‘A vicious cycle of burnout’: Constant pitching blamed as media agency churn hits 34.5%
The chairman of the Media Federation of Australia Peter Horgan has blamed the huge rise in pitches in the last year for media agency staff churn rate rapidly approaching the 35% mark.
Horgan: blamed the surge in industry churn on a ‘merry go round’ of new pitches.
New data published by the media industry body shows staff turnover across the industry is now at 34.5%. The MFA says “regrettable loss” is at 31% and “non-regrettable loss” at 3.5%.
In a statement, MFA chair and CEO of OMD Peter Horgan said: “While our industry is managing a period of unprecedented change, the increase in the number of good people leaving permanently is a cause for concern. In this environment, you adapt or perish, but non stop pitching as a perceived solution to trust issues exacerbates the problem.
“A merry go round of pitch promises and the extra workload, and the resource allocation away from solving client problems is a vicious cycle of burnout and under delivery. It’s an industry wide problem and one that we need to address collectively.”
Last year saw a spate of global media pitches – dubbed “mediapalooza” – with a number of local agencies forced to step up and defend global accounts locally.
Regrettable loss, defined as staff moving to a competitor media agency, rose from 26.8% last year to 31% this year.
Non-regrettable loss, people choosing to leave the industry altogether, fell marginally from 4.9% to 3.5%.
Industry churn in media agencies is closely watched with many marketers complaining about the high turnover of often young staff working on their accounts.
The MFA census study also noted that media agencies are continuing to transform, offering clients a growing portfolio of services, with 35% of MFA members servicing non-traditional areas such as digital, creative services and analytics. However, it noted that digital is now becoming the norm and rather than a separate, specialised area.
The census also highlighted continued positive growth in the number of women in management roles, up to 42% in the media agency industry.
It also said the media agency industry population grew 5.8%, which represents an 86% increase over the last five years. Growth is across both traditional (up 4.9%) and non-traditional (up 7.4%) sectors.
“It’s pleasing to report the continued growth of our industry population, and to see it continue to evolve and diversify,” says Sophie Madden, CEO of the MFA. “Today’s media agency industry is about so much more than just buying and planning. However the census also highlights the challenge our members face in people management; recruiting, training and retaining talent to keep pace with this growth.”
The findings come on the same day that PwC published a report, which highlighted the lack of diversity across the broader media industry.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly put the churn rate at 40.4% the correct rate is 34.5%.
High amount of pitches is the thin end of this problem. In general, only a small amount of people in any given agency are involved with pitches, and they are generally the senior leadership team. The huge bulk of this churn is assistants/execs/managers, and while a busy leadership team has a trickle down effect on them, it is minor compared to the myriad issues the average media agency staffer goes through daily.
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As someone who left the media agency land due to burn out, I can tell you it had little to do with the number of pitches. At an exec/manager level, you have nothing to do with pitches except for maybe running a few numbers here and there for people higher up. The churn is from the day-to-day, and the fact that getting a deserving pay rise is generally an impossible feat. The only way you get anywhere is by agency hopping.
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@monkey – agree with your point re pitch specific workload, but what mfa seems to be talking about is the extra workload as a result of winning pitch promises once appointed. That does add load to the agency and this hits across the board, often with no additional fte
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It’s the same in PR. Agencies, big and small, are always pushing their staff to win more business, to the extent that whether they win it or not, the time spent trying majorly affects existing clients. I don’t know how many companies realise they’d be getting a much better deal from their PR agency if it wasn’t constantly chasing new business, but it seems to be the way of the world now. If senior management can’t show how much they grew the business, rather than maintained a good and stable business, they either get sacked or, at the very least, don’t get their bonus. It’s sad, because the work suffers and the clients suffer… and they’re the ones funding all of this folly. Quite bizarre, really.
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The median age is under 30, i.e. half the industry in their 20s – a whopping stat and doesn’t sell the longevity message.
Let’s face it, a career in media has a horizon of roughly 10-15 years if you’re lucky to make it that far. Once you’re in your mid to late 30s it’s game over unless you schmoozed to the big wigs and landed a cushy exec role. For the other 98% past the age of 35, they leave the industry entirely and become the forgotten folk.
A career in media is therefore a contradiction in terms. All media agencies are good for are hiring cheap 20 somethings to devise (or cut and paste) elaborate strategies for channeling client money into profitable channels for themselves, thereby screwing clients over.
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Can someone give media commentator a hug please?! Sounds to me like someone is a bit butthurt for not making good career decisions, nothing is guaranteed mate no one owes you a career
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Chill Dr Phil. I have seen really good people stooged out of a career in media for no fault of their own.
@Real, fair call. A wise man in an agency (who was over fifty!) once said “We’ve hunted and killed the elephant, but don’t have enough people to bring it back to the village”.
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One the main reason’s people leave is because the industry is terrible at promoting internally or giving payrises.
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