Ever tried to remember why you got into this industry?
This video may help.
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I have worked client side (7yrs), agency side – account director, media planning and buying, and agency management (total – 5yrs) and worse still, I did an apprenticeship selling ad space for Packer and Murdoch (7yrs). And every word spoken on the video was true. The lesson is, in life and no more or less in advertising, don’t value yourself or your talents by the way people treat you. Stand up for yourself, be counted, be constructive, be honest, fight for these beliefs and you’ll be just fine…just like all the megalomaniacs in advertising.
But if you are looking for some scale to work through the hierarchy of advertising pain, my opinion and experience suggests this….
1. If you work in “media sales” = Suck up to your sales manager, suck up to the editorial team, suck up to production, suck up to agency media people, suck up to the account service people, suck up to the clients marketing co-ordinator all the way to the marketing director. And step one foot wrong – not achieve budgets, say the wrong thing, miss one detail and everyone in the hierarchy you suck up to thinks your shit. (Actually they generally think your shit before you stuff up). Note – you don’t suck up to creative directors, even though you and they have a lot in common. You both have one thing to sell. Although -at least the creative director owns the idea that they are selling, the sales person may not even like the media they are selling…
2. Work in the agency – whatever the role – you have management, internal stakeholders and some have clients to manage. But….you can walk all over the sales people – and that makes you feel good….”now wheres my ticket to the grandfinal box….WTF , no money for you next year.”
3. Work for the client – And you thought they were useless, because they couldn’t make a decision. Well, of course they can’t. They have management to worry about, and a complicated mix of agencies, sales people, editors, PR to manage. All on a shit budget, that needs to drive unrealistic sales targets for a product that has no competitive advantage. Oh….they can make decisions, but why…if you do you risk being associated with the result. So instead you realise you have no power to decide anything, and spend your days focused, with as much energy as the aforementioned industry colleagues, on playing corporate politics – just sucking up to more people internally! And walking allover the external service providers.
4. Finally, accounts and HR and tech support…well I never worked there…it must be shit. No-one gives a shit about profits, and even less about people. It’s about me, and the awards I win !!! ….”now, where to get a new trophy cabinet?”
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Boo flaming hoo!
You know what’s ironic about this?
People in advertising whinge and whine and protest about how shit their lives are, and then use their advertising skills to advertise how shit working in advertising is – when most have big heads about their chosen career path, and secretly I suspect most secretly love it in a masochistic sort of way.
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brilliant…….leave marketing/adv. now. try a 3rd world country and help the poor. or become a helper at a refuge for the homeless here. within weeks you may begin to re-examine your values. stay where you are and you are not just unhappy, you are a masochist looking for more things to complain about. in other words: “get a life”.
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Most people everywhere in every industry complain about their jobs.
Advertising is no different, they just have the tools available to them to bitch in a very public forum in this instance.
I quite like Brillant’s summary.. I know the feeling. I’m in-house now, after working in the agency world and as a BDM for a few different websites… but the fact remains that “work” is what you make it. You can kiss ass as much as you want, but if there is no skill to back to up, there is no point. And if there IS skill, you shouldn’t need to pucker up.
If you hate it so much, then get out of the game, or find a niche that you love. Plain and simple.
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To quote Mad Men “This industry is full of sadists and masochists. You know which one you are”.
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Clare …what a great quote!
Jess…thanks, you read it for what it was…a summary.
Jim…I think, not sure, that maybe you mist-took my summary to be a ‘chip on my shoulder’. Quite the opposite. I am a happy, father of two, managing director or my own company helping people, in a business making lots of money, but loving the decision making and culture creating – I believe in. I live overseas in South east asia, exposed every day to the ridiculous wealth and poverty of a developing nation. My wife and i sponsor two children and their families in India…so thanks for your suggestion…but I’m ok thanks anyway.
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When I grow up I want to have worked for years and years in lot of great agencies doing great campaigns only to find that I had a use-by date stamped on my forehead years ago. When I grow up I want to find that all that experience I worked so hard to get would be the very thing that ended up stopping me get a job. When I grow up I want to be told that I am far too experienced for the role. When I grow up I want to find myself very unemployed in my forties and broke and have people tell me that with such great experience I should open my own agency. When I grow up I want to be told that “this is a young and funky agency and I just don’t think you’d fit in”. When I grow up I want to be looked down upon by young a young AE who will find themselves in exactly the same position as me…and probably sooner than I did. When I grow up I want to work in an industry that trashes all its senior people and offers no mentoring system to younger employees who have no real career path. When I grow up I want to be as shallow as a car park puddle so I can get a job in advertising.
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I have watched many over ambitious ‘ass kissers’ in my 2 decades in sales. It might get them somewhere initially, however they often get sniffed out and spat out. be true to yourself, honest, be noisy and if you want to do something – do it! You will be fine. Cream always rises to the top in the end!
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Yeah, a lot of that video is true. I keep working in advertising cause i get to work with clever people everyday. People who make me laugh and people who work really hard for very little thanks. We get paid more than most professions and we get to have fun. We get to shoot in amazing locations, meet interesting people and can wear thongs to work. Id take that along with the long hours and stressful situations over working in a dull accountancy firm where you have to bring in your own tea and biccies any day of the week.
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is this group therapy? and really, mist-took?
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