I’ll be Your Mirror (or What you Should Know if you’re Thinking About Joining an Agency)

Back in April I pressed send on the tweet above. The responses showed what a generous place Twitter generally, and marketing’s corner of Twitter specifically, can be.

I received more than 70 replies from people all over the world sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of agency life, and what might befall said marketing director were he to make the leap.

Figuring that the advice would be helpful for anyone thinking about joining and agency for the first time, or moving agency mind-career, I’ve summarised it below.

To note, this is just the advice from people who replied to my tweet publicly. Many more were kind enough to send me direct messages, but I have kept those private.

Some context to start; where was I coming from with my question? Well, I have three types of experience with agencies.

First, as an in-house marketer I’ve instructed and worked with my fair share. This has ranged from agencies working on large branding and positioning projects, through discreet campaigns, to retainers with PR agencies and niche online marketing specialists.

Some of these involved working hand-in-hand over many months and spending time in the agency’s office; others were hands-off affairs, speaking less frequently on scheduled catch-up calls or in the event of something untoward occurring.

Second, in-between marketing director jobs I spent five years consulting with professional services firms under the banner of Thirteen. A lot of this was working flying solo on positioning and messaging projects. For bigger work I had a network of creatives, web developers, copywriters, client experience experts and other I could call on, and we would work as what I called a “virtual agency”.

Last, while working as Thirteen I did the odd bit of freelance work with some small agencies. Nothing major, but enough to get a little glimpse behind the curtain.

And what was my view of the agency landscape? Looking out from my marketing director window, this is what I saw:

Advertising agencies: Do advertising. Kind of obvious really.

Creative agencies: Like advertising agencies, but the good ones will also help with your segmentation, targeting and positioning to create an overall brand strategy. The bad ones will just give you a new logo and colour palette without reference to any strategic thinking.

Branding agencies: Creative agencies who don’t do advertising. Good and bad apply as above.

Marketing agencies: Rare beasts. Some focus purely on Promotion (all of it, not just advertising), but others look across the other Ps as well — these are like gold dust and to be guarded jealously if you come across one in the wild.

PR agencies. Do PR. Again, kind of obvious. But increasingly they seem to be broadening into SEO, social media and ‘content’ (whatever that means).

Then there are a whole host of specialist agencies, typically in online areas like video, PPC, SEO and social media. If they do more than one of them they’ll probably call themselves a digital marketing agency. And if they’re really fancy, a performance marketing agency.

I’m fully expecting people working in any of the types of agency above (and others I’ve missed) will tell me this is wrong; I’m not suggesting it’s right, it’s just how I perceived agency world from the vantage point of my in-house ivory tower.

A slight tangent:

I have a theory that all agencies have a natural comfort zone that sits at a certain point on what I call the Creativity Index.

Imagine a CredEx Scale (I just came up with that name) of 1–100, where 1 is taking what you already have and making it a bit prettier and 100 is turning the world upside down, inside out and back to front in a way you never imagined possible.

In whatever their field is, all agencies will naturally default to a certain position on that scale. The challenge for the in-house marketer is to coordinate the culture of the business and nature of the problem with the agency sweet spot.

This is harder than it sounds. Taking an agency who naturally sits at 15 on the CredEx Scale and trying to push them up to 40 will be infuriating for everyone involved. Equally, taking an agency who defaults to 90 and trying to pull them back to 65 will be almost impossible.

It’s not to say that one’s right and one’s wrong. Sometimes you do just want to tart something up; on other occasions you want revolution.

But anyway, that’s a story for another day.

So why did I think I might be a good fit for an agency?

Some aspects of agency life I thought I would enjoy:

1. Surrounding myself with creative people who are energised by having ideas. I’ve always enjoyed working with the agencies I’ve instructed and found their energy infectious.
2. Being part of a team who are all committed to coming up with the best solution for the client’s problem; I love being in a gang (which is what I really played sport for when I was younger, rather than the sporting activity itself).
3. The opportunity to think for a living. I’m one of those people who believe there’s no problem I can’t solve if I can only think about it hard enough and long enough. Throw in a pretty framework or neat model and we’re scoring very highly on the official Grunnellometer.
4. The opportunity to major in the bits of marketing I enjoy the most, which is the diagnosis and strategy, with a team around me to then collaborate on the tactical execution.
5. Variety. Not just in terms of the brands you work on, but also in terms of how you spend your time — pitching, client meetings, internal collaboration, deep solo thinking etc. (I suspect this is a bit of a “grass is always greener” fallacy from getting so deep into one brand when you’re in-house).
6. Perhaps sacrilege to say, but career progression and the exit route. I thought that combining my marketing director experience with a good stint agency-side would give me an attractive portfolio of skills and experience when I eventually looked to return in-house.

Was I looking at things through rose-tinted glasses? Probably. Did I really want to work at Sterling Cooper in the 60s, or in advertising in Soho in the 80s? Again, quite probably. Am I having a mid-life crisis? I’d rather not answer that right now.

But enough of that, let’s get onto the good stuff.

What are the bad things about working in an agency according to Twitter?

A lot of the warnings were, unsurprisingly, to do with age, in particular:

1. People over 35 are seen as expensive, opinionated and not keen on working the hours required.
2. I’d probably be seen as overqualified but, at the same time, my skills and knowledge would be undervalued and considered out-of-date.
3. I probably wouldn’t be able to use all of the experience that I’ve built up over the last 20 years.
4. I’d have to accept lower pay and growth potential.
5. While most people my age are typically looking for more free time and flexibility, agency life is demanding with less job security.
6. Not strictly an age point, but to do with the seniority and authority I have as the marketing director, how would I feel about having less decision-making power?

The other criticisms of the agency world centred mainly on the inefficiency, processes and misaligned goals, such as:

1. Unrealistic deadlines.
2. Giving way great ideas in pitches.
3. Seeing great work being watered down by the client.
4. Delivering to budgets and deadlines rather than results.
5. Agencies caring more about time, efficiency and trying to get approval as quickly as possibly, than about the quality of the work.
6. Lots of bureaucracy and meetings about meetings.

Thankfully, there do seem to be some upsides to working in an agency. This is what Twitter said they are:

1. A constant feeling of freedom, exhilaration, creativity and variety.
2. The joy in being part of a team that’s part of the solution.
3. Not having to worry about politics and boardroom games.
4. Focusing on what you should be doing in marketing — coming up work that works.
5. Creating great work that you can hang your hat on.

And what does a ‘good’ agency look like? This was the part of the conversation that I wasn’t expecting, but perhaps found most insightful.

According to those in the know, these are the characteristics you should be looking out for in an agency:

1. High revenue per head.
2. Good commercial skills, particularly in areas like pricing, selling and negotiation.
3. Investment in effectiveness, with plenty of learning and development, professional training, courses and qualifications.
4. A diversified base of strong and established clients.
5. A differentiated offering.
6. A leadership team who are committed to the long-term and not looking to sell in the immediate future.
7. A proper HR function who invests in recruiting, retaining and developing their people.
8. Willing to walk away from mediocre clients and people.

So putting all of that together, what should you do if you’re thinking about joining an agency?

It’s taken me a while to get there, but this is the advice that I think is relevant to everyone, not just a marketing director trying to have his cake and it:

1. Decide if you want to do good work or big work; this will steer you between an independent agency or one that’s part of a network.
2. Be clear about what you’re into. What projects make you lose track of time? What portfolio of challenges (as opposed to brands) make you jealous? Then find the agency that best matches that.
3. Meet lots of different agencies and interrogate them (see below).
4. Check out the agency’s client base, portfolio of work, and speak with as many ex-employees as you can find.
5. Find out about staff and client turnover — the lower the better.
6. Try to understand if the agency values critical thinking. Does it make time for difficult but necessary conversations, both internally and with clients.

Thank you again to everyone who shared their thoughts. Twitter (rightly in lots of cases) gets a lot of flack, but this has shown what a positive force it can be. Hopefully writing everything up in one place will benefit anyone job hunting in agency land.