‘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.
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.
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.
@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
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.
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.
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
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”.
One the main reason’s people leave is because the industry is terrible at promoting internally or giving payrises.