If you have chosen a career in advertising, there are several career paths you can take to try and meet your personal and professional goals. Some like working for small shops, others prefer to work for a large agency that is most likely part of WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, or IPG or some other conglomerate. I don’t claim to have the perfect advertising career plan, but I do have a strong opinion that a healthy mix of Small + Big agency experience seems to produce the most talented people.
Far too many people that work in advertising have never worked for a small agency and I think that this is a HUGE mistake. Based on what I have encountered thus far in my advertising career, the majority of the people who have spent their entire career working for a big agency have a big case of tunnel vision with respect to their specific role….account management, project management, producer, etc. They were dropped into their respective silo their first day of work after college and never peered over their silo to truly understand what the other people on their team had to do in order to perform their duties. It makes for Account Managers that are professional email forwarders…..Project Managers & Producers that can’t see past the structure of their timeline….and Creatives that don’t understand that their creative baby is part of the comprehensive flow of business operations for the agency.
In short, people who have worked for a small agency at some point in their career are more talented because they are more well rounded.
I definitely did not start out after college with a well thought out career plan for making it in the interactive advertising industry. I think my plan was more like the mental version of a bar napkin sketch than a true career plan…a great idea that I was really passionate about but really had no clue how to go about achieving at the time.
Looking back, I am extremely lucky that I was a little clueless going in and started out working in small interactive shops over a big traditional agency setting. I had the opportunity to learn the ropes in a small startup-style environment where you had no choice but to wear many hats and even as a rookie you could witness the impact that your effort had on the bottom line (i.e. in a small shop that means making payroll every two weeks…no pressure). The experience taught me not only how to be an effective account manager, but I truly understood the role of a project manager, a producer, and even a copywriter when things were tight (…the hat list could include controller, human resources, and janitor among others). Having this level of understanding of the other roles has been extremely valuable in collaborating with and managing people in these roles.
To make it clear that I am not a crazy person, I know that there are scores of examples of people who never set foot in an agency with billings less than $10 Million per year and are total rock stars that do not fit the stereotype I have described in this post. I have worked with some of these stars at imc2 and work with some currently at The Martin Agency and they are truly great, but they are the exception to the basis of my argument.
I would advise anyone who is early in their advertising career to consider working at a small agency at least for a few years. You will be better off for it. You may even find that you enjoy small shops more, but even if you return to the land of big agency beauracracy you will be better off with the experience and your big agency will benefit from your rounded talents.
