Going client-side is no longer the soft option
Koala creative director Charlie Gearside argues the case for going client-side, and addresses the stigma around what is often considered the easy route.
Going client-side used to be like leaving the National Rugby League, and signing a contract with French Rugby Union.
You’d choose the money over environment, and go somewhere where the pace is slower and the competition for a starting position a little less cutthroat.
In short, there was a stigma you’d chosen the soft option, and that you’d get handed the same brief over and over and over.
Client-side has never been the softer option.
Working at a startup \ scaleup like Koala isn’t ‘client side’ in the traditional sense. Going to a Nestle, Toyota or Telstra is, I think, what’s typically been considered the ‘I’m out’ move.
This is a poor comparison between a challenger business where accountability is palpable, and located at the edge of execution vs a multinational corporate enterprise where accountability is murky, which is the unspoken of but real reason people often make the move.
PS – love my Koala mattress, keep doing what you’re doing!
Spot on @This isn’t client side……….
I also love my mattress 😀 . (I ordered it and it took 4 hrs to arrive…)
Having worked both sides of the fence I respectfully disagree with any notion that client side is easier. Agencies are almost always on project work, a small sliver of what it is like to run a business and subsequently have little / no exposure or experience to the full operational beast that is an operating business. We have tried bringing on agency staff in house and they really struggle with the complexity and pressure of working in a fully fledged operational, some get there in the end but most really fail to balance all the competing demands.
I’m not trying to make the argument that client side is easier.
Instead, that there is a perception that it’s easier inside agencies – based on less frantic pace, more manageable work hours etc.
Agree 100% that you get exposed to budgets / kpis etc in a business (something you hardly feel agency side).
Biggest shift for me moving client-side: you work tirelessly to impress the user/customer, not the client. My employer dies if the customer doesn’t love the stuff I create.