Unskilled managers contributing to the lack of diversity in the ad industry argues Paul Fishlock
One of the founders of BMF Paul Fishlock, has argued “training has left agency land” which has resulted in completely unqualified people being left in charge of hiring, contributing to the lack of diversity in the industry.
Speaking on the Question Time panel at the Secrets of Agency Excellence conference the Behaviour Change Partners principal said: “Creative people in particular, if you’re really good at coming up with ideas and making ads maybe you’ll get the tap on the shoulder that says ‘congratulations, you’re now a creative director’ and suddenly you’re in a management role and running a department.
“People who’s only skill, and a very good and valuable skill is coming up with campaign ideas, find themselves running departments and looking at resource utilisation spreadsheets and they’re fucking useless at it.
‘Put the fucking thing back together again.’ Sean did. And look how he’s winning.
I like this Virgin CMO. No nonsense, get in there attitude is bloody rare at that level
Paul hit it on the head.
As an industry we’ve been piss poor at training – and especially mentoring – creatives since the early 90’s when creative and media first went their separate ways.
Jon also hit it on the head.
It wasn’t a client want that caused the split, it was a grab for cash post the early 90’s recession by Finance. And with it went virtually an entire layer of the most senior creatives and mentors (the biggest salaries), pushing everyone in the creative departments up a level without have=ing the experience or mentors to deal with it.
It’s way past time to put the fucking thing back together again!!
Promotion beyond ability is a real issue. I met with an agency recently with a very bright young guy who was in client service for a total of 5 years. To retain him they wanted to promote him to GM. The management team had Creative and Adtech backgrounds and were struggling to draw up the job spec of a GM simply from lack of knowledge.
After a chat with the potential GM I found he was very uncomfortable with the expectations that were attached to the title because he simply did not have the business knowledge that clients would reasonably expect from him.
With so many being promoted so early, agencies fail to build a depth of knowledge and experience into teams. The outcome is they have less to offer clients. There are few mentors to guide, train, pull back and push when needed as most of the solid experience has been pushed out of agencies.
One marketer recently described their agency to me as “a bunch of kids playing with their new toys and throwing the occasional tantrum when they didn’t get their way”. And all the spats over diversity haven’t done agencies any favours as they fail to address the elephant in the room with clients.
Clients have very right to expect a range and depth of experience from their agencies. Please don’t bitch about how agencies teams have been cut back because of budgets. Stripping back agency structures to offer even less is not a sustainable solution and is a race to the bottom.
It’s just an excuse for failing to adapt and reconfigure agencies to offer value to clients. Clients will pay for added value but will not pay for delivering less. It simply makes business sense!
‘Put the thing back together again’ is not as simple as that.
In ye olden times agencies gave creative away for free and made their 15% commission.Can’t see that coming back any time soon.
The point of breaking up was to get paid for ideas (Gossage, Bernbach et al)
Whatever success agencies who are doing both are having is because they have come up with a better way than either or..
Agree with Tony, promotion beyond actual skill set is a massive issue.
In the digital side it’s so common.
Due to massive skill shortage, juniors who are good at their functional roles get promoted to manager roles. Just because they rocked it in their role doesn’t mean they’ll be a great manager. They don’t get any training or support, as a result the people they end up managing leave in droves. Then that person who used to be full of zest and enthusiasm gets burned out and leaves the industry. Talent lost.
What’s the fix? Who knows. Hire people that are smart, have a genuine interest and connection to the industry, can learn fast and are brilliant people managers?
*shrugs*
The root cause of the churn factor in the industry is the very thing that the industry delights in celebrating. The industry’s preoccupation with its own cutting edge young fresh image combined with the believe that these are the only people who are in touch and have the skills required to deliver results for clients is a complete falsehood.
As a result their careers as males in creative and the over 70% of women in client service are fast and furious and short lived before they either leave frustrated with their lack of progress and support or are told they are no longer a “good cultural fit”.
There are few mentors to turn to along the way. I’ve sat in both client and agency roles and cringed as they dug holes for themselves in boardroom floors based on bravado and a belief beyond their abilities. I’ve seen them “high five” each other after presentations and then gone back into a boardroom to hear marketing teams real impression of their view of agency teams. Its often not pretty.
We don’t have to rip up the agency model and start again. And re-bundling agencies back together again is also not the answer.
The open market has a huge range of experienced talent across all areas with all the current skills required to act as mentors and provide the in-agency input, training, guidance and encouragement. They also have a depth of experience that clients have lost from agencies. This gap has caused agencies to lose their seat of influence at the clients boardroom table. To use Sean Cummins quote: “Agencies have a seat at the children’s table.”
Initiating a mentoring program within agencies is a first important step in rebuilding confidence in agencies from clients as well the solid confidence and business skills within agency teams.
I’m one of many who are more than ready to contribute.