Insights

For years, people have made sweeping declarations that the holding companies are over. Well, the holding companies aren’t going anywhere, but their role in the broader industry has certainly evolved. In 2014, Adweek questioned whether independent agencies could thrive in what it dubbed “the merger era,” a period of acquisition after acquisition that became a major marker of adland in the 2010s. The piece noted: “In 2013, the big six holding companies tallied 116 agency transactions—an average of about two per week.” Now, this trend has slowed as independent agencies assert their sustained value in the marketing ecosystem. Independents had a strong…

The future of work continues to evolve as the pandemic sprints into its third calendar year, keeping people and organizations in flux. Covid-19 brought many major shifts in our day-to-day work and turned the practice of recruiting talent completely on its head. In 2021, we saw many people changing jobs, but these changes were all done remotely, often with the understanding that as things improved, folks would relocate. Only, they didn’t. And as the year wore on, companies relied on hard dates for the return to the office. We are now in a much different situation as candidates are either…

The Pressure is on for HR and Recruiters, as Agencies Race to the Bottom Line After a turbulent year of layoffs, turnover, and assorted HR complexities, advertising agencies that had healthy fiscal years have relaxed their grip and started hiring at pre-2020 levels. Staff that had been operating with skeleton teams have been able to expand. Many of us in the advertising industry are stretched thin, but as business continues to pick up, demands on internal recruitment teams, in particular, are increasing. Internal recruitment specialists are suddenly handling searches across a wide spectrum – from freelancers to full-time staffers, creative…

Recruitment Strategy Isn’t About Hiring for Reputation But Building an Organization Where Talent Can Thrive For the past twenty years, the New England Patriots have been a dominant franchise in the NFL. That’s with or without Tom Brady — though mostly with. Because of the impressive legacy and win record, struggling NFL teams have repeatedly hired Patriots assistant coaches, under the assumption that they might bring the magic and success to their own organization. Unfortunately, the results have been almost universally underwhelming. Advertising agencies are often guilty of this same approach: hiring stars from another agency and hoping for a…

Coaching as a Tool for Better Career Development The advertising industry has long had a reputation for not investing and developing their employees leadership and management skills. In an industry that requires demanding client workloads and long hours, the quick fix has typically been for companies to place their focus on culture as a one-size-fits-all solution. Too often companies pluck creative superstars from one organization and expect them to reproduce the magic in a completely different environment. Many struggle going from their comfortable creative roles to being catapulted into a new job with new teams, sometimes as a promised savior…