The Rant: Keep Your Eyes On The Cheese

Volume 36 In a Series By Felix

Most of you should know the book Who Moved My Cheese? If you don’t, I’d suggest you get your hands on a copy. Because if you don’t know how to spot the warning signs of a failing agency or dead-end job, you could be eating that cheese for dinner every night.

As you know, advertising is a rollercoaster ride of a profession. One of the first industries to feel the brunt of an economic crisis is marketing and advertising. Those budgets are cut the second CEOs get wind of an economic downturn. When that happens, ad agencies feel the pinch and usually respond with layoffs, which results in the remaining employees working killer hours on whatever accounts remain.

In a poor economy, most clients don’t want to take risks (actually, most clients never want to take risks, but can be persuaded when times are good). When an agency starts pumping out “safe” work, they punish the clients and the creatives. Safe is boring. Boring is forgettable. And forgettable is not a word you ever want to throw out when you’re selling something.

The decline in the headcount, the lowering standards of the work and the diminishing number of good clients leads to the agency reputation taking a beating. From there, it’s a vicious circle. More decent clients leave, more rotten ones replace them. Good people leave, bad people replace them, work sucks, and before you know it you’re dead in the water.

This may not be exactly how it happened at Thomas & Perkins or McClain Finlon, but I bet it’s not too far from reality. Some people in those agencies will have spotted the warning signs early enough. Others, well they had their heads buried in the sand and assured themselves that a rebound was not far away. Most of those people lost their jobs.

That’s one side of the story. But, there are others.

Sometimes it’s not the economy you have to look out for but the internal structure of the agency. A shift in management can bring with it a shift in culture and creativity. The incoming creative director may have been hired to push an agenda other than great work. The new CEO or CD may not even understand great work, he or she may simply be a bean counter looking for a fat bonus and a promotion.

When this happens, the fallout is quick to follow. Good clients don’t like the new style of work and put the account into review. Your agency loses the pitch, and so, desperate to replace the lost revenue, they replace a good client with a bad one; a client more in line with the new philosophy of money, not magic. From there, the agency goes into a tailspin that is almost impossible to climb out of.

And then, there are cheese shifts localized to your own personal situation. The company is doing fine, more or less, but suddenly your job seems to get worse with every passing week. You’re no longer part of conversations that you used to be a part of. You’re put on jobs that suck balls. You notice people awkwardly stop conversations when you show up (I did a quick Google search and found 20 great examples of these warning signs here).

Basically, you’re an outcast in a place that used to consider you a rock star. This could happen for any number of reasons, the most obvious being a personal conflict with someone who can make your working life hell. You may have been a little too honest, or worse still, undermined the authority of someone who is vindictive to the core.

However it happened, you’ll be marginalized and swept aside until you’re “let go” or you leave to find a new job. The latter is always good news for the agency, they don’t have to worry about severance packages or reprisals.

In any of these situations outlined above, you can be a victim who is blindsided by the news that your job is about to be toast. Or, you can spot the warning signs early and do what you have to do – get the fuck out.

Keep your eyes peeled, your ears open and never, ever sweep any significant changes in your environment under the rug. Bottom line, if you start feeling uneasy and your gut tells you something isn’t kosher, you’re probably right. When you get that feeling, act upon it. You should always have the latest, greatest work in your portfolio. And have a website as well as a physical book, in this day and age only dinosaurs stay away from the internet.

Maintain good relationships with former and future employers. Check out the job boards daily. Go for book crits with local agencies. Even if you know they’re not hiring, getting your face seen is vital. Do more freelance work in your spare time, this can help you build relationships, too. And a little pro-bono work can grease the wheels. In short, be as prepared as you can possibly be so that you can leave on your terms, rather than weeping into your box of old office crap as security guards escort you to the door.

You work in an industry that grows and shrinks at the first sign of economic turmoil. You also happen to be surrounded by a lot of cutthroat bastards who’ll sell their own grandmother to make a buck. Keep your eyes on the cheese and watch your back. If you don’t, you could find a knife in it.