it to something Larger. We know people, and especially recent generations are fueled by "doing good." Also, I get a bit tired of people who chose an advertising career and then complain about being a part of the marketing process - what did you think you were getting into, exactly? However, there is a big miss. I ask many people at the foot of the mountain, "Why do you want to go into advertising?" There is always the topline, almost without thought answer of "I like business and creativity - and this is where the two meet.*" I often bypass that answer, the answer of the "undecided." Many light up on one answer, it comes down to "People fascinate me." Unfortunately, once you get into an advertising agency you find yourself thinking more about companies than people (and No, they are not the same.) Ironically, the focus on the company comes from an emphasis on the "brand." But brands don't exist. I've been in several marketing departments and advertising agencies - I always look behind the doors and in the closets and I have never seen a "brand." Brands are what people think and feel. Brands are inside people. Therefore, our focus on brands should be on people. It is shocking how little the study of people, their behavior, their interactions, their culture happen inside many advertising agencies, because it is often the initial spark that starts people down the path to working at the agencies.
Solution?
Ahhh blogging, a place to point out problems, but offer very little in the terms of solutions. Well, I do have a possibility. Again, not original, but worthy of reiterating. FIGURE OUT HOW TO ESTABLISH CULTURE WORKSHOPS WITHIN THE AGENCY STRUCTURE. I'm not talking about the awesomenss of labs being developed by every technology and creativity-based company. I am talking about simple co-op workshops that are a part of the process, rather than separate entities. Places where all people (because the silos in an agency could be reason #6) can start autonomous projects around people and culture that they take to completion and continue towards mastery. Build games for each other. Make maps. Design experiences. (This possibly means sacrificing alcohol-fueled get-togethers, as well as lectures and performances from outside others. But, I always saw those as distractions to the weaknesses of the business, rather than authentically building on the strengths.)
Oh and get rid of timesheets.
Let me again say, I have loved working inside of agencies. The people, the immediate opportunities, the focus on sharing ideas: what a great place to be. I hope they continue to thrive. But, I worry about them falling into the trap of copying the past.
By the way, I am starting a culture workshop at the school this summer. Come by and say hello. And please give me advice. I'm looking to fail like crazy. And I'm kind of an idiot.
* Yes I just foot-noted my blog! This makes me think of
a great story from Nicholas Negroponte: "When I was about 17 years old, I did very well in school in art classes.
And I was determined I was going to grow up to be a sculptor. But I
also did very well in math and as a consequence, I was kinda torn. In
fact, when it came time to sort of make the decisions to where I was
going to go to college and so on, I went to the principal. And this was a
small private school so you had access to the principal and I went to
the principal and I said, 'You know, I really do very well in art and I
do very well in math, so I think the right thing for me to do is to go
and study architecture.' And--which is in fact what I ended up
doing--but he looked at me and said, 'You know, I like gray suits and I
like pinstriped suits, but I really hate gray pinstriped suits.' And it
took me about ten years to figure out what he was talking about. And I
decided not to be a practicing architect and that, in fact, computers
for me are sort of the gray suit and stripped suit mixed as I would like
them I guess."
